Bacteria Live Happily in Nuclear Waste

unassimilatible writes "Scientists studying the soil beneath a leaking Hanford nuclear waste storage tank have discovered more than 100 species of bacteria living in a toxic, radioactive environment that most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life, reports the Seattle PI. For most living creatures, the nuclear and chemical waste in the underground storage tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the deadliest mixture of toxins and radioactive muck on the planet. For certain bacteria, however, this toxic goop left over from decades of nuclear weapons production appears to be just a second home. 'Scientifically, it's pretty interesting stuff,' said a microbiologist at the lab. 'The material in the tank is self-boiling and quite hot, so it's not just radioactive and harsh chemicals but also in extreme heat.' The discovery eventually could help researchers better understand how microorganisms can survive severe contaminants -- and how to use the bacteria to help clean up toxic environments. Hanford was an important site for the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II. For 40 years, it processed plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035. See also, the related AP story."

Comments

Update: Sorry

[mcgroarty]

It seems that Jones just had *really* dirty hands when preparing the microscope slides.

We're terribly sorry about all this.

-- The Scientists

I for one

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

...welcome our new radioactive bacteria overlords!

Why is anyone surprised?

[Inominate]

Everytime we look closely at an environment suspected to be unable to support life, we invariably find it.

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[Carnildo]

The rule these days seems to be "if there's liquid water and an energy source, there's life".

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

And of course here there's a great energy source: the radioactive sludge the bacteria are living in. I'm not suggesting that they actually use the radioactivity directly (I don't think we've ever found a critter that can do that) but there must be lots of interesting chemistry going on in those tanks, creating all kinds of high-energy compunds the bacteria can digest.

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[CheshireCatCO]

I'm especially not surprised, since I've read reports of bacteria that have been found in the cooling pools for the spent nuclear fuel rods at reactor sites. Apparently, the little buggers are related to the guys that live in the hypersaline environments. The same celluar repair machinery works for both the saline damage and the radiation damage.

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in Mars (so far)

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[cujo_1111]

Just look at most frat houses around the US and you will find life that shouldn't exist...

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[BuckaBooBob]

Yet there are tonnes of people that insist that life is only on our planet...

Life finds a way

[Pi_0's don't shower]

I completely agree. Just because we are such fragile creatures, we often (so erroneously) assume that all other creatures are fragile, too.

Single-celled organisms, especially, can survive in ridiculous environments. A virus can be frozen and thawed years later with no ill effects. It's not that life is easy to just "create" out of nothing (oogenesis, and it's hard), but life is very hard to eradicate.

Cockroaches, for one, can survive over 100x the radiation levels that would be lethal to humans.

It's good that science is confirming what we all should have expected, I agree with the parent, and don't understand why anyone would have expected otherwise. Can anyone respond to this? (IANAB)

Re:Life finds a way

[Boglin]

IANAB either, but I am an amateur physicist. The difference between this and that standard scenario is that, instead of finding life where it should be missing the things it needs, we found it where there are things that should kill it. When we find life in pitch black portions of the ocean, we're surprised because life normally needs the sun to live, but here they have found a different energy source. The radioactive waste is different, however. We're not saying that life shouldn't live here because it's missing some crucial componenent, but because the radiation should destroy it. To put it differently, the ocean depths would kill most life forms, but we aren't surprised when a submarine makes it down there. With the nuclear waste, we're amazed every time it doesn't destroy things that aren't even alive. So to see things living where the inanimate die is quite remarkable.

To put it differently, finding life in a closed ice source in the arctic is like finding an astronaut in a space suit on the moon. Finding life in nuclear waste is like finding an astronaut in bermuda shorts on the moon.

Re:Life finds a way

[smurf975]

Why do you think humans are weak? I mean they live in more different environments then most other mammals. And they (humans) are thriving in them. Except maybe for domesticated animals.

Re:Life finds a way

[Anonymous Coward]

To put it differently, finding life in a closed ice source in the arctic is like finding an astronaut in a space suit on the moon. Finding life in nuclear waste is like finding an astronaut in bermuda shorts on the moon.

Sorry, but that has to be the worst analogy I've ever heard.

