> From: John Neustadt <hootneus at u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Bacterial MONOPOLES???????
> A colleague of mine recently told me that some time ago at Woods Hole
> Laboratories a species of monopolar bacteria was discovered. Dirac had
> some time ago theorectically (mathematically) predicted their existence.
> Does anyone have any information on this? How would such a system work?
> Seems to me like it violates Maxwell's Law.
Monopolar BACTERIA? Should that perhaps be John VON Neustadt...?
Magnetic monopoles, yes - best popularised by Larry Niven and Poul
Anderson as means of driving Bussard ramjets and the like. But
BACTERIA? You sure you don't mean MAGNETOTACTIC bacteria?? IE:
bacteria which can swim along magnetic lines of force or whatever?
And contain magnetised granules within themselves? That I'd believe,
the other sounds too much like something a good SF writer might dream
up as a nifty nanotechnological device!!
______________________________________________________
| Ed Rybicki, PhD | ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za |
| Dept Microbiology | University of Cape Town |
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