Eli5: If salt is used to cure and preserve food why is ocean water full of bacteria?
In: Biology
It comes down to concentration. The salt kills bacteria by creating such a concentration gradient it pulls the water out of the cells and kills them. Thus the curing process.
The oceans however do not have salt that is that that high thus the gradient is not high enough to distort the bacteria that are adapted to the. The salt concentration in the ocean is below 3.5% or 35g/L.
Thst said there are hypersslinated lakes in the world that nothing but specifically adapted bacteria live in. There lakes can be over 40%salt content in the water or 400g/L. And they do just fine. This is likely due to adaption of the soecies over time and likely have processes to retain osomtic balance but i would need to dig into them specifically to see what is going on. Extremophiles are fun.
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