Re:Life finds a way

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because we are such fragile creatures, we often (so erroneously) assume that all other creatures are fragile, too.

Right conclusion, wrong reasoning. We aren't fragile at all. All sorts of bad shit can happen to us and we keep on living.

The erroneous assumptions people make about "things can't live there" environments are because they are alien to us. Extreme temperatures for us are normal for other forms of life. It doesn't mean that we are fragile, it means that we are suited for one type of environment and these bacteria are suited for another.

With many "inhospitable environments", we are already familiar with life that exists there. The best example is probably water. Completely inhospitable to us humans, but we are familiar with fish.

The reason you are seeing more and more of these "inhospitable environments suddenly found to contain life" news items is because our science is advancing such that we can detect life more easily. Sure, fish are easy to spot. Bacteria in environments we can't approach without dying are not so easy to spot.

Re:Life finds a way

[tiger99]

It reminds me of the time I visited a nuclear research facility in the UK, which had some smallish reactors on site. I saw several mutant insects, including a very large bee (fortunately non-aggressive!), and some enormous spiders. People who had worked there previously told ne that this was not unusual, the spiders in particular were thought to live under one of the reactors.

BTW the site was not one particularly noted for accidental releases of radiation, quite the opposite in fact, it had, and AFAIK still has a good safety record, despite dating from the immediate post-war period. They had plenty of good monitoring systems on site, which I am told mainly detected things elsewhere such as Chernobyl, as the local site was generally very clean. So, there would not have been significant releases of contaminants, but I assume that underneath the research reactor there must have been some significant gamma or neutron flux, in a fairly confined space. There was some published info about the construction of the reactor, it is so long ago that I can't remember how it was constructed.

I can't remember why I was visiting there, as I did not work in that industry, my visit was nothing to do with nuclear issues, but they did other more interesting things on site. Somehow I suspect it might have been an electrical safety training course, or maybe something to do with minicomputers, but as it was about 1976 my memory is a bit volatile, except for the room I was sitting in when the giant bee appeared, not the sort of thing you forget. I think that was about half a mile from the nearest reactor, I did not see it fly, so it may have crawled a very long way.

If you read the artical

[LWATCDR]

You will find that they did not find any in the tanks just in the soil and the outside of the tanks. Still interesting. Looks like life is a hard thing to stop.

Re:If you read the artical

[droid_rage]

The article doesn't say that they actually looked inside the tanks. They tested ground samples from boreholes taken in areas contaminated from leakages. Those tanks are sealed and buried, so I doubt if they are even able to open them up to see if any bacteria is currently living inside.
However, with the vitrification plant being finished in a few years, some of those tanks will be getting dug up soon, and it will be interesting to see what they find when that happens.

Re:critter that does that...

[maxume]

Plants?






Sort of anyway...

Most? Who's most?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life

What is it with these statements about where we would think life can live? We've had so many stories about extremophiles over the last few years that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that life can live in hard vacuum, at temperatures over 200C or in even my shoes. By all means, keep telling us about cool new extremophiles, but please stop telling me I wouldn't have thought it possible. My imagination doesn't stop at this week's latest discovery.

This isn't just a facetious point - it can damage the credibility of scientists to keep feigning surprise at things that really aren't that surprising any more.

Re:Most? Who's most?

[Mark of THE CITY]

It is surprising that gamma radiation that should be mutating or just plain ionizing these bacteria, isn't.

Re:Most? Who's most?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Cells do have some pretty amazing self-repair mechanisms. Bacteria reproduce pretty fast too. One way to deal with degradation of your data is to make as many copies of it as you can. I'm sure the details of how these bacteria are surviving will be wonderful and interesting. But I've stopped having prejudices about where life can survive!

Re:Most? Who's most?

[Suidae]

well, I'm not a biologist or anything, but it sounds like a chemical waste dump would have high concentrations of things that can be used for food, and probably fairly high energy food too. That would mean that an organism using them could afford to spend quite a bit of energy on repair and DNA error correction, plus, a colony of them would be performing a relatively high-speed genetic search for parameters that work in that environment.

It really doesn't seem that surprising to me.

