Toxic-Waste Consuming Bacteria 143
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.
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
I bet you'd freak if you knew how much bacteria is living in your mouth right now, all (theoretically) capable of mutating into "The Evil Toxic Death Disease."
bacteria (Score:1)
Re:Thanks, informative (Score:1)
This bugs me... (Score:2)
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
Re:Hrm... (Score:1)
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
Good point. I also thought of another possibility after I hit "submit". :^)
What would happen if an extremely serious environmental catastrophy occurred? Like, for instance, several nuclear reactors in Russia blowing up at once, or a couple of massive oil spills in a single area (unlikely, but certainly possible). As a response, we dump tons of these bacteria on the affected area, and lo and behold! All life forms in the area die off, or something equivalently bad. And, bacteria being what they are and all, this devestation starts spreading as the bacteria population grows.
"Oops... sorry sir. These side-effects didn't show up in the testing phase."
Food for thought.
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
Insightful my ass. These special purpose bacteria are no more likely to mutate into something that adversely affects humans than the trillions upon trillions of bacteria that are currently within 20 feet of you. I bet you'd freak if you knew how much bacteria is living in your mouth right now, all (theoretically) capable of mutating into "The Evil Toxic Death Disease."
Tell ya what... I do know what kind of bacteria live in my mouth. I also happen to know the kind of bacteria are living in all our underpants. Add this to the fact that half the guys I see walk out of the men's room do so without washing their hands first, and man! That's freaky!
But you missed a very important point. All those icky bacteria have been around for a long time. Most of them have evolved into sort of a "steady-state". Our immune systems know how to handle them. Our immune systems could most likely even handle a slight mutation (if they didn't, you'd likely be killed off by the next cold virus to come around).
But, oh, these new bacteria... where the hell did they come from? Did they co-evolve with human beings and other creatures of the planet? Can we even think of what will happen if a slight variance in the gene sequence of these modified bacteria caused them to, say, enjoy living in our intestines or in our lungs? Will their taste for petroleum-based wastes expand to other areas, such as some obscure chemical in the lining of our cell walls? If you can answer those questions, please tell me. I'd like to know. :^)
pandora's box? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Hrm... (Score:2)
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.
If something goes wrong (Score:2)
Re:Hrm... (Score:1)
That's the same thought I had...
"For every research victory there is a corresponding increase in ignorance." - David Orr
--
Re:Oil Eating Bacteria (Score:1)
Read the story (Score:1)
Slashdot responds as usual (Score:2)
"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?
Re:Radioaction (Score:1)
No. Radioactivity is a an atomic-level property that is unaffected by chemical re-arrangement of said atoms.
The article actually says that "the superbug does not neutralize radioactivity in metals", but only after strongly implying the opposite. Poor writing.
-- Brian
Radioactive materials (Score:1)
-Chris
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
Radioactive waste?? (Score:1)
Wait a sec...how does a bug eat radioactive waste and make it inert? The atomic nuclei are still unstable; they'll still decay, releasing radiation; the best you can do is store it in some kind of glass and stick it somewhere where the gammas won't affect human beings. At least, I think that's the case. Can someone help me out here?
Radioactive waste eating Bacteria? (Score:2)
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.
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
Yes. Read the bloody article. The bacteria is believed to be two billion years old, but wasn't classified until 1956. It has been resistant to radiation like, forever.
Can we even think of what will happen if a slight variance in the gene sequence of these modified bacteria caused them to, say, enjoy living in our intestines or in our lungs?
Get a grip. Are you also afraid that grazing cows should get a hunger for human flesh and start rending people to shreds? The chances are just as great. These bacteria apparently resist mutations - that's what keeps them alive in all the radiation.
Will their taste for petroleum-based wastes expand to other areas, such as some obscure chemical in the lining of our cell walls? If you can answer those questions, please tell me. I'd like to know.
Bacteria doesn't talk, otherwise they could phone up some of the Streptococcus variants that already eat flesh.
Some people need to worry about real problems.
Re:Slashdot responds as usual (Score:1)
complains when bacteria is used to produce food. Why not get all fired up
over that?
Heh, actually, a lot of people have been complaining about that - as antibiotic resistant bacteria have arisen to make life more difficult for those trying to kill them.
