Bacteria May Be the Cause of Rain

It's common knowledge that bacteria are everywhere around, near and even inside us. In fact, the human body is host to countless species of bacteria, and is entirely dependent on them for its very survival. Now, researchers begin to uncover a new role that bacteria seem to possess, that of being able to summon the rain. Indeed, scientists in Sweden managed to discover that surfactants, chemicals released by the microorganisms, have the capacity to break the surface tension of water, creating droplets.

A team of researchers from the Stockholm University in Sweden, led by Barbara Noziere, now believes that bacteria evolved this capacity in order to be able to safely return to Earth if they got carried away by wind or powerful storms. It's not yet entirely clear how the mechanisms work, but thus far the team has been able to conclude that chemicals otherwise used for the transport of nutrients through membranes are also excellent rain bringers.

These detergents have the highest ability to break the surface tension of water of all other chemicals in nature, which prompted the researchers to verify their hypothesis. They collected water samples from clouds on location in Brazil, Sweden and Finland that were forming above forests, jungles, the ocean and coastal regions. They've learned that every last sample contained at least a tiny concentration of bacterial detergents, which would seem to support their claims.

"This bacterial gunk could hitch a ride on particles that travel from the surface to the clouds and supercharge them," explains Andi Andreae, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Following Noziere's presentation at the American Geophysical Union, in San Francisco last month, international teams are now working on discovering how these microscopic particles end up in the atmosphere in the first place.

Thus far, efforts to solve this riddle have proven futile, but future attempts will undoubtedly clear this up. Another theory says that it's actually bacteria that keep the world spinning, in that they summon and support rains, which are the most important parts of our global ecosystems. Without rain, life on earth would not be possible, and every living thing would just die.