What is surprising is that "self boiling" materials are left sitting around as waste. I mean damn, put a big stirling engine on top of that vat and run the lights off of it or something. What a waste.

Re:critter that does that...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Um. Good point.

Okay, "any radioactivity that isn't electromagnetic radiation in a fairly narrow spectrum ..."

I would be surprised

[Spamalamadingdong]

I don't see how bacteria could survive and grow on energy from radiolysis while their own cytoplasm is being damaged by that same radiolysis.

It is far easier to believe that the bacteria are consuming the organic materials in the radioactive sludge. The Hanford wastes are from the Solvex and Purex processes, which (if I understand correctly) used the different affinities of various ions for organic vs. aqueous solvents to separate uranium and plutonium from fission products. The spent, contaminated solvents wound up in the now-problematic tanks and their continued chemical breakdown under the radiolytic assault is one of the reasons they are so hard to handle.

It does make one wonder: could these bacteria be used to consume the organic matter in the tanks and reduce them to solutions in water? You would have to dilute the waste for the bacteria and re-concentrate the products (say, by evaporation) but getting rid of the organic solvents would be a big plus.

Re:I would be surprised

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I don't see how bacteria could survive and grow on energy from radiolysis while their own cytoplasm is being damaged by that same radiolysis.

It is far easier to believe that the bacteria are consuming the organic materials in the radioactive sludge.

Well, yeah, that's what I was getting at -- I wasn't suggesting that they were using the radioactivity directly, but rather, that the high levels of radioactivity might contribute to the formation of some unusual high-energy organics, of which the bacteria could then make use.

The tanks cannot be sealed

[Spamalamadingdong]

Those tanks are sealed and buried, so I doubt if they are even able to open them up to see if any bacteria is currently living inside.

The tanks cannot be sealed, as many of them are producing gases as radiation breaks down the solvents into free radicals and other molecules. As you recombine CH3- with H+ you get methane, recombine two hydrogen atoms and you get molecular hydrogen, etc. These compounds don't remain in solution and have to be vented off so the tank doesn't explode.

Researchers have to monitor the tanks to make sure that they remain relatively safe. It wouldn't do to have one blow its contents all over the place while we're still gearing up to glassify the stuff, and any plan to process the waste for permanent disposal depends on a detailed knowledge of what's inside.

Re:The tanks cannot be sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually one of the tanks did blow up a few years ago. It was a "chemical" explosion that released a large yellow cloud.

What is interesting is the tanks are also capable of a "nuclear" explosion from the radioactive isotopes present reaching criticality.

So they have to occasionally "stir" the tanks to prevent this.

The "self-boiling" feature of the tanks is due to the radioactive decay, that heats up the chemical soup.

The tanks were installed in the 50's with an expected lifetime of twenty two years. But research has shown that because of the harsh chemical enviroment the tanks can last only 12 years. (Don't forget that fifty years has elasped since then).

They ran out of tanks space, so what they did was just pour the chemicals on the ground. This in turn has led to vast areas of "radioactive soup" swampland.

Mice running around trigger radiation sensors because they have become highly radioactive due to the enviroment they live in.

When they find a radioactive animal, they can do an autopsie on it to determine where it came from, by looking at the specific radioactive isotopes that it has.

To say that this place is "a mess" is an understatement. It makes love canal look like pristine park in comparison.

The number one thing they need to do is get the stuff out of the ground water table. Currently they have pumps on the edge of the plume pumping out water, filtering it, and pumping it back into the ground. This currently is the state of hanford - taking care of one emergency after another, while never achieving actual "clean up."

Whether they will be able to clean the place up or not remains to be seen, due to the magnitude of the problem. This is why it has been labeled as "a national sacrifice area."

Re:The tanks cannot be sealed

[droid_rage]

That's fascinating. I take it you work in the tank farms, or for BNI? What about all the stuff that's in the Burial Grounds with the submarine reactors? I was always told there were a bunch of sealed tanks out there. Is that only for solid/semi-solid wastes?

Re:The tanks cannot be sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

They ran out of tanks space, so what they did was just pour the chemicals on the ground.

Sure they did.

Further Proof

[turgid]

I say, this is just further proof of what we've been saying all along: irradiated food isn't safe to eat.

