Clean Room discovery: A bacterium playing possum

[Maxmars]

This from the "Of course space-related tax-payer dollars help us here on Earth!" department....

You know... killing bacteria is just a full time job... and even in the most important settings, doing literally all we can... they just won't die.

Space equipment must be carefully cleaned... which surprisingly turns out to be much more difficult because of things like this:

Rare clean room bacterium survives by playing dead UH team finds

A University of Houston team reports that a rare bacterium found in NASA spacecraft assembly clean rooms can evade detection by entering dormancy, effectively "playing dead" in a nutrient-poor environment.

The microorganism, Tersicoccus phoenicis, turned up in two clean rooms more than a decade ago in Florida and French Guiana. These facilities undergo rigorous sterilization to protect spacecraft and planetary bodies from contamination.

Lead author Madhan Tirumalai and colleagues in UH's Department of Biology and Biochemistry examined how the non-spore-forming actinobacterium persists under such harsh conditions. Their experiments indicate the organism can switch to an extremely low metabolic state and stop growing.

Hospitals are having very under reported "issues" themselves.... something to do with "infections..." maybe they should be paying attention to this idea about "triggered dormancy.'
 

Because related actinobacteria such as Micrococcus luteus can be revived from dormancy by a resuscitation-promoting factor protein, the researchers tested whether T. phoenicis responds similarly. Introducing the protein reactivated cells, supporting the dormancy-and-resuscitation mechanism.
The findings suggest dormant actinobacteria could also hide in hospitals, pharmaceutical plants, and food processing facilities. Improved detection and sterilization strategies may be needed to account for dormancy-based evasion.

[sahgwa]

This from the "Of course space-related tax-payer dollars help us here on Earth!" department....

You know... killing bacteria is just a full time job... and even in the most important settings, doing literally all we can... they just won't die.

Space equipment must be carefully cleaned... which surprisingly turns out to be much more difficult because of things like this:

Rare clean room bacterium survives by playing dead UH team finds

Hospitals are having very under reported "issues" themselves.... something to do with "infections..." maybe they should be paying attention to this idea about "triggered dormancy.'
 

Here's a random question,
How can you tell if a new, or rare bacteria is 'infectious' or harmful or not, when it's just in the environment?

[Maxmars]

Just my take on the question of "is it infectious"... pretending I am an attorney arguing the questions essential nature?

"Simply existing, within the world we share, is now reduced to a quality.... do we "infect" humans?

How rude!  How human-centric!  The sheer bias that would make human's consider our natural function some kind of disease!  Perhaps THEY are the disease.. forcing their will upon our existence!"

Enough silliness...  Perhaps the question should be, can they not coexist in our environment without exploiting the human species?  

In this case... I was not focused on the specific species found because I reduce it to "life finds a way."

Still, if the biochemical signaling leading to the creatures dormancy stage... and presuming that all other such bacterium likely have at least a vestigial marker of this type... perhaps we can learn to turn off infections, rather than 'kill ourselves' trying to kill 'it' quickly.

But...  important note:  I  can't know if such ideas are realistic, or even if they are just a "wish-list" entry in my imagination.

[BeyondKnowledge]

Any time you eliminate the natural life in an environment, something unusual is gong to try to fill that void. 

Now if you add even more isolation and throw in some radiation, you get this. 

https://www.wired.com/story/bacteria-unk...e-station/ 

Andromeda Strain anyone? Who has that spot on the betting card? 

I still want to do glorious battle against giant mutant radioactive ants. At least they can be seen.