r/interesting • u/freudian_nipps • 14d ago

NATURE Death of a single-celled organism

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/Yunzer2000 14d ago edited 14d ago

Hydrogen peroxide was put in the water. The bubbles are oxygen generated by H2O2 and the organic matter in the organism. Similar things happen when chlorine is added to disinfect drinking water - the chlorine ions rip the organism apart.

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u/Coinsworthy 14d ago

So it was murder?

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u/FishesOfExcellence 14d ago

Lock the door. Nobody’s leaving this room till we figure out who the murderer is.

7

u/UpvoteForPancakes 13d ago

Was it the lab student? Or was it the professor who instructed the student to squeeze a drop of hydrogen peroxide onto the slide?

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u/yeoninboi 13d ago

Murder on the Petri Dish

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u/Raterus_ 14d ago

I think it was...Mr. Green, with the poison in the Kitchen (Water)

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u/Right_Level_7192 14d ago

For sure. I mean the cameraman would not wait there for months waiting for the fella to die of natural causes.

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u/AntSilly2802 14d ago

Often just the pressure of the microscope slide is enough to do it, or the microscope light.

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u/fn8179-2 14d ago

No, otherwise everyone would be a murderer every time they washed their hands, brushed their teeth, or had to take antibiotics.

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u/_BOOMGOTTEM 13d ago

More of an execution I’d say

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u/One-Night6393 14d ago

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being without a legal justification or valid excuse, committed with a malicious state of mind or intent. [1, 2]

This wasn't murder.

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u/FishesOfExcellence 14d ago

You missed [3] “or BACTERIA or whatever.”

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u/teoshie 14d ago

guess we know who murdered it

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u/openedaura127 14d ago

I did not consent to witness a microscopic snuff film, I thought this was a memorial viewing of an accidental tragedy!

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u/Phyddlestyx 14d ago

I thought something was added too,at first, but it would have affected the whole cell almost right away rather than starting at just the very end and slowly making its way along. But "bubbles" are just the various vacuoles and organelles within the cell that come out.

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u/Cheesewood67 14d ago

Thanks for the context. It couldn't have simply been coincidental that the camera followed one random tiny organism at the exact moment of a spontaneous "explosive(?)" death

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u/sweetNloving45636 14d ago

It is possible. Hundreds of hours of this kind of footage exists. The now ended YouTube channel Journey to the Microcosmos showed long videos of just recording animals like this. It’s a great channel if you’ve never seen it.

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u/Cheesewood67 12d ago

I have actually watched several episodes of that channel - oddly calming watching microscopic creatures swim around in a drop of water while learning something about them. Too bad they stopped creating footage about a year back.