/me ducks

I think it's all this beer they make me drink.

Re:Further Proof

[Scorillo47]

No. It is a common misconception that irradiated food becomes radioactive. This is simply not true.

For one thing, beta and gamma rays are not causing nuclear reactions. Food is being usually irradiated with gamma rays from Cobalt-60 sources. This kills most living organisms (microbes etc) but the fod itself does not become radioactive.

In contrast, alpha rays (which consist in high-speed helium nucleus) are known to cause further nuclear reactions in some atoms (for example berillium irradiated with alpha rays is a good source of neutrons). Also, neutron radiation also causes nuclear reactions in many elements as we all know.

Re:Further Proof

[turgid]

No. It is a common misconception that irradiated food becomes radioactive. This is simply not true.

:-)

Re:Further Proof

[Idarubicin]

I say, this is just further proof of what we've been saying all along: irradiated food isn't safe to eat.

It's interesting, actually. The best-known radiotolerant bacterium, Deinococcus radiodurans, was actually discovered in radiation-sterilized meat. The entire Deinococcus genus (eight known species) consists of extremophiles; they share some very robust DNA repair processes.

On the other hand, they're quite safe to eat. Although they can cope with very high doses of radiation, like most extremophiles they're poorly suited to competition with other bacteria in less challenging environments--in the human gut, for example. The D. radiodurans was only observed after radiation treatment cleared the field, as it were.

The real question we should be asking is not whether or not radiation sterilization is a safe procedure, but whether the food industry will consider it a panacea and become more lax in their other handling procedures as a result. After all--how did D. radiodurans get into the meat in the first place?

worms

[Anonymous Coward]

Worms live in peoples asses, what makes people think things cant survive in radioactive dirt?

Self-boiling?

[luigi6699]

Um... "self-boiling?" Does that mean that it will boil of it's own accord? If that's the case, why aren't we using this stuff to power generators? (boiling sludge -> water -> vapor -> drives a turbine...)

Re:Self-boiling?

[Carnildo]

Um... "self-boiling?" Does that mean that it will boil of it's own accord? If that's the case, why aren't we using this stuff to power generators? (boiling sludge -> water -> vapor -> drives a turbine...)

"Self-boiling" means the radioactive waste generates so much heat as a result of decay that the solvents it's in are boiling. You wouldn't want to use this to power a turbine: it's neither hot enough nor reliable enough to efficiently boil water through a heat exchanger. Using it directly would be even worse: any leaks in the steam piping means radioactive waste spewing all over.

Re:Self-boiling?

[kunudo]

Fun stuff.

Re:Self-boiling?

[FFFish]

That's brilliant! We could use plutonium rods to boil water, and the steam would drive turbines, which would provide power!

Wait, wait. There's a problem: out of control reaction.

But, hey, we could put, like, graphite rods in there to help keep it all in control! Self-boiling water, but held in check by the rods, yah, that's the ticket!

Luigi, you're brilliant! You've just solved all the world's energy problems! Just wait until we can make your idea fit on the back of a deLorean!

Kudos to you. I'm sending your name in for a Nobel prize.

Re:Self-boiling?

[Alsee]

Muahahaha! Then you're going to have to PAY ME!

I filed my patent application 3 days ago!

-

Re:Self-boiling?

[hplasm]

Um... "self-boiling?" Does that mean that it will boil of it's own accord?

It means that if you jump in you will boil yourself. *heh*

And all those environmental wackos...

[ConceptJunkie]

...are freaked out about nuclear waste.

They'd better realize that by not burying radioactive waste they are endangering an ecosystem. It would be an affront to nature and biodiversity to stop using nuclear power. James Lovelock sez so.

Re:And all those environmental wackos...

[DigiShaman]

While simple single celled life forms can adapt, it only happens where they're survivors left to multiply and carry on their successful genetics. So for every successful new bacteria adapting to a new environment; billions if not trillions have died in the process. But hey, they will keep on breeding so what do we care.

