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BALLS OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
Alternative Origins for Nannobacteria
Not all little balls are nannobacteria. This sections shows examples of nm-scale features that are produced by a variety of non-biologic and biologic (but not nanno- biologic) processes.
**The first two pictures show calcite which was precipitated in the lab that has nannobacteria-like textures (Kirkland et al., 1999).
**The next four show how nannobacterial-textures can be produced by etching calcite in dilute acid; a procedure often used by people studying nannos (Kirkland et al., 1999).
**The next two pictures show remnants of full-size bacteria that resemble nannobacteria.
**The last picture shows how excessive gold-coating can produce nannobacteria-like textures (Folk and
Lynch, 1997).
The moral of the story is you have to be careful - NOT ALL LITTLE BALLS ARE NANNOBACTERIA!
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