Nanobacteria is the term used to describe bacteria like structures a 100 times smaller than any known living organism that build shells of calcium phosphate around themselves and appear to be self replicating. They are so small that they can only be observed with atomic or electron based microscopes and many scientist claim they are too small to be a form of bacteria, but are they really life?
This question has been at the centre of one of the biggest controversies in microbiology ever since the Finnish biochemist Olavi Kajander and his colleagues discovered these structures in 1988. The discussion has ebbed and flowed with one set of research disproving their living status only to have the next study seem to support that they are alive. Irrespective of whether they are living these particles have been linked to serious human health problems including heart disease, kidney stones, aneurysm, ovarian cancer, urinary stones and prostate calcification. This has prompted a need to find out how they work and if they are infectious.
If they do turn out to be living they may represent a new type of life form different to anything else on Earth. Only further studies and research will shed more light on this topic.
As Spock used to say to Captain Kirk in the classic Star Trek. "It's life Jim, but not as we know it".
Sources and further reading:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn5009-nanobacteria-revelations-provoke-new-controversy.html
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/03/66861
http://microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/nanobacteria-fact-or-science-fiction/
By Dane Carlsson (41715240)