But... The problem is complex life has a much longer lifespan then say bacteria. And given the amount of complex multi-cellular life we depend on (such as corn, cows, chicken, fish, plant...etc), it would be very bad news to have any extreme variable be introduced to them. Such extreme variable include (but not limited to) heat, cold, vacuum, pressure, and radiation.

happy bacteria?

[pedantic bore]

Bacteria live in all sorts of odd environments that would kill people. Not all organisms have the same weaknesses; many examples spring to mind. Sheep love eating poison ivy, which would make many people ill. People love eating chocolate, which is poison to dogs. I've heard that there are even people who can watch movies starring Madonna with no ill effects.

Re:happy bacteria?

[SnoBall]

I've heard that there are even people who can watch movies starring Madonna with no ill effects.

Well, I've heard of people who shat themselves while watching scary movies. (j/k) Okay, my dad is allergic to poison ivy, and my dogs will eat just about anything (I'm talking about leftovers...) and I'm not so sure about the whole "Chocolate is poison to dogs" thing.

To prevent my dad from getting poison ivy again, I shall buy a few sheep. And from those sheep, I will get their .. uhh... wool, and sell it for profit. HA! The easiest way to prevent something and make money at the same time, I IS A GENIOUS! :D

Re:happy bacteria?

[cujo_1111]

Chocolate is a poison for dogs...

chocolate contains theobromine, an alkaloid that dogs can't metabolize quickly. If a dog ingests a large amount of chocolate, the theobromine can build up and reach a toxic level of concentration, leading to cardiac arrest. Different types of chocolate are more harmful than others, and the effects will vary, depending upon the size and weight of the dog. However, it is potentially lethal.

Re:happy bacteria?

[NonSequor]

I'm not sure if chocolate is actually "poisonous" to dogs, but caffeine is said to have a greater effect on dogs. My uncle's dog pulled a bag of Hershey's kisses off of a counter and ate them, wrappers and all. Later there were little bits of foil all over the yard. The dog did not seem to be harmed by this.

Evita killed my sister....

[NarrMaster]

you insensative clod!

Considering what radiation does to life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the bacteria have super powers?

Not hugely surprizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Bacteria are VERY resilient organisms. It isn't such a shock that they could survive in this lethal soup (To humans at least)

Bacteria are known to live in many hostile enviorments. They live under huge pressures at the depths of the ocean, right on top of magma vents, bother under and over water. They live out in death valley, in frozen tundra, high in the stratosphere, some even think bacteria live on comets in outer space. And of course this last one extends to alien 'seeding' theories! :E

And now they live in highly radioactive enviorments too! Dispite the risk of radiation poisioning, bacteria must just reproduce fast enough, every 20mins, to negate it.

Perhaps specialised bacteria even live inside nuclear reactors! Maybe there's even a specialised bacteria that lives on our CPUs!! I wonder do they prefer AMD or Intel chips?

Re:Not hugely surprizing

[ChrisMaple]

Perhaps specialised bacteria even live inside nuclear reactors!

The variety is named radiodurans.

Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[stokkie]

What if...we found bacteria that would "eat" nuclear waste, and poop out a less harmful substance.
We could use them to clean our mess up, AND build _more_ nuclear reactors (until fusion is making an entrance).

Re:Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[pragma_x]

You mean Bioremediation? There's already gobs of research being done in this area. :)

The geobacter project does exactly that for Uranium waste. This was also mentioned back in October:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10 /1 2/2057227&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=191

Other links about bioremediation:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
USGS's site on bioremediation

Re:Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[sillybilly]

