![]() “.he microorganisms found in coal are actually survivors, imprisoned in the coal at the time it was formed, from material which originally was probably very rich in microorganisms since it was peat-like in nature,” he wrote in the Journal of Bacteriology. Rather, he believed that during the process of forming coal, the bacteria had dried up and entered suspended animation. Lipman did not believe that the bacteria he coaxed from coal were alive in the sense that the bacteria in your gut are alive. The longer they were baked – up to an incredible 50 hours – the better they seemed to grow when the coal was subsequently crushed (If his results were genuine, they may not be altogether surprising given both the conditions that create coal and the effects of heat shock proteins). If anything, it only seemed to encourage them. In fact, he found that heating the sample for hours at 160☌ never managed to kill the bacteria inside the coal. His draconian cleaning and sterilization procedure for the pre-crushed lumps involved scrubbing, soaking, baking, and/or pressurizing the lumps of coal for hours or days prior to pulverization. He had, of course, included controls and taken precautions to ensure no contaminants caused the growth. If the crushed coal was wetted but immediately placed on food-infused gelatin-like agar in a Petri dish, nothing grew. Intriguingly, he found that a rehydration period of at least a few days in liquid was essential for revivification. When placed in solutions enriched with bacteria chow called peptone, it took as little as five hours. When placed in solutions of coal dust and sterile water, in two to three weeks he began to see what looked like bacteria. ![]() He began crushing lumps of coal to see if he could get anything to grow from the dust. If they could survive four decades, was there really any limit?Ĭoal seemed like a rock ripe for testing, made as it is from swamp muck. He had been contemplating the fact that bacteria in his laboratory could be reanimated after 40 years in dry soil in sealed bottles. It wasn’t so long ago we weren’t even sure life at depth was possible.īut buried in the press release was a detail I found much more surprising and interesting than the mass of subterranean life: its age.īack in the late 1920s, a scientist named Charles Lipman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, began to suspect there were bacteria in rocks. since the sculpture shines, it arouses curiosity from great distance, only by getting closer to the piece its detailed painted patterns can be spotted.Last month, the Deep Carbon Observatory announced an astounding fact: the mass of the microbes living beneath Earth’s surface amounts to 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon, a sum some 245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans. ‘by combining and abstracting visually significant characteristics also of other living forms, the art piece points to the fascination about life as a phenomenon that is difficult to grasp. ![]() ‘the stained glass sculpture is primarily inspired by the idea of a giant floating fluorescent amoeba,’ medicus says. The form of the sculpture is derived from the cell structure of an amoeba meticulous ornamentation - from kandinsky-eque patterns to fish-like scales - are abstracted and painted within the colorful frames, lending the project a distinct sense of craftsmanship and character. upon closer inspection, an intricate network of symbols and motifs can be seen inscribed into the glass sheets. hovering in mid air is a sculptural ‘amoeba’, conceived and fabricated by innsbruck-based artist thomas medicus. derived from the cell structure of an amoeba - an organism with the uncanny ability to alter its shape - the irregularly-formed art object has been meticulously crafted from vibrant panes of semi-opaque glass, provided by local manufacturer tiroler glasmalerei.Ī strange and surreal sight subtly glows in the depth of the woodsĪt a distance, the asymmetrical entity is visible as a prismatic and otherworldly creature within its context. ![]() In the shadowy darkness of a densely vegetated landscape, a strange and surreal sight subtly glows in the depth of the woods. Thomas medicus sets surreal stained glass amoeba sculpture in the woods
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