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Toxic-Waste Consuming Bacteria
cswiii writes "CNN has this article about scientists who have created bacteria that consume toxic wastes, such as radioactive materials, breaking them down into less harmful compounds. " Similar work has been done before with genetically engineering trees. I believe that bactera that eats oil has been actually used in oil spills before.
But really, in all seriousness, Slashdot's biology knowledge is *far* below its tech knowledge and it shows! Cool new computer & physics advances are hailed, but everytime genetics is mentioned we get some kind of "Playing God" or "Toying with the Apocalypse", or, my favorite, the inane "Jurassic Park" posts.
1.) As many have stated this bioremediation is neither new nor untested.
2.)Bacterium that degrade organic compuounds DON'T just suddenly evolve into killer mutant ebola death microbes!!! Yeesh. I'd be MUCH more worried about virulent strains of E. coli or other natural microbes that live (and feed) off of us "evolving" in such a way. At least there's an evolutionary precedent and possible advantage for that (note - I don't think this is likely either, but it's better than the idea that these toxic bugs are going to become the next flesh-eating bacteria)
3.)Everybody is worried about microbes that could survive radiation... guess what? Naturally occuring microbes DO on a regular basis! I've seen scientists place relatively common bacteria in a flask and shove the thing next to a high radiation source (equivalent of a nuclear reactor). The result? Colonies can survive & live. Bacteria have survived on space probes through stellar radiation as well. The horror!
I think people should calm down about this topic and go back to worrying about GM stuff (I think the worries in that area are overstated as well, but at least some of the concerns are valid and rational. Personally I have little problems with genetic engineering)
Real life != Science Fiction.
Most sci-fi writers != scientists.
Fiction can symbolize, and inspire, but it's predictive powers are not exactly accurate. Finally, I still think people underestimate biologists in these cases. Everyone throws out ideas "What if X happens and then the bacteria change..." People, the biologists DO think about these things! I know that biologists very seriously consider many aspects of this research(ethical and environmental), after all, they're not idiots! Slashdot really needs to get over these wild, knee-jerk reactions to every biology story posted here.
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@wm.edu
While the short term benefits of this are indeed amazing, many slashdotters know that many times these sort of "magic bullets" can backfire on you. For instance, many Europeans are boycotting American foods that come from geneticly engineered plants and animals, and for good reason: We have absolutely no idea what the long term effects are going to be. In fact, some long-term effects are already coming into light (the presence of corn-generated insecticide in the surrounding envoronment, for example).
These bacteria look like exactly what we need to solve industrial pollution caused by accidents. But now I will apply my meager sci-fi skills to extrapolate what will happen in the future if these things become widespread in use.
These bacteria don't solve the problem, and have the potential of causing worse problems (the classic 'cure worse than the disease'). I'd rather not see this as a cure-all for our environmental ills.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
Actually, as someone with some slight familiarity with similar bacteria, I think your fear is misplaced. The bacteria need sunlight and nutrients besides the oil in order to break down the oil.
I know someone who helped develop oil-eating bacteria. She's said the Feds haven't been helpful in the way they regulate it, otherwise it would have been used much more extensively in such things as the Prince William Sound oil spill.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
If you take the forms that attack oil spills, I think what happens is that when you run out of oil the bacteria dies or goes dormant. Sort of like what happens when you brew beer. The Yeast runs out of food and just drops to the bottom of the container. (Also the alchahol at some point stops the yeast from fermenting).
Erlang Developer and podcaster
"Call me paranoid, but..."
Will you people get over it already. Seriously. This is getting silly. Bacteria have such a small genome that they basically can do one thing and do that one thing well. Bacteria don't decide that they are going to do anything. They just do it. No pun intended.
No one complains when bacteria are used to produce antibiotics. No one complains when bacteria is used to produce food. Why not get all fired up over that?
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
affect the harmful effects of radioactive material.
I don't see how biological processes can, in any
way, affect the levels of radiation from a material,
apart from possibly shielding it a trifle bit. The
only way I know of to make radioactive material
less dangerous (apart from just leaving it to its
destiny for a couple of million years) is to bombard
it with a particle cannon.
But what do I know? And even if (most probably) this only is for "normal" toxic waste, this will probably still be enormously useful, unless companies use this method of reducing their pollution instead of actually reducing the use of dangerous substances in the first place. Those who live (hopefully most of us) can tell.
What the oil eating bacteria die after they eat all of their only source of food.