The problem with nuclear waste is that it's not chemically processable. And all bacteria, or life, can do is process chemically. For atomic, nuclear degradation you simply have to wait it all out to decay on its own. So bacteria cannot eradicate the problem, however they could be efficient separators of nuclear waste, as follows. Problem with nuclear waste is that you get a zoo of atoms, some of which are highly radiating with a short half life, say 2 years, but they run out of juice in say 10 years, so after 10 years they'd be safe. Then there are some atoms that are radiating less intensely, but their halflife is 500 years, and they run out of juice in 2 millenia. If we could chemically separate each and every one and categorize them by halflife, that would get rid of half the problem as far as nuclear waste goes - you'd keep the fast decomposing compounds in a shielded lead (Pb) bin for 10 years, then it's "safe"(careful here) to dispose of as regular waste, and you would only have to bury the slow decomposing junk underground for 2 millenia, but that junk, though not safe for direct exposure to humans, it's safer to bury. Fission waste is an extremely problematic "goo" to deal with, and bacteria could only help, but not alleviate the problem. This brings me to the other topic you mentioned: fusion. Fusion on the other hand has no harmful waste, but if a fusion reactor blows up it causes an order of magnitude more damage than a uranium plant. The only hydrogen bomb test done so far had to be done in the Pacific Ocean because there is not enough room in the Nevada desert far enough from a populated area, because fusion is just so energy rich. The fusion bomb used a uranium bomb "fuse" to light the hydrogen reaction, and when it blew up, it took out 3 islands, one of them being "Eniwek Atoll." If a uranium plant blows up somewhere on the planet, it takes out some life, plus it renders that area unlivable for some time - but there are people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki these days. Life is tough, as the bacteria show, and human life is tough too. On the other hand, if a fusion reactor blows, it takes out a lot more life and land area, but the land is a lot more livable afterwards, because there isn't much toxic degradation waste. So far no uranium plants have resulted in a meltdown - we got close at 3 Mile Island and at Chernobyl, mostly because of people problems and stupidity. However fusion might be inherently safer because it's so difficult to keep the conditions under which it happens going, while in a uranium plant all you need is enough uranium together unshielded from each other, and if things go wrong, the reaction accelerates. Uranium has a critical mass, where radiation from one part causes radiation from another part of the same blob, and if enough is brought together - 19.5 kg or so for pure uranium, more for the less enriched kind - it self explodes, even in cold. Deuterium and hydrogen don't self-fusion-explode cold, or in storage, and the reaction byproducts of He3 and a little bit of Lithium, Beryllium and such, are all safe. There is of course some radioactivity generated in the steel and cement structures that would shield the reactors, but at least you don't generate piles and piles of junk, and the energy per lb of hydrogen is at least 10x that you get from lb of uranium. I'm confident fusion is the future, because without it we'll all go hungry. It's the risk vs. the benefits that counts, and if we had oil on the planet forever without this global warming side effect, then we wouldn't even have to think about uranium or fusion and the risks that come with it. But there is no more oil in Texas, and in 50 years there is no more oil on the planet, then we're back to coal if we're stupid and incapable to get fusion going by then. The Earth's population could hit 6 billion today because of oil and coal, and when we run out of both, the Lord help us to have something else to live on, or there will be a population collapse and hunger, and the worst wars we've ever seen because of the tremendous frustra

Re:Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[sillybilly]

One more note: there is some life living on energy sources not ultimately derivable from fusion in the Sun, just as these bacteria show, or some bacteria and life living near the underwater vulcanic eruptions, at the bottom of the ocean. Those bacteria and the animals that feed on them derive their energy ultimately from fission, which is what heats the insides of this plante (Potassium 40.) There are some sulfur compounds there that go through a cycle of picking up and storing energy near the hot vulcanic eruptions, then diffuse away, and bacteria inhale these compounds, bring them to a lower energy state, and then the cycle repeats itself, sufur compounds go back to near the eruptions, pick up energy, and so on. And then the fish or moving plants or whatever you wanna call those organisms living down there, they feed on the bacteria. But the bulk of life on the planet has been supported by the Sun, and if we mined all the Uranium out, there'd be only enough for like 10 years to supply the world with energy, without oil.

Re:Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[adavies42]

Actually, that's completely wrong. It's entirely possible for the earth to support a population at least into the tens of billions, if not much larger. The current (6 billion) population could fit quite comfortably into the area of Texas alone, with over 1000 ft^2 for each person, and Kansas could grow all the food they'd ever need. The "population problems" we think we see now are distribution problems, not inherent resource limitations.

Put another way, Malthus was a moron.

