Friday, February 29th, 2008

A Connection Between Bacteria and Meteorology?

Pseudomonas syringae cells trapped within an ice crystal lattice that was formed in the laboratory from a diluted culture. The ice-nucleating protein of P. syringae appears to result in cells ending up inside the crystal. Image courtesy of Shawn Doyle and Brent Christner, Louisiana State Universi

There's a good chance that pile of snow in your yard contains bacteria -- but not because it's dirty. The bacteria may have played an important role in helping those snow crystals form. New work published this week in the journal Science suggests that bacteria may play a surprisingly important role in guiding the formation of the snow and rain forming ice crystals found in high-level clouds.

The researchers looked at snow samples from around the globe, including Montana, France, and Antarctica, and found that cells and cell fragments were a significant part of the ice-nucleating aerosol particles that lead to the formation of ice and raindrops. In this segment, Joe Palca talks with a member from the research team about connecting microbiology to meteorology.