Add your Article
- Chemistry and Materials
- Cooking Up Superhard Diamonds
- The science of disappearing
- The Buzz about Caffeine
- E Learning Jamaica
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- GSAT Exam Preparation Jamaica
- How are students placed after passing the GSAT exam
- GSAT Scholarship
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- GSAT Exams Jamaica Scholarships
- 42,000 students will sit for the GSAT Exam in two weeks
- GSAT stars reap scholarship glory
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- GSAT Mathematics
- Monkeys Count
- 10 Common Mistakes When Preparing for the GSAT Math Test
- Math Naturals
- Parents
- Expert report highlights the importance to parents of reading to children!
- What Not to Say to Emerging Readers
- Children and Media
- Physics
- One ring around them all
- The Mirror Universe of Antimatter
- Strange Universe: The Stuff of Darkness
Toxic Cleanups Get a Microbe Boost
Published: 07/02/2010
Garbage can be a huge problem. It not only stinks and takes up space but also can be hazardous to your health. Toxic waste can seep into the soil and pollute the environment. Now, researchers from Cornell University have come up with a technique to help clean up toxic-waste sites. They think bacteria in the soil might help. The idea is to find microbes that naturally break down specific toxic chemicals. To test their strategy, the scientists went to a coal tar waste site belonging to a factory that once converted coal into gas. The waste included a chemical known as naphthalene, the main ingredient of moth balls. They marked a sample of naphthalene with a special atomic label so they could recognize it later and added it to the soil. The researchers wanted to find out if there were tiny microbes in the soil that could break down naphthalene on their own. So, they put glass jars on top of different patches of soil. If microbes were breaking down naphthalene, the jars would fill with carbon dioxide gas marked with the same label the scientists had used to mark the ingredient. That would show where in the soil the helpful bacteria lived. They could then look for those bacteria. The researchers now hope to find bacteria that break down cancer-causing pollutants in coal tar. If it works out, bacteria could become important helpers for cleaning up dangerous chemical messes .—E. Sohn
Toxic Cleanups Get a Microbe Boost