Re:Bacteria vacuum cleaners

[cjameshuff]

First: fusion plants don't blow up. Well, the boiler might...but the reactor won't, and practically any other kind of large power plant uses boilers. If containment fails in an electromagnetically confined plasma reactor like the tokamak...nothing happens. The reaction catastrophically loses heat through the reactor walls, and stops. You might have to do some repairs on the interior, but that's all. No big mushroom cloud, just a cooling reactor. The reason that we don't have fusion power yet is that it is hard to keep a fusion reaction going, not any danger of the reactor exploding. Besides all this, the isotopes of hydrogen likely to be used as fuel are not common...deuterium, currently used in the form of heavy water for some fission plants, and tritium, which is extremely rare and decays quickly. Besides that, many potentially useful fusion reactions also involve helium 3, which is also quite rare on Earth. Lithium isn't a byproduct, it's a fuel...it converts to tritium when irradiated with neutrons. The fusion "ash" of the reactions being considered for power is helium 4.

As for fission plants...they don't blow up either. The Chernobyl incident was a *steam* explosion, made worse by hydrogen generated by superhot steam coming into contact with hot graphite, and then air full of oxygen being intoduced into the whole superhot mess. And Chernobyl *did* suffer meltdown. It didn't just come close, large chunks of the core melted. TMI also suffered a partial meltdown, though much less severe than that at Chernobyl, and the safety systems were able to keep it from turning into the kind of mess we had at Chernobyl. There was also a partial meltdown at NRX in Canada (1952), and a fire and meltdown at Sellafield in England in 1957, and several other incidents of fires or meltdowns. Modern reactor designs just won't get that far...the reaction is self limiting, and the reactor simply can't get hot enough to cause damage.

"Enrichment" of uranium has nothing to do with purity. Uranium has several isotopes, and uranium 235, the one that's useful in fission bombs, is extremely rare. Enriched uranium has been processed to contain a higher concentration of this isotope.

cockroaches find their way in a microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen live roaches running around in a microwave oven while it was on. Apparently the coverage is pretty spotty.

This couple had cockroaches living in their microwave. Perhaps this isn't so impressive, since the roaches mostly stayed out of the cooking compartment while the microwave was on. The rest of the house had only the very occasional roach (I can verify this) but the microwave was infested. Very odd.

Apparently the roaches liked it there, and various cleaning supplies bothered them not at all. Boiling a cup of vinegar in their home did nothing. He wanted to get rid of them, but he couldn't poison the microwave without rendering it unfit for food. Finally he put it into the freezer for a few weeks. Problem solved, and permanently (they never came back.)

What can we learn from this story?

Keep a decent house.

While extremely hardy, San Diego cockroaches are unsuited to winter.

Beware used kitchen appliances, especially at my garage sale. :~(

Re:cockroaches find their way in a microwave

[Tree131]

What can we learn from this story?

The freezer is now infested with cockroaches

Radiosynthesis?!

[DigiShaman]

Just as plants use the process of photosynthesis with chlorophyll, maybe these bacteria use the same type of system. But this time, they are feeding off of radiation. Just a thought.

Re:Radiosynthesis?!

[Spamalamadingdong]

That would be easier to take seriously if there were an existing synthetic pathway which could use such energy, but I believe that the radiation-resistant bugs like Dienococcus Radiourans are not even photosynthetic. The amount of energy recoverable from the radiation is small compared to the chemical energy of the organic solvents, so any bug trying to "eat" the radiation would be seriously out-competed by the bugs chewing on the chemicals.

Bacteria

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually lots of bacteria that can do similair things. They discovered one bacteria that resists radiation after testing 'irradiated' cans. Recently they found it doesn't resist the radiation, but repairs its DNA afterwards...

Another bacteria group, geobacter, have been in the news latelly because of their ability to substitute metallic elements/toxic compounds for oxygen. This includes mercury and mild radioactive elements. They actually created a simple bactery with them (bacteria breathe on electrodes)...

They are damaged, but

[jago25_98]

Well, I am suprised because I thought that radiation damages all DNA no matter what cell it's in.

I can understand that the effects

on humans, but still suprised that bacteria can handle this. It turns out that the DNA in the bacteria IS damaged, but it is able to repair at a fast enough rate and accurately too:

"Others, such as the radioactivity-resistant Deinococcus radiodurans, can withstand serious damage by repairing their own DNA."

source

So there's only so much the bacteria can handle.

