Did you know that microorganisms can live far up in the clouds and deep in the Earth’s crust? These tiny organisms have adapted to all special habitats on Earth. To study special habitats, scientists can focus on the microorganisms and their biological reactions, or on the non-living components, like minerals and chemical reactions. However, it can be difficult to separate the two! Since little was known about the best way to remove microorganisms from environmental samples without changing the non-living properties of the sample, we decided to perform an experiment to find out. We exposed marine sediments to three different methods of sterilization, to see which method was best for eliminating microorganisms. We also studied whether the three methods affected the chemical properties of our samples. We found that it is challenging to create sterile conditions because some microorganisms can survive high pressure, high temperature, radiation, and toxic chemicals!
(Bio)chemical reactions during high pressure/high temperature processing affect safety and quality of plant-based foods