;)
Though I agree with your 'paranoia' that freak mutations could develop to do some unexpected things. I doubt that a petrol-eating critter will suddenly change it's fundamental means of nutrition, but a strain might develop to eat other, related, materials. Instead of crude oil in the presence of salt water, such a strain might consume gasoline or plastics, possibly without needed salt or water. Brief flashback to Andromeda Strain. Or it might munch on fish-oil.
But then again, odds are that the mutation(s) needed to make an impact on 'US' would never paddle back to shore. If anything, I'm sure that the bacteria we release into 'the wild' would not be of the radiation resistant variety. More likely, they'd be highly sensitive to UV, so that once the spill is cleared, the sunlight bakes whatever didn't starve. Maybe salt is the poison.
Interesting point nonetheless, but so speculative, that except for the usual could vs should argument, we have no input or insight into how it is.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I haven't the foggiest. IANAchemist, and it's been a while since I've cracked a book on the subject, or had the original conversation for that matter.
From the description he gave, the iron particles are moved around by the magnetic field, acting much as a filter. They end up clumping together with the filtrate, sink and (I presume) hold the crud in place as the water flows by. When the field is shut down, there's your contaminant/iron sludge, and much cleaner water.
Rinse, lather, repeat. After several iterations (or a long enough pipe), the water is equivalently clean as with traditional filtration methods. The sludge is processed to recover iron and contaminants. Being a ChemE, I'd imagine he's most involved with sludge processing, since the rest sounds like a purely physical process. Anyhoo, it's supposed be be really great for oils, biologicals (sewage) and all sorts of particulate pollution.
Don't know what use the process is for dissolved compounds and toxins. Except that if the iron is somehow coated or serves as a catalyst of some sort... But now I'm completely guessing, so I'll leave it at that.
Neat thing is that there are very few moving parts in the system, and no filters to clean/replace per se. I'd imagine that water flowing at a gentle decline, with the occasional magnetic pulse sent in the opposite direction via wire wound around the pipe or some elaboration on that theme.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Heh, interesting mental picture. Bacteria eating radioactive compounds, and crapping out same, contained in Boron-infused buckyballs. Possibly bonded with Iron, or some other compound that would make it easier to separate from soil|liquid, and physically contain.
A ChemE friend of mine is working on a method of purifying chemically contaminated water by mixing fine Iron fillings into it, and running it through a variable magnetic field. Apparently this works extremely well for many contaminants, and is quite cheap to do (once you've got a site built, that is). Hence the above Iron idea.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
In general though, I do think people react with excessive hysteria to the idea of biologically engineered foods. I don't trust most of the alarms that I hear sounded about these things, in part because I know how badly the technophobes have exaggerated in the past (nuclear power for me is the canonical example: it's the issue on which the left forever lost my trust as a source of information).
It *would* be nice to have a good way of evaluating technical-public policy questions, but we aren't anywhere near it yet. If you haven't read anything like this yet, you might want to look at Eric Drexler on "Science Courts"/"Fact Forums".
No, I don't think you're "old-fashioned", I think that the anti-tech attitude is really pretty modern. If anything I'm being "retro" in this thread.And as for understanding the opposition: Sure, I do what I can. Time is always the problem, no?
Think about the thermodynamics of the situation for a moment. The plants produce energy, the energy comes from converting radioactivity into heat. So the total amount of radioactivity has to decline, right?
Ah, but why is the stuff sitting above ground in barrels? Because everyone is too nervous about putting it back into the ground somewhere, because it might leak out somehow or other. What about the danger of the natural ores "leaking"? You never see these two compared... the radioactives are supposed to just magically appear as a by-product of the nukes. Check. It does appear that the original poster knows more about this than I gave him credit for.So let me address "the issue", which is evidentally that prevention is better than repair. But is there really a difference? The clean-up technologies don't neatly separate from the production technologies. For example if you're really good at cleaning up stray particles of radioactive metals, you may be able to do it inside the gates of the plant. So that's prevention, right?
And then there's the question of prevention of *what*. The whole energy business is part of a centuries old effort to prevent things like death by exposure, starvation, etc (it's not all about racing around in SUVs to sit in front of CRTs). Would it have been better to have, say, never learned to burn coal?
Unless you're some sort of anti-human "deep ecologist" or something, the answer is "hell no". The history of technology is a history of juggling evils, ameliorating some problems at the expense of causing other (hopefully lesser) problems, which we may then ameliorate at a later date. Over the centuries, this juggling act has clearly been a big win for the industrialized world, more than doubling our lifespan and changing our lives from a hand-to-mouth existance to ones with the luxury to waste time scoring debating points on slashdot.