We're going about it all wrong, from an evolutionary standpoint. It's much, much better for us in the long run to keep the bacteria weak and the weak humans dead. Of course, this won't happen, and because it hasn't happened, we will pay the consequences - we are breeding organisms that are more fit to exist in our biological niche than we are. Whee!
--
blue, host.
Re:Call me paranoid... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Bacteria poop? (Score:2)
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.
Bacteria poop? (Score:3)
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.
Re:The real problem (Score:2)
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". [islandone.org]
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?
Re:The real problem (Score:3)
Re:The real problem (Score:3)
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.
Re:The real problem (Score:1)
This has nothing to do with living better, more sustainable lives right now (unless you live next to Hanford, that is!). And it has nothing to do with removing or otherwise treating radioactivity.
Finally a topic in my specialty (Score:5)
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.
Re:Call me paranoid... (Score:1)
Radioaction (Score:1)
http://www.bombcar.com It's where it is at.
Re:Hrm... (Score:1)
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Re:Radioactive waste eating Bacteria? (Score:1)
Re:All nice and good, but (Score:1)
Re:Radioactive waste?? (Score:1)
Re:Not radioactive compounds, but toxic heavy meta (Score:1)
Re:Radioactive materials (Score:1)
Re:pandora's box? (Score:1)
Re:Playing God (Score:1)
Re:Bacteria poop? (Score:1)
Re:Playing God (Score:1)
Thanks, informative (Score:1)
Positive benefits.... (Score:1)
Re:Nuclear Waste (Score:2)
Call me paranoid... (Score:1)
i'm not trying to be fatalistic, but if someone decides that they CAN do something, where are the checks and balances to determine if they SHOULD (to paraphrase Jurassic Park)?
i like the idea of dropping a handful of bacterium into an oil spill to help clean it up... but again, what do the bacteria do AFTER they're done with the oil?
A. Chakrabarty (Score:4)
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.
Re:Radioactive waste eating Bacteria? (Score:1)
The US DOE has a huge problem; they need to clean up thousands of contaminated sites, all with significant radiation levels. Cleaning up the heavy metals and organo-chlorines is tough enough without the radiation hazard.
The brute-force-and-ignorance approach is to "scoop and bag", remove the contaminated soil and put it in a sealed landfill. This is enormously expensive.
Bio-remediation offers a partial solution. You clean up the organic compounds, mostly clenaing fluids very similar to dry-cleaning solvent, by breaking them down on site. Heavy metal clean-up involves changing the chemical form of the pollutant to something less toxic or easy to get out of the soil by washing. The microbes have no effect on radioactivity. You still need to remove the radiation hazards, it's just less (chemically) toxic after the bugs have chewed on it.
New strains of D. radiodurans have been engineered to do both jobs. In optimal conditions with a really good innoculum, microbial remediation can almost entirely destroy the pollutants. In poor conditions (cold, no food or water) or with the wrong bugs, very little may happen. Training innocula, as microbial cultures are called, for a specific pollutant is time consuming and difficult.
Kind Regards,
Re:The real problem (Score:1)
1) Can someone give a good quantitative value of the ammount of radioactive particles we spew into the air by burning fossil fuels every year. I remember hearing something on Discovery a long time ago and it was obscene.
2) Congrats to everyone who has posted on this story. This is some of the most focused, intelligent posting I've seen on
-Barry
All nice and good, but (Score:1)
Besides, I was under the impression that toxic/radioactive waste was often stored in solid state (ie. encased in glass, or as metals) - how is a bacteria going to deal with this? The article even says that they won't deal with metals.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little wary of throwing bioengineered bateria around, especially if they may not be addressing the real problem.
Plenty of life in rocks (Score:1)
The Deep Hot Biosphere [cornell.edu].
