#anaerobe

[tenth-sentence]

Anaerobes have the capability of effecting oxidation without molecular oxygen.

"Environmental Chemistry: A Global Perspective", 4e - Gary W. VanLoon & Stephen J. Duffy

[microbed]

Thermotoga maritima

[microbed]

Elusimicrobium minutum

[i-eat-poetry]

Anaerobe

Touch swollen tonsils: gill slits. Inside eyelid: slimelight. Cheek: shark. Here foreknown I've dived down dawnless microbial snows, phosphor blue to blue- black, to black. I fend fish. I find the saffron curb of the sulfur vent, veering voiceless again into the segmented, swaying, white, toothed tube- worm, Time.

[egorunamok]

Most microbes in the rumen cannot live in the presence of oxygen. They are descendants of ancient creatures that evolved in a very different atmosphere. Only when photosynthesis was invented, about two and a half billion years ago, did oxygen become part of earth's air and, because oxygen is a dangerous, reactive chemical, this poisoning of the planet wiped out many creatures and forced others into hiding. These oxygen-haters live to this day in lake bottoms, in swamps, and deep in the soil, eking out an existence in oxygen-free environments. Other creatures adapted to the new pollutant and, using an elegant sidestepping maneuver, turned the toxic oxygen to their advantage. Thus was born respiration using oxygen, an energy-liberating biochemical trick that we have inherited. Our lives therefore depend on an ancient form of pollution.

David George Haskell 'The Forest Unseen: a year's watch in nature'