"Bioremediation."

[crystal sage]

This is a relief!!!!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/175015_bugs26.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...;type=printable

Scientists are experimenting with some unusual species of bacteria that can thrive by cleaning up radioactive wastes left over from the Cold War when nuclear weapons plants across the country were running full blast.

The problem exists wherever uranium has been mined, processed and made into nuclear bombs. Almost 500 billion gallons of groundwater -- enough to supply 1. 5 million homes for a year -- remain contaminated with uranium and other toxic chemicals in 36 states, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates.

Another 800 million gallons of waste from uranium mines and weapons plants lie buried in landfills, trenches and unlined tanks. More than 2 billion cubic feet of contaminated sediments remain to be cleaned -- a mountain of radioactive and toxic dirt 2,000 times larger than Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza.

For many years, scientists have known about the unusual appetites of some microbes, including the ability of certain strains to consume uranium and other deadly poisons. Now researchers are starting to exploit that ability as a way to clean up nuclear sites, a process called "bioremediation."

[crystal sage]

the miracle of nature!!!!

'Mother Earth' cleaning up after it's messy children!!!!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-...ic-feeder_x.htm

Microbiologist Frank Loeffler said the bacterium, known as BAV1, was found in soil samples 20 feet down at a hazardous waste site in Oscoda, Mich. BAV1 flourishes in the packed earth where there is no oxygen, feeding off certain toxic compounds, he said.

Other microbes that eat toxic waste have been discovered over the years and are used in some limited fashion to clean up contaminated sites. However, this is the first one found that thrives on vinyl chloride underground.

Vinyl chloride is one of the most common and hazardous industrial chemicals. It can linger in the soil for hundreds of years and is present at about a third of the toxic Superfund sites listed by the Environmental Protection Agency. It usually accumulates as a deteriorated form of more complex compounds found in dry cleaning fluid and metal cleansers.

Brief contact with vinyl chloride can cause dizziness, drowsiness and headaches. Long-term exposure can raise the risk of a rare form of liver cancer, according to the EPA.

http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=3008

Scientists thought that most of the microorganisms surviving in such heavily polluted sediments would be specialists adapted to living off contaminants. Instead, sediment samples show a wide diversity of organisms.

Given the level of contamination, researchers also speculated that there might be fewer organisms in the sediments than in clean sediments. Results thus far show that the sediments are teeming with life: There are about 10 times as many bacteria per ounce of sediment as there are humans on Earth. The numbers found in some of the contaminated sediments have even surpassed those found in samples taken from some clean sites.

It's important to learn more about the conditions under which these organisms function in marine sediments, Deming says. For example, it's encouraging to know that an oxygen-starved environment does not halt the natural cleaning-activities because humans create such environments when they put layers of clean fill over contaminated sediments.

[crystal sage]

Extremophile are microbes that can survive 15 times the radiation that humans can. They thrive in witches brews of toxic chemicals - eat the toxins, and excrete relatively harmless components. Plans are to breed these charming little devils to clean up nuclear waste and other pollutants.

One extremophile called "Super Conan" lives in a petri dish at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a U.S. military research facility in Bethesda, Md.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread98728/pg1

Scientists Seek Indestructible Bugs To Eat Nuclear Waste

Scientists Envision New Role For Sturdy Bacteria Breed; Creating 'Super Conan'

SAVANNAH RIVER SITE, S.C. (Nov. 16) - Eight years ago, scientists using a metal rod here to probe the radioactive depths of a nuclear-waste tank saw something that shocked them: a slimy, transparent substance growing on the end of the rod.

They took the specimen into a concrete-lined vault where technicians peered through a 3-foot-thick window and, using robot arms, smeared a bit of the specimen into a petri dish. Inside the dish they later found a colony of strange orange bacteria swimming around. The bacteria had adapted to 15 times the dose of radiation that it takes to kill a human being. They lived in what one scientific paper calls a "witches' brew" of toxic chemicals.

It was a step forward for the U.S. Department of Energy, which has been looking for a few good bugs -- in particular, members of an emerging family of microbes that scientists call "extremophiles." These microbes can survive in some of Earth's most inhospitable environments, withstanding enormous doses of radiation, thriving at temperatures above boiling, and mingling with toxic chemicals that would kill almost anything else.

[crystal sage]

Extremophiles.... and halophiles

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6713279.html

"We were very fortunate to hire someone who is widely considered the world's best halophile investigator," says COMB Director Yonathan Zohar. "Shil and his laboratory group put COMB more firmly at the forefront of extremophile sciences."

http://www.umbi.umd.edu/nande/news/archive...2_dassarma.html

Edited May 31, 2007 by crystal sage

[SeaMare]

Extremely interesting, CrystalSage, great posts. Keep them coming!

[Under the surface]

Magnetism can be used to improve bioremediation. Look up biomagnetic bioremediation or unipolar bioremediation on a search engine.

Edited June 4, 2007 by Under the surface

[crystal sage]

Magnetism can be used to improve bioremediation. Look up biomagnetic bioremediation or unipolar bioremediation on a search engine.

Or perhaps by using this 'crop circle' technology of microwaves.....

http://www.bltresearch.com/plantab.html

The more positive plant changes--enhanced growth rate, increased yield & increased stress tolerance--observed in the laboratory in seedlings grown from cropcircle plants which were mature when the crop circles occured, have also been replicated in the laboratory. In 1998 W.C. Levengood and John Burke obtained a patent (Patent #5740627) on equipment they developed which delivers unusual electrical pulses to normal seed. Called the MIR process and carrying the registered Trademark "Stressguard," this equipment creates organized electron-ion avalanches which then form organized plasmas, to which seeds are exposed.

Corn, tomato, carrot and many other seeds will, after exposure to the MIR "Stressguard" process, show increased seedling growth-rate and accelerated maturity, increased yield (25-35%), and a substantial improvement in ability to withstand typical plant "stressors" (lack of water and/or sunlight). Numerous field trials with a wide variety of seed have substantiated these results and a commercial application is being sought.

The ability to replicate in the laboratory many of the changes documented in cropcircle plants is a strong indicator that the energies utilized in the lab are also involved as causative mechanisms in the field. In the field the major question is where are these plasma systems originating, and why?

http://www.proseedtech.com/

[crystal sage]

http://www.scienceandthesea.org/index.php?...3&Itemid=10

In the midst of the disaster, though, scientists tried an interesting way to clean up the beaches: In essence, they let Mother Nature do it.The technique is called bioremediation. It takes advantage of the fact that Nature provides organisms that'll eat just about anything-including oil.

The oceans and coastlines are home to species of bacteria and other organisms that gobble up hydrocarbons. They break them down into fairly innocuous substances like water and carbon dioxide.

In the Exxon Valdez case, researchers added fertilizer to long stretches of beach. That helped the bacteria do a more efficient job of removing the oil. These efforts produced cleaner beaches -- and highlighted another tool in the arsenal for cleaning spins.

Is this like phage technology for human diseases..toxins????

http://www.biospectrumindia.com/content/movers/10407131.asp

Despite Dr Ramachandran's wide and varied experience in research on antibiotics and bacterial infection, phages were totally new to him. This set his mind racing on the possibilities for breakthrough research on phages. Having dealt with bacterial infections in the pharma research industry, he was suddenly hopeful that the solution lay in phages.

An Idea that Paid Off