Scientists found bacteria with superpowers

Researchers have uncovered the chillest bacteria - one which can make ice.

The bacteria, Pseudomonas syringae,  is able to confuse water molecules to form ice at much higher temperatures.

Although designed to 'crush' plants and release their nutrients, researchers say they also contribute to rainfall as it hitches a ride on air currents in the Earth's atmosphere.

'The results indicate that Pseudomonas syringae possess unique molecular features which may make them major players in precipitation processes and in the global hydrological cycle and climate, the team wrote in the journal Science Advances.

They are already widely used to create artificial snow,  but until now researchers have not uncovered how they work.

The new study is the first to provide experimental data to explain the bizarre bacteria's unique abilities, said study co-author Tobias Weidner, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. 

'We clearly show these proteins can interact with water to promote ice growth.'

'Equipped with ice-forming proteins anchored to their outer cell walls, Pseudomonas syringae are frequently used to facilitate artificial snow production in winter sports areas, and they also play an important role in the frost damage on crops and other types of vegetation,' they wrote.

'When airborne, these bacteria most likely affect global precipitation and climate.'

A new study pinpoints how specialized bacteria are able to make ice, offering evidence that Pseudomonas syringae manipulate water molecules in a way that promotes ice crystal formation at temperatures that wouldn't normally freeze water.  

Using a technique called sum frequency generation spectroscopy, the team found that by creating tightly spaced patterns of water with both high and low density, Pseudomonas syringae are able to order water molecules in a way that promotes ice crystal formation, or nucleation. 

The bacteria can also remove heat from surrounding water. 

The results indicate that Pseudomonas syringae possess unique molecular features which may make them major players in precipitation processes and in the global hydrological cycle and climate.

P. syringae is one of the most widely dispersed species on the planet, found everywhere from the soil to the clouds in the troposphere, the lower layer of the atmosphere. 

Ski resorts use the bacteria to produce artificial snow when the weather won't cooperate. 

The bacteria also create frost damage on vegetables.

'If you have this frost damage, it makes it easier to invade these plants and feed on them,' Weidner told Live Science. 

Researchers say they have measured surprisingly large quantities of the microbes coming from the Amazon rainforest, and have tracked the bacteria hitching rides on air currents, from the Middle East to Antarctica, where they may cause rain to fall.

'Basically there could be something like planetary co-evolution,' Weidner said. 

'The Amazon emits huge amounts of these ice-nucleating bacteria, and they travel to some other place where they cause rainfall, now this rainfall allows plants on a very different continent to grow.'

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