There’s something living in the fog. Repeat: there’s something living in the fog.

It may sound like a twisted update to the classic John Carpenter film — or a log line for the new Apple TV horror series “Widow’s Bay” — but these low-hanging clouds are indeed rife with living bacteria, according to new research.

The findings, published in a study in the journal Environmental Microbiology, showed that fog is teeming with so much life that the researchers liken it to a vast aquatic ecosystem unto itself.

“We found that millions of bacteria inhabit… fog droplets,” coauthor Ferran Garcia-Pichel at Arizona State University, told USA Today. 

“When you take all of the droplets together, the concentration of bacteria is the same as in the ocean,” he added in a statement about the work.

The presence of bacteria in airborne water droplets isn’t a new revelation in itself. But the work helps elucidate what it is that bacteria do while suspended in fog and other clouds — something that wasn’t clear before — and the impact this has on the broader environment.

“There’s very limited knowledge about what kinds of bacteria are present in fogs, which are like clouds at the ground level,” lead author Thi Thuong Cao, a researcher at ASU, said in the statement.

To peer into this gloomy microscopic realm, the researchers meticulously collected air samples before, during, and after fog events. Since wind can blow fog banks away and confound attempts to get consistent samples, the researchers focused on a specific type called radiation fog that forms on calmer days when the ground cools and chills the air above it, allowing water droplets to condense close to the surface.

After assiduously collecting samples, the researchers found that only one percent of fog droplets contained bacteria. But a thimbleful of these droplets in all packs around ten million bacteria, which is nothing to scoff at. 

Some thrived more than others. The population of one bacteria called Methylobacteria, known for devouring simple carbon compounds including pollutants like formaldehyde, increased after fog events. A closer look showed that the bacteria were actively growing and multiplying.

“We observed them under the microscope to see that yes, the bacteria are getting bigger and they’re dividing, so there is growth,” Cao said. “We also found that they’re using the formaldehyde as food to support their growth.”

Garcia-Pichel said this marked a “mindset change” in how we think about fog. “If they are growing,” he said of the bacteria, “then the droplets are a habitat.”

From this habitat, bacteria could be influencing air quality, thanklessly sucking up pollutants. It’s a possibility that might give pause to calls to start collecting fog for drinking water, the researchers say.

“If we harvest fog, we are getting rid of our little friends in the air,” Garcia-Pichel said in the statement. “We don’t know if that’s going to make a big impact or not, but we should be considering that.”

More on biology: Scientists Intrigued by Chunk of Flesh That Refuses to Die After Several Years

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TV personality and businessman Kevin O’Leary is looking to construct a mammoth data center facility more than twice the size of Manhattan in Utah’s broader Salt Lake City region.

As Slate reports, the megalomaniac plans for the “Stratos Hyperscale Data Center” would see dozens of data center buildings, research facilities, and even worker housing be constructed across 40,000 acres of unincorporated land in Box Elder County, which is home to over 60,000 residents.

Given the widespread backlash to data centers across the entire country, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of these residents are now rushing to council meetings to forcefully refute the plans. After all, they’ve watched as other areas that welcome the facilities struggle with rising electricity prices, stressed water systems, and noise pollution.

Worse yet, the Great Salt Lake is already in crisis: it’s rapidly disappearing amid devastating droughts across the state. An extremely resource-intensive data center could place a massive new strain on it, regardless of the many reassurances from developers.

Despite initially setting aside a vote on the Stratos construction project, county commissioners eventually pushed forward, arguing that they had the “obligation” to start building, as Slate reports.

The debate drew thousands of negative comments, with hundreds of angry residents piling into a May 4 commission meeting, an all-too-familiar sight as countless Americans are desperately trying to publicly denounce plans for similar data centers in their counties.

Behind closed doors, Box Elder County commissioners eventually approved the data center, triggering an even louder outcry. Meanwhile, county attorneys argue that voters don’t have a legal say in the matter, rejecting a push for a referendum. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported last week, opponents said they were looking to take legal action after being shut out of the approval process.

“To me, and to other people I’ve talked to, it felt like it was done in the dark: backroom deals and assurances made with no transparency or government accountability,” Salt Lake City resident Larry Curtis told Slate.

Stratos remains adamant that the data center will be a boon for the region, creating 2,000 permanent jobs. Critics, though, say that figure is far too small for the sheer scale of the operation.

It’d be a fraught debate anywhere, but the backdrop here is grim: residents have been watching as the Great Salt Lake continues to shrink, with snow and rain becoming extremely sparse.

“In the past, one thing I could’ve agreed with [Utah governor Spencer Cox] on was that we need to save the lake,” resident Stephen Otterstrom told Slate. “Now this puts into question whether there is any sincerity in that.”

Yet the tides could soon start to change as the public blowback grows. The outcry has been loud enough for local politicians to backpedal after initially supporting the data center, as they realize it’s a major liability that could endanger their chances of being reelected.

More on data centers: You’ll Never Guess Trade Unions’ Position on AI Data Centers

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