No in the sense that phospholipids and proteins and hydrocarbons in general are delicious to bleach. Exactly like asking if there are bacteria that can survive being incinerated in a fire, at a chemical level the molecules in their cell walls get broken up. There is no simple hack a unicellular organism can apply to survive strong enough bleach or fire, at a very low chemical level its being destroyed. Would silicon based life tolerate bleach? I'd have to think about that a bit.
Yes in the sense that if you play games with very low concentrations you will slowly preferentially breed stronger cells, much as you could breed fire resistant wood, but all wood vaporizes in a strong incinerator. Obviously Homeopathy is not a thing scientifically, a small amount of bleach dumped in a pond won't kill everything in the pond but it will kill the weakest whatever in the lake, leading to increased breeding of stuff resistant to extremely low bleach concentrations. However even in theory I don't think anything could live in a bottle of normal strength bleach.
There are also categorical issues, a very thick layer of algae when splashed with bleach will have the outer layer die and eventually melt off, but the layer underneath will simply regrow. Does that mean algae is resistant in the overall system sense even though it dies really easily? People are usually only interested in systemic success, so sure, its very easy for bacteria to survive bleach based cleaning. A nice thin layer of bulk grease or oil that lasts long enough to protect at least some bacteria underneath that isn't completely removed during the cleaning, there you go, bacteria that survived bleach cleaning, although no bacteria individually can survive full strength bleach, a sufficiently thick layer of grease protecting some bacteria can survive a sufficiently short enough bleach cleaning process.
Intriguing & fascinated. The very idea of bacteria producing stronger cells in response to chemical agents in relatively short periods of time is an idea I can ponder for hours. Thank you.
No in the sense that phospholipids and proteins and hydrocarbons in general are delicious to bleach. Exactly like asking if there are bacteria that can survive being incinerated in a fire, at a chemical level the molecules in their cell walls get broken up. There is no simple hack a unicellular organism can apply to survive strong enough bleach or fire, at a very low chemical level its being destroyed. Would silicon based life tolerate bleach? I'd have to think about that a bit.
Yes in the sense that if you play games with very low concentrations you will slowly preferentially breed stronger cells, much as you could breed fire resistant wood, but all wood vaporizes in a strong incinerator. Obviously Homeopathy is not a thing scientifically, a small amount of bleach dumped in a pond won't kill everything in the pond but it will kill the weakest whatever in the lake, leading to increased breeding of stuff resistant to extremely low bleach concentrations. However even in theory I don't think anything could live in a bottle of normal strength bleach.
There are also categorical issues, a very thick layer of algae when splashed with bleach will have the outer layer die and eventually melt off, but the layer underneath will simply regrow. Does that mean algae is resistant in the overall system sense even though it dies really easily? People are usually only interested in systemic success, so sure, its very easy for bacteria to survive bleach based cleaning. A nice thin layer of bulk grease or oil that lasts long enough to protect at least some bacteria underneath that isn't completely removed during the cleaning, there you go, bacteria that survived bleach cleaning, although no bacteria individually can survive full strength bleach, a sufficiently thick layer of grease protecting some bacteria can survive a sufficiently short enough bleach cleaning process.