That this bacterium can withstand such high levels of radiation is truly unique. However, not much else about it is. Bacteria are routinely used in site cleanups. The most common use of bacteria is the degradation of organic compounds, primarily hydrocarbons. In this case, the hydrocarbons are aerobically transformed to carbon dioxide and water. Other compounds are also biodegradable to more or less extents. Chlorinated compounds are difficult (primarily due to the steric hindrance caused by the large chlroine atoms), but are subject mainly to anaerobic degradation through reductive dechlorination, or cometabolic degradation.
Now what this article is discussing is a bacterium that transforms mercury. There is also a lot of literature about "metals biodegradation", but of course, metals are elements, and can not be destroyed. What happens in "metals biodegradation" is that the metals are transformed into different oxidation states that are less toxic or harmful. For example, hexavalent chromium is significantly more toxic than the trivalent form.
In the case of mercury, the main concern is methylated mercury versus elemental or ionic mercury. Methylmercury is the most toxic form since it can bioaccumulate (essentially acting like an organic due to its methyl groups) and thus more easily get taken up ny living organisms (nothing is toxic to you unless you get it in your body by ingestion, inhalation, or through dermal absorption. This excludes radiation, of course). So I am guessing that this bacterium somehow demethylates methylated mercury. It probably produces elemental mercury (i.e. liquid mercury) which is less likely to be ingested, or else some sort of mercurous or mercuric salt that is insoluble (mercuric phosphate, maybe?) and not likely to be remetabolized into the methyl form.
For some reason the Greens don't like this ... nuclear accidents are far more problematic for humans than the environment in general, I have to wonder what the fuss is all about. Wild thought: suppose "Greens" are concerned for humans? Suppose the intent of many involved in environmental campaigns is to create and maintain pleasant environments for humans? I think you may be relying on a stereotype of extremist EarthFirst'ers or somethings.
Bioremediation has been around as long as there have been septic tanks and cesspools - it is certainly nothing new.
The concept of engineering organisms to do this has been around in the '60s.
The first person to do this using early genetic engineering methods was Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty. He used a method of selection to develop a bacterial culture that feeds on PCB's in the late 1960s.
Dr. Chakrabarty later became famous because he became the first person to patent a genetically engineered life form. The case (Diamond vs. Chakrabarty), ultimately decided by the Supreme Court was fought tooth and nail by the patent office. It is one of the landmark patent cases of the 20th century. US 3,813,316 is the patent number.
When the bacteria digest whatever it is that it has been targeted to digest (mercury in the article, though it mentions that it could be targeted at other elements), the stuff's gonna be compounded differently when it comes out the other end. I don't know enough about radiochemistry to know if your average radioactive element will continue to be radioactive when it is in a different molecular arrangement than it was in the original waste form. But, from a non-radioactive standpoint, and you're just talking about toxic elements and combinations thereof, bonding it differently makes a big difference. For a nice and simple example, look at sodium (a soft metal that reacts violently with water) and chlorine (a greenish gas that is extremely poisonous and corrosive). On their own, rather dangerous. Together, they're table salt.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
On a tangentially related note, some work has been done on stabilizing radioactive waste prior to burial or storage.
The CSIRO in Australia a few years ago developed a material called "synrock". As the name suggests, it's essentially a synthetic "rock" in which the waste is embedded. It's chemical and physical properties are supposed to be such that the waste won't move (well, not much). Presumably it would have properties somewhat similar to uranium ores.
Well, the problem is with a lot of our "solutions" is that they turn out to be worse than the "problems", although it is admittedly hard to think of something worse than a massive oil spill. The problem with the environment is every place is subtly different, and an organism that performs a certain way in one place will perform identically in another.
One of the classic cases was the importation of the cane toad from Hawaii to Australia for control of sugar cane eating pests. It turned out that in Australia at the time of year the cane toad like to inhabit the sugar cane, the insect it was supposed to eat happened to be living too high on the plant for the toad to eat. However the toad did develop a taste for native species, and had no natural predators. The rest, as they say, is history.
I think there is promise in the oil eating bacteria, but I am personaly charry of releasing a genetically engineered version of what the article describes as one of the toughest organisms on the planet, especially when that organism can reproduce exponentially and asexually, and can interchange genes with other species as bacteria commonly do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm not sure if this is being done, but, one good thing about creating your own life is creating a way to make these life easily destructable.
