All articles tagged with #bioremediation
Researchers studying water in the flooded former Wismut Schlema-Alberoda uranium mine in Germany found microbes that, with glycerol as a carbon source, convert dissolved uranium into a stable pentavalent compound FeU(V)O4, reducing dissolved uranium by about 95% after 130 days. This points to a potential bioremediation approach for radioactive waters, though more work is needed to understand how to apply it broadly.
Synthetic biologists are engineering bacteria to digest pollutants—from oil and nitroaromatic compounds to plastics—aiming to turn waste into resources and cleanse air, water and soil, though safety concerns and funding hurdles still limit deployment.
Scientists have discovered that specific gut microbes can naturally absorb and eliminate up to 74% of PFAS chemicals from the human body, especially long-chain variants, through a mechanism that involves pumping toxins out of cells. This finding could lead to probiotic treatments for PFAS removal, offering a less invasive alternative to current methods, though the broader issue of PFAS contamination remains critical.
Scientists at Brandon University discovered that waxworms, the larvae of the greater wax moth, can break down plastics like polyethylene and store the degraded material as body fat, offering a potential biological solution to plastic waste management, though a diet solely of plastic harms the caterpillars' health.