Waste uranium can apparently be recovered very cheaply from the polluted runoff from uranium mining using E. Coli and a phosphate storage molecule found in seeds, British researchers have found. They used the common bacteria with a chemical parallel of what is already found in agricultural waste: inositol phosphate.
Inositol phosphate is insoluble, so it forms a precipitate on the bacteria. The E. Coli then broke down the precipitate; releasing the phosphate molecules which then attached to uranium molecules to form uranium phosphate, which can then be harvested to recover the uranium.
What they have developed is a way for one contaminant to clean up another.
It has been assumed for most of the history of micro-biological science that such micro-organisms are purely “reflexive”; they simply respond and adapt to external stimuli (such as exposure to chemicals, heat stress, or drugs). But research over he past 2 years by two different scientific teams (a Princeton team lead by Saeed Tavazoie, and, a team from the Weizmann Institute in Israel) is shaking up present understanding and over-turning basic assumptions.
Drinking water poses a threat due to possible perchlorate contamination and BPA leaching from plastic, but it seems reasonable to assume that in the United States, bottled water is free from fecal matter. Yet until now, there were no requirements to test source water — 70% of which comes from the the same place as tap water.
Beginning December 1st, “bottled water containing E. coli will be considered adulterated,” says the US Food and Drug Administration. You don’t say? It doesn’t seem as though we’d need a press release to tell us that, but this is the FDA we’re talking about.
Researchers reported Monday that they have re-engineered a common bacteria to produce complex and energy-dense alcohols similar to the hydrocarbon compounds found in fuels such as gasoline. This is the first time these types of alcohols have been synthesized by bacteria (man-made or otherwise) in the lab.
E. coli is normally found in the guts of most warm-blooded animals (yes, even yours) and if you’ve had an encounter with it that you remember, chances are you spent the weekend on the toilet wishing you were dead. Yet, while it’s true that some strains of e. coli can cause food poisoning in humans, most are actually quite harmless.
Scientific American reports that like so many elements in the world, it’s all in the use and volume for whether that something, say poison or E. coli, is a friend or foe: “Escherichia coli (E. coli) can give you a severe case of food poisoning or, with a little genetic engineering, a useful plastic.”
San Diego-based scientists at Genomatica have developed the ability to manipulate bacteria into being useful to feed our societal lust for plastics, by producing “butanediol (BDO), a chemical compound used to make everything from spandex to car bumpers, thereby providing a more energy-efficient way of making it without oil or natural gas,” the article says.
This week from our friends at ZapRoot: The FDA needs to have their heads examined. We respond to the numerous Chinese comments. Explore the world through Google Earth’s Environment section.
Genomatica, a San Diego-based sustainable chemical company, announced today that it has developed a process to make an important component of plastic without the use of petrochemicals.
The chemical, 1,4-butanediol (BDO), has an annual production value of over $4 billion in the automotive, textile, and consumer goods industries.
Believe it or not, E. coli may actually be useful for something other than infecting spinach or beef, giving you a serious case of diarrhea, and initiating massive recalls of different food products. The waste of these reputedly nasty little bacteria can, in fact, be used as a source for biofuel. No…er, joke.
I am still waiting to hear back from a spokeswoman at the USDA to find out the answer to the question I posed last week: who is in charge of protecting us from crops affected by flood water? In the meantime, I got an alert from the Centers for Disease Control about contaminated water in Iowa. I can tell you, dear reader, that while you may not want to eat food grown along flooded riverbeds, you most definitely do not want to walk in that water, particularly if you have open sores or cuts on your feet and legs. Exposing a sore on your skin to contaminated water puts you at risk for a nasty infection.
