Life Unknown: Preliminary Scheme for a Magnetotrophic Organism-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Life Unknown: Preliminary Scheme for a Magnetotrophic Organism

Published:2023-06-26 Issue:7 Volume:13 Page:1446
ISSN:2075-1729
Container-title:Life
language:en
Short-container-title:Life

Author:

Schulze-Makuch Dirk¹²³⁴,Irwin Louis N.⁵^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Astrobiology Group, ZAA, Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstr. 36A, 10623 Berlin, Germany

2. German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), Section Geomicrobiology, 14473 Potsdam, Germany

3. Department of Plankton and Microbial Ecology, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, 16775 Stechlin, Germany

4. School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99163, USA

5. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

Abstract

No magnetotrophic organism on Earth is known to use magnetic fields as an energy source or the storage of information. However, a broad diversity of life forms is sensitive to magnetic fields and employs them for orientation and navigation, among other purposes. If the magnetic field strength were much larger, such as that on planets around neutron stars or magnetars, metabolic energy could be obtained from these magnetic fields in principle. Here, we introduce three hypothetical models of magnetotrophic organisms that obtain energy via the Lorentz force. Even if an organism uses magnetic fields only as an energy source, but otherwise is relying on biochemistry, this organism would be by definition a magnetotrophic form of life as we do not know it.

Publisher

MDPI AG

Subject

Paleontology,Space and Planetary Science,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Link

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/7/1446/pdf

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