Recently a group of American microbiologists and their colleagues from France have found that living in the clouds bacteria live in these "air castles" full life - they actively produce their own food and even multiply. Moreover, affecting the composition of condensed water, these tiny travelers prevent the formation of rain clouds.

The clouds slowly passing over our heads, are not lifeless, they are inhabited by various microorganisms. And some of them are just "tourists", which air flows accidentally took with the surface of our planet. However, these bacteria are not particularly interested scientists, because dwell in heaven in the form of capsules and active life can be destructive.

But other germs exactly that live in the cloud "palaces" - they interact with the environment, produce their own food and even multiply. Furthermore, they can actively influence the weather. The point is that any small particles entering the atmosphere, are "cloud condensation nuclei", then there are some centers, around which begins the formation of condensate from steam. Thus, the bacteria themselves often create around themselves a cloud and can even cause one of them begins to rain.

Interestingly, these microorganisms prefer to live not in the air, and they have created themselves the water drops. In these water balloons interact dissolved substances part of which is allocated by the bacterium-mistress that affect the physical properties of the drops and how it reflects a light, and on its ability to grow and, accordingly, falling rain upon the earth. Passing between these substances chemical reactions can also lead to the evaporation of the liquid, then a stray bacterium is again ready to condense the moisture that is, to build new housing.

Until now, scientists could not understand how these crumbs able to carry out such violent activities in the heavens, because there are two very inhospitable factor - low temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation. And recently, a group of American microbiologists from the University of California in San Diego and their colleagues from France was able to solve the riddle. For a start, the scientists collected samples cloud of water on top of the Puy de dome volcano in Central France. Half of the samples are filtered out so that they had no life - thus, they became material, which had a control experiment.

The other half was divided into two parts, one of which he was subjected to ultraviolet radiation, and the other was placed in a dark place. Then the researchers during the week every 12 hours spent chemical analysis of water. Marker activity of bacteria were adenosine - and by acid (ATF and the ADF).

And this was done on purpose because ATP is a substance, where is stored the cellular energy. If the bacteria need to get it, is prevraschenie ATP to ADP (by detaching one of phosphate residue - the cell uses the energy released as a result of breaking the chemical bonds). That is, if the tests show the presence of ATP and ADP in equal proportions, it means that the bacteria consume energy, and therefore has a busy and eventful life.

The results showed that the ratio of the two acids was really the same, and, most interestingly, the number of ATP and ADP was quite significantly. That is, the bacteria really lived in the clouds full life. Perhaps it is the high cost of energy and helped microorganisms to cope with the cold.

As for ultraviolet radiation, the researchers observed a very curious phenomenon. At the beginning of the experiment, the level of hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radicals (which are formed by UV exposure was very high). However, by the end of the week he fell heavily. Scientists have found that a significant portion of peroxide decomposing the bacteria with the help of special enzymes. Thus it became clear that the effects of UV for these tiny air travelers also not particularly dangerous.

It was also found that exposure to UV radiation does not affect the stability of most of the organic compounds present in the droplets. However, by the end of the week organic matter in the water became less. It turns out that this is also the case "hands" (or more precisely, ferments of microorganisms - they ate living molecules in order to be able to synthesize ATP and to provide themselves with energy.

It turns out that heavenly bacteria, cleaning water from hydroxyl compounds and organic matter, cause the formation of clouds with high reflectivity (i.e. consisting of sufficient clean water). And, most interestingly, these clouds are low enough chances to become rain clouds.

This means only one thing - the microorganisms themselves take care that their air travel continued as long as possible, because the rain they would return to earth. Here's how these crumbs like to fly!