An article in #QuantaMagazine describes an exciting #discovery. Oxygen-producing #bacteria are living hundreds of metres underground. Their oxygen fuels a whole microbial ecosystem. They break oxygen off nitrite molecules without needing sunlight!

"The microbes generate and release so much of what the researchers call “dark oxygen” that it’s like discovering “the scale of oxygen coming from the photosynthesis in the Amazon rainforest.”"

#Biology #ExtremeLife #microbes

https://www.quantamagazine.org/underground-cells-make-dark-oxygen-without-light-20230717/