Bioremediation
Bioremediation and Events that Embraced It
As the Earth continues to add in population and new industries and technologies advance the way human live on the planet, the natural resources are quickly becoming unavailable or worse, contaminated. Theories like global warming have led many non-government organizations (NGOs) to establish environment movements to save the planet. It is their belief that if society as a whole does not take the necessary steps to reverse the damage caused on earth, Earth will no longer be sustainable for life – and the life as we know it will cease to exist.
Many feel an impending doom and that society has crossed the line of no return, but many do not know the power of nature – particularly the fact that the world is populated with immeasurable amounts of microbes, like fungi and bacteria. Moreover, it’s microbes like these that are able to live in conditions that humans cannot. Fungi and bacteria can be trained to eat contaminants such as PCV’s and radionuclides.
There have been many global catastrophes that have led to the invention of using microbes to rid contamination or prevent massive disasters. Some events that benefitted from bioremediation have been the chemical spill in the Love Canal, the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, and the Exxon oil spill. The use of fungi and bacteria were instrumental in reducing the effects of these disasters. In order to understand their ability of detoxification, it is important to understand how they work in these situations, particularly in areas of the world where pollution and contamination continues to grow without government regulation. While humans can be seen as the superior race and the most sophisticated organism on Earth, the fact is that microorganisms have lived on this Earth far longer than humans, and their evolution has been equally great to mankind. When atmospheric conditions are intolerable for any other life form, it was microorganisms
As the Earth continues to add in population and new industries and technologies advance the way human live on the planet, the natural resources are quickly becoming unavailable or worse, contaminated. Theories like global warming have led many non-government organizations (NGOs) to establish environment movements to save the planet. It is their belief that if society as a whole does not take the necessary steps to reverse the damage caused on earth, Earth will no longer be sustainable for life – and the life as we know it will cease to exist.
Many feel an impending doom and that society has crossed the line of no return, but many do not know the power of nature – particularly the fact that the world is populated with immeasurable amounts of microbes, like fungi and bacteria. Moreover, it’s microbes like these that are able to live in conditions that humans cannot. Fungi and bacteria can be trained to eat contaminants such as PCV’s and radionuclides.
There have been many global catastrophes that have led to the invention of using microbes to rid contamination or prevent massive disasters. Some events that benefitted from bioremediation have been the chemical spill in the Love Canal, the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl, and the Exxon oil spill. The use of fungi and bacteria were instrumental in reducing the effects of these disasters. In order to understand their ability of detoxification, it is important to understand how they work in these situations, particularly in areas of the world where pollution and contamination continues to grow without government regulation. While humans can be seen as the superior race and the most sophisticated organism on Earth, the fact is that microorganisms have lived on this Earth far longer than humans, and their evolution has been equally great to mankind. When atmospheric conditions are intolerable for any other life form, it was microorganisms
References: Bragg, James R., Roger C. Prince, E. James Harner, and Ronald M. Atlas. "Effectiveness of Bioremediation for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill." Nature 368.6470 (1994): 413-18 Cooney, Catherine. "Sunflowers Remove Radionuclides from Water in Ongoing Phytoremediation Field Tests." Environmental Science & Technology 30.5 (1996): 194A Dighton, John, Tatyana Tugay, and Nelli Zhdanova. "Fungi and Ionizing Radiation from Radionuclides." FEMS Microbiology Letters 281.2 (2008): 109-20 Indigenous Bacteria in Cleaning the Spill. Meanwhile, Efforts Are under Way to Enlist New Genomic Technologies to Improve Outcomes." Nature Biotechnology 29.2 (2011): Singh, Ajay, and Owen P. Ward. Applied Bioremediation and Phytoremediation. Berlin: Springer, 2004