Bacteria Used To Make Radioactive Metals Inert

Serenissima writes "Researcher Judy Wall is experimenting with bacteria that can cleanse the radioactivity from toxic areas by rendering the heavy metals into non-toxic, inert versions. The technology is not without its flaws (the bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet), but it does have the potential to cleanse some of the world's hazardous sites. From the article: 'The bacteria Wall is studying are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance.'"

Comments

Re:radioactive bacteria

[Chazerizer]

You scoff at the above poster, but there are (non-lethal) mutations possible that could make these particular bacteria more dangerous to people. A single mutation causes an amino acid change in the protein that converts uranium to uranite. Now, instead of uranium, it binds phosphorus (or calcium, or ferrous ions, or whatever) because its pore size is different. Instead of removing uranium for the water, it now creates large, insoluble phosphorus deposits. Even if the remaining bacteria remove the uranium, you are still left with a completely unlivable ecosystem for micro-organisms (and higher life forms which feed on them, and so on), because basic nutrients are in extremely short supply. In essence, you've traded one barren landscape for another, and that just fails to help anyone. This isn't a terribly likely scenario. 99.999% of mutations are likely to be either fatal to the microorganisms or irrelevant. On the other hand, if a group of bacteria are exposed to 10^m photons of gamma radiation...I'm guessing at least a few beneficial, non-desirable mutations could occur. They won't turn the microbes into the blob, but they could end up causing some very non-desirable effects.

Re:Chemically inert, they mean

[hardburn]

This might sound unfair, but it's really very simple. If a reporter comes to ask you about your research, and comes away printing something totally inaccurate or just completely wrong then that is your fault.

Shortly after 9/11, Phil Zimmermann was interviewed about the possibility that PGP was used in planning the attacks. He carefully stated that he had no regrets, but that's not what the Washington Post ran.

He was already very experienced with handling the press by that point. He even had the journalist read the entire article over the phone before sending it to the editor. So apparently, there is no defense against a bad editor misrepresenting something, unless you ignore the press altogether.