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Interesting story but so light on details, the linked PopSci and journal articles are more in depth. One thing that isn't clear is how exactly microbes remediate heavy metals, are they in a form that's no longer harmful? Cadmium is still cadmium after running it through some bacteria.
From what I can tell, the heavy metals are in some cases stressors to the microbes, which develop resistance mechanisms such as chelation. The chelated heavy metals are then both less dangerous and also easier to remove from the environment.
That are amazing numbers and pure entertainment that future biochemistry will rely on mutated microbes from dirty NYC sewers.
keep in mind that there are many thousands of equaly and even much more poluted sites, with even more exotic conditions world wide, aaaand that brings me to my pet epocolypse theory, which involves something evolving with a voracious apetite for plastic, which of course all of these hyper poluted sites have in abundence
Why epocolpyse? Wouldn’t such an organism be doing us a big favour?
We rely on plastic for quite a bit, such as sterile medical packaging. Not to mention all the existing plastic liners in important infrastructure. It would be incredibly disruptive
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