However, unlike Jurassic Park, it can be done in such a way (by inserting DNA of certain protein defficient bacteria) that it is certain they can be killed with anti-biotics. With this insertion, it can also be assured that the trait is not mutatable.
I could be wrong, but, a mutation like this doesn't seem to be covered in the primitive reproductive act of bacteria, only in archaea and eukarya.
The explanation, of course, is a lot more complicated dependent on what type of bacteria (gram-negative or positive) are being used and what the cell-wall composition is. NAM-NAG, B4, etc.
How?
:)
A mutation like what?
If a bacteria begins as succeptible to certain antibiotics, the only way this can be changed is through the lateral gene transfer you refer to. Basically, this is done in most bacteria by the exchange of plasmids between bacteria. Plasmids are composed of DNA and exist on and around the cell-wall of all bacteria. These plasmids encode enzymes that break down organic material, and also encode enzymes that destroy antibodies.
This is a trait present in both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, and is how anti-bacterial resistance is passed (penicillin, etc.)
What is being theorized -- and what the control relies upon (AFAIK)is that you can somehow inhibit these plasmids from exchanging -- *given that you are creating this organism*. How this is done, I don't really know.
So, what I'm saying is that a bacteria can't mutate to change its cell wall and the composition of it. It can be changed in a very specialized way to become resistant to certain chemicals (as with anti-biotic resistance), and this is why plasmid exchange must be inhibited.
I think.
heard a story before about a place in asia where radioactive material got into the rebar factory and was used in the building of a number of apartment houses.
:(
Instead of tearing them down, the government compensated the occupants by not requiring them to pay any income tax.
so I have no way to get any proof. Maybe it's not true, but would *you* raise your family in a radioactive house just to escape paying taxes?
Ever eat a fish that was mutated by radiation? Ever go scuba diving next to a nuclear reactor outlet? PEOPLE DO
--
radioactive waste - it's not just for breakfast anymore
Now imagine what a Beowolf-cluster of those bacteria could do!
:)
Thimo
--
Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux!
While some amongst us might think it silly, there were recently two men killed in Tacoma, Washington by flesh-eating bacteria. It was carried on the AP and Reuters wires and just happened.
One of the problem with antibiotics is that many strains of bacteria and virii are becoming immune to commonly-used antibiotics, to the point where doctors are now warned not to use the "new" antibiotics except when they know the infectious agent is already immune to the commonly prescribed antibiotics.
More people died from the Spanish Flu than from WWI, after all. And more people died in WWII from disease than any other cause.
Without antibiotics, many of the advances in civilization would have probably not survived. It gave us this breather until we could start working on genetic defenses and tailored anti-viral agents.
Will in Seattle
If you really know this, it doesn't seem to have sunk in. The fact that we worry about where to put nuclear waste is an advantage of nuclear power.
No really it has. I am not saying that nuclear power is worse than coal/oil/whatever. I am saying that we often look to solve tecnology problems with more technology. This leads to a downward spiral of "solutions" when we should be looking at the causes of problems.
BTW, your comment about waste being good because it is not in the air is a good one but will probably go unnoticed. I just want the people who develop technology to realize that they are probably not going to fix the world with their new toys. Prevention.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
Think about the thermodynamics of the situation for a moment. The plants produce energy, the energy comes from converting radioactivity into heat. So the total amount of radioactivity has to decline, right?
To put what sumocide said a little clearer, radioactivity is an emission from the atom's nucleus. Fission is not the process of collecting these emissions to heat water. Fission is forcing this breakdown in a controlled chain reaction to heat water. Most importantly, the atom you end up with is not gauranteed to be safer in any way.
Check. It does appear that the original poster knows more about this than I gave him credit for.
This is the problem with slashdot. gotta love it. =)
The clean-up technologies don't neatly separate from the production technologies. For example if you're really good at cleaning up stray particles of radioactive metals, you may be able to do it inside the gates of the plant. So that's prevention, right?
Good point. The reason I brought up this horribly offtopic thread is that we make the assuption that we fully understand the problem. We fully understand the effects of genetic engineering. Check out this to see what I'm saying:
Seeds of destruction
an excerp:** But now that Bt is continuously present in whole fields of Monsanto potatoes, the insects in those field will be continuously exposed to Bt.
Therefore it is only a matter of time before they develop "resistance" and become immune to Bt's toxic effects.
