Anti-lightening Monsters

Seven Day. Air temperature still unpleasant. Walk passable but not enriching.

Ran across rather an intriguing article [Link] entitled “New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity.” Even though this is a sciencey periodical some contemporary journalistic mispractice seems to sneak through. What is it about journalists that they think talking to Bogs means speaking inaccurately and even erroneously? This, of course, is a self-defeating question since no matter how simple one makes it the communication will fail because the Bogs are oblivious and self-consumed.

The subject of the article is not new life but newly discovered/understood instances of Tellurian life. This is NOT a different kind of life. This is NOT even life off Tellus. What is novel here is that these animals consume electrons either directly or via produced hydrogen. 

I have to admit to having to cogitate on this a bit, and still am. How can animals “eat” electrons and continue to be?

After a bit of moving electrons around in my head, I happened into the view – disliked immensely by both chemists and biologists – that chemistry (and thereby perhaps half of biology) is just about moving electrons about. (I had to take a bit of a ROFL break at this point thinking about what my physical chemistry professor, who claimed to disbelieve quantum mechanics and electrons and all that, would say.) But what I am continuing to mind much on is the hydrogen eaters. This is dependent on bare hydrogen nuclei floating about conveniently. As I recall my chemistry material, the natural concentration of such is pretty low. 

Anyway, I am now waiting for some Bog to expound the “electron diet.”