Arsenic-eating Ferns - Less Scary than Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Thursday, July 08 2010
Scientists at Purdue hope to create plants that can clean up soils and waters contaminated by arsenic.
The gene that allows plants to tolerate and accumulate lots of arsenic (100 to 1000 times the normal tolerance) compared with other plants has only recently been isolated.
Too bad the ferns aren't developed yet to help out with the BP oil spill, where arsenic is building up in the ocean. Hmm. I wonder if the invasive kudzu plant has the gene.
Category: Cool!
Topics: Plants, Ecology, Genetic Engineering
Scientists at Purdue hope to create plants that can clean up soils and waters contaminated by arsenic.
The gene that allows plants to tolerate and accumulate lots of arsenic (100 to 1000 times the normal tolerance) compared with other plants has only recently been isolated.
Too bad the ferns aren't developed yet to help out with the BP oil spill, where arsenic is building up in the ocean. Hmm. I wonder if the invasive kudzu plant has the gene.
Category: Cool!
Topics: Plants, Ecology, Genetic Engineering