The mechanism of resistance is well understood because over 500 insects have become resistant to one pesticide or another since 1945. Not every potato beetle will be killed by eating Monsanto's pesticidal potatoes. A few hardy beetles will survive. When those few resistant beetles mate with other resistant beetles, a new variety of potato beetle will spring into being and it will thrive by eating Monsanto's potatoes. At that point, Bt will have lost its effectiveness as a pesticide. Then Monsanto will start marketing some new "silver bullet" to control the Colorado potato beetle. But what will the nation's organic farmers do? For private gain, Monsanto will have destroyed a public good --the natural pesticidal properties of Bt. Monsanto scientists acknowledged to the NEW YORK TIMES that the Bt-containing potato will create Bt- resistant potato beetles. They know exactly what they are trying to do. They are hoping to make a mint selling Bt-laced potatoes and, in the process, depriving their competitors (organic farmers) of an essential, time-honored tool. The strategy is brilliant, and utterly ruthless.
** For decades, Monsanto and other agrichemical companies have relentlessly promoted farming systems aimed at making farmers dependent on
synthetic chemicals. With the enthusiastic support and complicity of USDA, the plan worked beautifully.
Sounds a little like Microsoft. =) They even talk about it in terms of OS's. Furthermore, there is evidence that genetically engineered corn is killing the monarch butterfly, and bees feeding off genetically engineered food live shorter lives and have less ability to recognise flower smells. Do you think the genetic engineers really reserched that? hell no.
I know that you think that people who question this are just "old-fashioned" or crazy but really I think it is good to educate yourself in the opposition's view. Sometimes it is over the top and reactionary. Much like your average linux zealot.
flame on.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
Ok folks, here's the problem: It is not OK to be making all of this radioactive crap in the first place. Sure, I know, we all need energy and nuclear is cleaner than blah blah blah..... but really this is how we get into this mess in the first place. A lot of technology only exists for fixing the problems that we created. I so much wish that instead of sprawling out all over this planet we would stop and look at what we are doing to ourselves and our lives. Technology is fun and all but at what cost?
Americans have horrible diets. They eat 50% more meat than 100 years ago and 50% less fruit/veggies than 100 years ago because meat used to be somthing special that you couldn't afford to eat every night. Now, what is the answer to america's health problems? (Jeopardy! music)
What are: fat burning "natural herbal remedies", fat blocking drugs, and WOW! Potato Chips!
This whole get rid of nuclear waste problem should really be: Let's find ways not to produce so much nuclear waste. While we are at it: Let's find ways to eat better, Lets find ways to live healthier, and Lets find ways to see problems as being caused by something preventable.
I am tired of the band-aid, "shoot those cows full of antibiotics so we can treat them worse without killing them; their antibiotic resistant bacteria will never travel to humans" kind of mentality. The problem isn't that we have oil spills. The problem is that we haven't genetically engineered enough oil eating bacteria. I try to eat organic but it costs 2x as much. You know what, I think it is worth it knowing that I at least try to support sustainable farming practices.
Humans are so egocentric. All of theese huge corporations run by arrogant jerks. The problem with self made men (and women) is that they tend to worship their creator. At least some corporations have some conscience.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Dumping the spent fuel back into the uranium mines is superficially attractive, if you don't care that the radioisotopes have a wide variety of chemical properties and many will not stay put under the same conditions as uranium. Not staying put is bad; you do not want this stuff in your drinking water, for example. Ideally you'd separate the stuff in the spent fuel according to its chemical properties and dispose of the stuff that needs disposal in the way which keeps it in one place until it's harmless. This also allows the unused uranium and the plutonium produced in the reactor to be recycled, keeping them out of the waste stream entirely. Check out this Argonne National Lab link for a technical look at what some of the waste-disposal technology might look like. For some reason the Greens don't like this, though. Given that nuclear power emits absolutely no CO2 and nuclear accidents are far more problematic for humans than the environment in general, I have to wonder what the fuss is all about.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
