Biosensor it affects marine organisms, especially plankton (floating microorganisms) and viruses that attack plankton. Plankton form the base of the marine food chains and are believed to affect our planet's temperature and weather by uptake of CO for photosynthesis. Deneb Karentz, a researcher at the Laboratory of Radio-biology and Environmental Health (University of California, San Francisco) has devised a simple method for measuring ultraviolet penetration and intensity. Working in the Antarctic Ocean, she submerged to various depths thin plastic bags containing special strains of "E. coli" that are almost totally unable to repair ultraviolet radiation damage to their DNA. Bacterial death
Osmotrophy Osmotrophy Osmotrophy is the uptake of dissolved organic compounds by osmosis for nutrition. Organisms that use osmotrophy are osmotrophs. Some mixotrophic microorganisms use osmotrophy to derive energy. The organisms that used osmotrophy are known to be an osmotrophs which are usually found in protists and fungi although exclusively osmotrophic feeding in contemporary ecosystems are restricted to microscopic bacteria thereby used the process of osmosis for the movement of food although some macroscopic animals like molluscs, sponges, corals, brachiopods and echinoderms used osmotrophic feeding as a supplemental food source. Osmotrophy is a means of gathering nutrients in microscopic organisms that relies