Re:Radioaction (Score:2)
Here's the abstract from the Nature article (Score:1)
ionic mercury. The high cost of remediating radioactive waste sites from nuclear weapons production
has stimulated the development of bioremediation strategies using Deinococcus radiodurans,
the most radiation resistant organism known. As a frequent constituent of these sites is the highly toxic
ionic mercury (Hg) (II), we have generated several D. radiodurans strains expressing the cloned Hg (II)
resistance gene (merA) from Escherichia coli strain BL308. We designed four different expression vectors
for this purpose, and compared the relative advantages of each. The strains were shown to grow in the
presence of both radiation and ionic mercury at concentrations well above those found in radioactive
waste sites, and to effectively reduce Hg (II) to the less toxic volatile elemental mercury. We also demonstrated
that different gene clusters could be used to engineer D. radiodurans for treatment of mixed
radioactive wastes by developing a strain to detoxify both mercury and toluene. These expression systems
could provide models to guide future D. radiodurans engineering efforts aimed at integrating several
remediation functions into a single host.
What the bacteria actually does is detoxify chemical species _in the presence of radioactive waste_ it does not turn radioactive isotopes into stable ones.
Re:Thanks, informative (Score:1)
> about is neutron emission (like from a fission
> decay). any other (ie gamma beta alpha)
> radiation cannot transmute other elements and
> therefore cannot make them radioactive. think
> food irradiation and microwave ovens, your
> coffee isnt radioactive after you pull it out of
> the microwave.
Microwave oven does not produce alpha/beta/gamma
radiation. It produces high frequency radiowaves
that heat water molecules in the food.
Re:Nuclear Waste (Score:2)
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.
Re:Playing God (Score:2)
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.
Bacteria, though important, are simple... (Score:1)
Simply, the genome of bacteria doesn't allow for genetic mutation to the point that an organism can so radically change from what has been created. At least, not in this sort of time span under current climate conditions (i.e., *not* primordial soup).
So, as long as those creating the bacteria are responsible enough to create them with a means of valid destruction, there's no problem.
These bacteria aren't simply going to decide that they can't be destroyed. They live, they do what they have to in order to gain energy, they die.
Re:Playing God (Score:3)
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.
Re:Playing God (Score:3)
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.
Re:Not radioactive compounds, but toxic heavy meta (Score:2)
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
Re:Now if they could only... (Score:2)
:)
Thimo
--
Old News (Score:1)
Bacteria and the Game of Life (Score:3)
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.
In truth... (Score:1)
After the Exxon Valdez disaster, bacteria moved in and started gobbling up all that oil. Soon other species in the food chain came along and began devouring them... and now that area is even richer in some respects than it was before.
Really, what was more catastrophic than the oil spill was the OIL CLEANUP. They sprayed hot water and detergent all over everything up there... both of which really helped to sterilize things. It was only something to make good PR, while in fact it HARMED the local ecosystem far worse than the oil spill.
Such is the way of most Greenpeacers and other Green groups... ignorant ranting and actions taken in matters that they know extremely little about.
-Rob Swenson
(Whose father is an environmental attorney that holds several special, additional certifications. One that only five people in the U.S. have obtained)
Finally! (Score:1)
Don't know if this is such a good idea (Score:1)
at a dairy farm, for example. Or maybe the
pipes that carry peanut butter in a candy bar
factory?
It would be IMPOSSIBLE to disinfect the
equipment. Resistant to radiation. Resistant to
heat. Resistant to harsh chemicals.
What if someone took this bug, merged it with
anthrax and dropped it over New York?
I'm not saying that this kind of research shouldn't be done, but think a little bit before
saying "kewl!"
Any Gene Transfer Problem/Headache? (Score:1)
I've heard the bacteria exchange their genes in extreme environment through sex pili as you can see here [snu.ac.kr]. IMHO, if we have lots of genetically engineered bacteria, the possibility that the modified gene go wild among lots of *other* bacteria goes high. This is one of my nightmare.
Now the bacteria supposed to be applied in very hash environment. Hence the higher possibility. Hence the higher danger. Right(or not)?
Does Anyone has the knowledge/experience of this issue?
Please return me my sleeps or, at least, a reasonable reason of my sleepless nights!
Toxic-waste consuming bacteria (Score:1)
Remember having to open up aircraft fuel tanks in SEA because bacteria were growing in the jet fuel and plugging up the works.
