- CARDIFF, UK (ENS)
- The scientist who discovered that dust in interstellar space and in comets
is largely organic, now says that nanobacteria in clouds are responsible
for spreading illnesses such as kidney stones, heart disease, and HIV around
the world.
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- Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University
says in a recent article in the Journal of Proteome Research that these
ulta-tiny organisms are wide-spread on land and in the atmosphere, and
that they play a crucial role in the spread of disease.
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- Nanobacteria are the smallest known self-replicating
bacteria, about 100-fold smaller than regular bacteria. At 30-100 nanometers
in size, they are far smaller than any other known bacteria, and are even
smaller than many viruses. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.
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- Co-author Dr. Andrei Sommer of the University of Ulm,
Germany agrees that nanobacteria are indicated in the formation of kidney
stones, heart disease, and HIV. Both scientists say the scientific community
is slowly recognizing the role of nanobacteria in these diseases.
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- "Experiments have shown that nanobacteria are excreted
from the body in urine and their dispersal from the ground into the atmosphere
and stratosphere appears to be inevitable," said Dr. Sommer.
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- In humans, nanobacteria have now been identified on four
continents, the two scientists say.
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- Nanobacteria are of great interest to the scientific
community because of their dual nature, the scientists write, "on
the one hand, they appear as primal biosystems originating life; on the
other hand, they can cause severe diseases."
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- They say nanobacteria are now accepted as being widely
prevalent in the terrestrial environment and that they have compelling
evidence for the existence of these nano-organisms, even in the stratosphere,
one of the atmosphere's highest layers.
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- The scientists maintain that the occurrence of nanobacteria
in clouds could disperse infective agents globally, and might also play
a prominent role in "the nucleation of cloud drops."
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- "This happens because nanobacteria, lifted from
the ground by winds, could transit between the high humidity region of
the clouds and the relatively dry inter-cloud regions, leading to oscillations
between a dormant state and one of activation," explained Wickramasinghe.
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- "Remnants of a sticky protein coating nanobacteria
makes them act as extremely efficient cloud condensation nuclei, with a
tendency to aggregate to clusters upon contact," he said.
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- Their work corroborates the findings of Ruprecht Jaenicke,
of the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at Mainz University, Germany,
on bioaerosols - airborne contaminants - and proteins in the atmosphere
reported in "New Scientist" and "Science."
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- The contribution of nanobacteria to pathogenic bioaerosols
must overwhelm all other types of biological particles in the atmosphere,
the authors say.
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- Researchers from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) have reported rapid kidney stone formation in astronauts
on space travels. The authors of a study published in "Kidney International"
call for a "major initiative" to investigate nanobacteria as
a possible cause.
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- Trials were conducted at NASA to examine nanobacteria
in a bioreactor chamber which simulates conditions of space travel. In
this microgravity environment, nanobacteria was found to multiply five
times faster compared to normal gravity on Earth, supporting earlier discoveries
that microbes have radically different behavior in weightless environments.
Nanobacteria is also shown to possibly be an infectious risk for crew members
living in close quarters.
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- Nanobacteria were discovered in the 1990s and have been
found in the calcium phosphate centers of kidney stones. The minuscule
bacteria have also been detected in related conditions, including Alzheimer's
disease, heart disease, prostatitis, and some cancers.
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- Further testing for the presence of nanobacteria in human
bodies can help reduce the risk for kidney stone formation in astronauts
and would also be of benefit to the nearly one million Americans who are
treated for kidney stones each year.
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- But the idea that nanobacteria are alive at all is still
not accepted universally. "The concept that nanobacteria are living
organisms is still controversial because the research on their putative
nucleic acid has not been completed yet," says NASA researcher Neva
Ciftcioglu, Ph.D.
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- "Hopefully, eradication or treatment of these diseases
will be possible in the near future," says Ciftcioglu. "We need
more research and support to solve this puzzle, but we feel that we are
close."
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- http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-11-03.asp
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