Re:They are damaged, but

[mikael]

Well, I am suprised because I thought that radiation damages all DNA no matter what cell it's in. I can understand that the effects on humans, but still suprised that bacteria can handle this. It turns out that the DNA in the bacteria IS damaged, but it is able to repair at a fast enough rate and accurately too:

There was an article on the analysis of the effects of Chernobyl. Apparently one side effect of the radiation was that plants and other organisms had tripled the number of copies of various genes. I guess it goes down to probability: Given a radiation level of a known amount, how many copies of enzymes/RNA do you need to guarantee that repair can be performed before the enzyme/RNa/whatever is damaged itself.

Re:They are damaged, but

[pragma_x]

Perhaps these bacteria have evolved to simply reproduce at a higher rate, thus making death by radiation less relevant. Kind of like a brute force approach to survival I guess.

happiness

[WormholeFiend]

how do you know those bacteria are happy?

maybe they're really depressed to have to live there, but can't afford to move someplace else?

next time I spot a news item about bacteria living in an odd environment, I'll submit it to slashdot, "Bacteria struggling to make ends meet in [weird environment], suffer from overpopulation; Joe Bacterium comments: "What can you do, it's part of our culture."

Re:happiness

[Tukla]

Yeah! I'll bet they'd be happier living on doctors' neckties.

The prefer Intel.

[JavaLord]

Despite the bacteria's ability to ive in magma vents or in nuclear waste, I'm sure the AMD chips run too hot for them to live in there.

Are the bacteria or Archaea?

[nyekulturniy]

Domain Archaea is one-celled, but is vastly different from Kingdom Monera (or bacteria). They have different membrane lipids, don't have peptogylcon in the cell wall, and phyla of Archaea can live in the strangest places, such as hot smokers, extremely salt seas, weird chemical environments, and other things that would kill bacteria.

BNI? Not me.

[Spamalamadingdong]

I don't work there, I just read some of the popular accounts. I normally take them with a grain of salt, but when they come with pictures of a crew taking a sample of the contents of one of those "sealed" tanks, it's pretty conclusive.

Vitamin R - James P. Hogan

[mrmeval]

"Kicking the Sacred Cow" by James P. Hogan has this article and many others.
"Vitamin R" is also online here:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/112297.shtml

A followup is here:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/030498.shtml

This states that some radiation is desirable.

I would be *VERY* surprised

[Spamalamadingdong]

the high levels of radioactivity might contribute to the formation of some unusual high-energy organics, of which the bacteria could then make use.

Which would be silly for an organism to depend on, because the fraction of the potential food which is converted to these unusual compounds is such a small part of the total. D. Radiourans was discovered happily chewing on irradiated food in sealed packages (which was completely edible to humans before the bacteria got to it), and it would be more successful eating the run-of-the-mill organic molecules and ignoring the exotic stuff than the reverse. Guess which option would be favored by selection and population dynamics?

Which is not to say that some bug might not eat both, but it's a no-brainer to see what it would start with.

Nothing better than a MORON who can' t spell MORON

[Grog6]

idiot?
Survey says YES!!!

Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

That we couldn't wait until Communist Russia fell, so that we could buy plutonium cheaply from them, as some projects have done.

But, we were 'Protecting America from Commies (TM)" , so, whatever land we ruined for millenia to come was for a worthwhile cause. (If you don't believe me, read the official propaganda. It never lies.)

The creek I swam, gathered crawdads, and generally fucked around in in Oak Ridge, was contaminated with millions of pounds of mercury, a byproduct of the lithium deuteride seperation process from the fifties. That didn't come out until the eighties.

Hell, in OR, we even had a nuclear reactor hung between two towers, called the 'Tower shielding facility' but pretty much was a reactor with no shielding, in the open, (barely)visible from I-40.

The Idiots doing our "cleanup" recently set the sodium from that project on fire, and burned it away, evacuating a large area, by "accident". I bet the disposal costs are a shitload cheaper for an empty,sodium contaminated container, over a few tons of radioactive sodium.

But don't get me started.

It's the little things--- Alice Cooper

Imagine a beowulf..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait, wrong cliche. .a