Enjoy The "Titanic" While You Can

Going, going...:

Nearly 100 years after it struck an iceberg and sank, the Titanic has a new enemy: iron-eating bacteria.

A newly discovered microbe dubbed Halomonas titanicae is chewing its way through the wreck of the famous ship and leaving little behind except a fine dust, researchers report in today's issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

The hungry bug means that the wreck of the Titanic could vanish from the ocean floor far sooner than anyone expected.

"In 1995, I was predicting that Titanic had another 30 years," said Henrietta Mann, a civil engineering adjunct professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "It's deteriorating much faster than that now."