Microbes in Gowanus teach lessons on fighting industrial pollution

https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/microbes-brooklyn-superfund-site-teach-lessons-fighting-industrial-pollution

by eatonphil • 1 year ago

25 6 1 year ago

engineering.nyu.edu

Interesting story but so light on details, the linked PopSci and journal articles are more in depth. One thing that isn't clear is how exactly microbes remediate heavy metals, are they in a form that's no longer harmful? Cadmium is still cadmium after running it through some bacteria.

owenversteeg• 1 year ago

From what I can tell, the heavy metals are in some cases stressors to the microbes, which develop resistance mechanisms such as chelation. The chelated heavy metals are then both less dangerous and also easier to remove from the environment.

sharpshadow• 1 year ago

That are amazing numbers and pure entertainment that future biochemistry will rely on mutated microbes from dirty NYC sewers.

metalman• 1 year ago

keep in mind that there are many thousands of equaly and even much more poluted sites, with even more exotic conditions world wide, aaaand that brings me to my pet epocolypse theory, which involves something evolving with a voracious apetite for plastic, which of course all of these hyper poluted sites have in abundence

djohnston• 1 year ago

Why epocolpyse? Wouldn’t such an organism be doing us a big favour?

drekk• 1 year ago

We rely on plastic for quite a bit, such as sterile medical packaging. Not to mention all the existing plastic liners in important infrastructure. It would be incredibly disruptive

Microbes in Gowanus teach lessons on fighting industrial pollution

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