What happens when organic compounds are placed beside a radioactive source such as one of the transition metals? Would there not be a certain percentage of the C,O,H in the (say decaying vegetable fibres and microbes) which were converted to their radioactive isotopes by this? Unlikely. To convert hydrogen (protium) into its only radioactive isotope (tritium) you have to add two neutrons to it (fantasically unlikely to hit a single atom twice, especially since most radwaste isotopes are not neutron emitters). C-12 or C-13 into C-14 requires one or two neutrons as well. I'm not sure about oxygen, I'd have to check an isotope table and I don't have one handy; still, I doubt it very much. There are two possible ways of converting stable isotopes to radioactive ones by exposing them to non-neutron radiation. The first is gamma-activation, where a stable nucleus is kicked into a higher-energy metastable state by a gamma ray; when it decays to its base state, it emits another gamma ray. The other is by induced fission or neutron spallation (a particle or gamma kicks one or more nucleons out of the nucleus, yielding a radioactive nucleus). These processes are very inefficient even on the nuclei where they are possible.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Breaking down a chemical compound does not change anything about the nuclei of the atoms from which it is made. If you have radioactive technetium salts and you convert them to technetium metal, it is still going to be just as radioactive as it was before. What changes is its solubility and other chemical properties. In the case of technetium the metal is insoluble, so you can immobilize it (and prevent it from leaching anywhere) by reducing it to the metallic state.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
- Tritium (metabolized to water vapor)
- Carbon-14 (metabolized to radioactive CO2)
Radon and xenon are already gases (noble gases at that), so it makes no difference; they're already gone. Most radwaste is composed of alkali metals, alkali earths and transition metals with the occasional halogen thrown in (astatine, I-129, I-131). These will not be metabolized to gases, so they'd have to escape some other way.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If you'd read the article you'd know that D. Radiourans has been around for a couple billion years. Our entire evolution, from H. Sapiens Sapiens back to the first vertebrate, has been in an environment with D. Radiourans in it. You can stop worrying now, it's okay.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Oil-eating bacteria have evolved quite naturally; you'll find them anywhere there are natural oil seeps. After they do their job, they become food for other things. Playing God? Well, yeah; if God had decided to play with supertankers full of crude, He would have made a hungry bug to eat the spills too! It's our problem, though, so we get to make the means to fix it.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Nice subject, eh? But seriously, there is a natural chemical compound in horseradish that will have the same effect on toxic/radioactive waste.
The problem with implementation is that it's somewhat expensive to extract the compound.
develop a bacteria that could break down microsoft into smaller more benign compounds!
They reported that the superbug strains proliferated when exposed to radioactive waste mixtures commonly found at weapons sites. The superbug does not neutralize radioactivity in metals.
What the bug probably does is takes the radioactive elements and removes them from the other toxic elements. If you had a compound of (I'm no chemist here) mercury, cadmium and uranium, the bug would break it down into a uranium compound, a mercury compound and a cadmium compound. This will allow you to easily process and dispose of all three without having to separate them by other means.
Think about processing some huge lump of data, or writing code. Its easier to break the problem up into small, easy to process pieces and work your way through rather than writing everything into the main() function. It is easier to process uranium that it is to process uranium, cadmium, and mercury all mixed into one compound.
IIRC, the problem with radioactivity and living tissue is that the radiation breaks down the weak hydrogen links in the DNA (I read all this long ago, sorry for mistakes) and the DNA reforms itself into arrangements that don't allow the cell to function properly, killing it, or mutates it in such a way that its offspring don't function properly, killing them, or cause a malfunction like cancer.
Previous studies have demonstrated that its radiation resistance probably involves thousands of genes. Even when hundreds of portions of DNA are damaged by radiation, the microorganism can usually repair itself in a matter of hours, using redundant genetic codes to keep (hmm, article trimmed, not my fault)
This is the coolest part about the bacteria, it prevents the malfunctioning that plague other organisms, like humans. Sign me up for gene therapy like this!!
marotti.com
wouldn't it be cool if they could break the waste down into something useful and non-toxic... ... like say, McDonald's Mac Sauce. oh.. wait. nevermind.
The genetically altered bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans does not consume radioactive compounds as the summary suggests. As physics assures us, it is [almost] impossible to alter the half-life of a radioactive compound or transmutate elements without massive equipment. OTOH, what these bacteria do is that they have been genetically customized to transform highly reactive heavy metal compounds into more tame and benign materials. The "radiodurans" part of the name refers to the fact that the bacteria can withstand "1.5 million rads of gamma radiation, or about 3,000 times the lethal dose for humans." Pretty amazing stuff.
US Microbiotics [http://www.bugsatwork.com/], creators of the bacteria used to clean up oil spills have a few other nifty products on the market. Kinda cool to read, but you wonder, though the bacteria are engineered to be short-lived, what if something goes wrong?
A lot of things are MUCH more or less toxic to some animals than others. Dogs, for example, can eat half-rotten meat that would kill a human, but can be poisoned by chocolate or even baby formula!!! (synthetic galactose - they can't metabolize it properly... Owls are very resistant to cyanide but sensitive to DDT (which is actually not very toxic to humans, despite its reputation. SO, our notional superbugs may very well have their own non-obvious weakness (plain old oxygen, most likely...)
I am very much afraid that we live in interesting times.