Radioactive neutralization. (Score:1)
Unfortunately, most of the materials that would do this are harmful to the poor little selves involved in this process, and it would take one heck of a tough bacteria to survive hanging out in a radioactive environment in the first place. (either that, or a continual supply of new bacteria)
I can just see them in the lab, mixing up the latest batch of plutonium, lead, and barley agar.
Not so science-fiction (Score:1)
These bacteria have been specifically genetically tailored to have a short lifespan. Lets say that genetic tailoring gets reversed in the wild by a couple of stray gamma rays. (they don't generally remove the genes, they just "switch them off")
Now we have a bacteria with a normal lifespan that feeds on petroleum and petroleum byproducts, feeding on an immense supply of food and multiplying at a normal logrithmic manner. It doesn't take much imagination to have a few of these little critters surviving to migrate to an area where they could start feeding on plastic bags and other things that get tossed onto our beaches.
It would be quite annoying to suddenly discover that a bacteria has been created that eats the plastic that we rely on to keep our food fresh, huh?
(This scenario provided to you by Larry Niven, actually, from the second Ringworld novel)
RR
Re:The real problem (Score:1)
Bart: Aw, cheer up, Dad. You make a great hippie.
Homer: Aw, you're just saying that.
Bart: No, really. You're lazy and self-righteous
Lisa:
Before you dismiss this as a troll or a flame, think about it. Twice.
Why discuss American diets and then mention your organic prefs? Is that really on topic. Your point is very well made with only the first and last paragraphs.
Re:The real problem (Score:2)
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.
Re:The real problem (Score:2)
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 [garynull.com]
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 real problem (Score:4)
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.
Re:Not radioactive compounds, but toxic heavy meta (Score:1)
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."
Way cool! Eventually we might learn enough to genetically alter ourselves and acquire similar resistance. Imagine cheap housing and public buildings built with radioactive waste instead of wood and steel. :-)
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Selection (Score:1)
I did some more research... (Score:1)
Campbell, Biology 4th ed. p. 417.
leaking ores (Score:1)
I somehow find it hard to believe that Uranium ore is significantly more resistant to water action than Gold is.
DB
Re:Call me paranoid... (Score:1)
The article should have dealt with this in more depth, especially given the current paranoia concerning bio-engineered food and cloning.
Re:bacteria (Score:1)
*applause*
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Re:Radioactive waste eating Bacteria? (Score:2)
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Re:Call me paranoid... (Score:2)
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Ever heard of pasteurization? (Score:2)
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Re:Nuclear Waste (Score:2)
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 [tms.org] 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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Re:Thanks, informative (Score:2)
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Did you mean radiation, or radioactivity? (Score:3)
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Re:Not radioactive compounds, but toxic heavy meta (Score:3)
- 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.--
Re:If they eat toxic waste what CAN kill them? (Score:3)
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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Re:Playing God (Score:4)
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Yum Yum! (Score:1)
It is possible to genetically engineer a carbon nased life form to consume what we humans deem to be toxic. It has been done over and over. Take for example that beer in your hand. Way back when, I mean WAY back (there are reports that beer is older than wine), the locals would take contamiated water and make beer out of it. The chamical process and yeast renders what ever foreign material in the water to be harmless to humans. Its also served as a good check - if you can make beer out of water, then the water should be fairly safe to drink.
Horseradish (Score:2)
The problem with implementation is that it's somewhat expensive to extract the compound.
Now if they could only... (Score:4)
The ___-eating Bacteria are all overrated (Score:1)
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waste broken down to easier to process pieces. (Score:2)
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!!
Just great! (Score:1)
Damn that gene that requires me to point these things out and damn that genome-mapping group of scientists for not finding and annhilating that gene.
Now how can I bio-engineer a solution to this? ...
Re:Radioactive neutralization. (Score:2)
Re:Radioactive waste eating Bacteria? (Score:2)
It transforms heavy metals into less toxic forms (i.e. less prone to be absorbed by living organisms.) Some of those heavy metals could be radioactive.
It is able to do the cleanup mentioned above, plus neutralizing organic toxins, in radioactive environments that would prevent other biological cleanup methods from working.
Not radioactive compounds, but toxic heavy metals (Score:5)
Playing God (Score:2)
Re:If they eat toxic waste what CAN kill them? (Score:2)
Re:Playing God (Score:2)