How tiny organisms make a big impact on clean water

Nearly every body of water, from a puddle or a pond to a vast ocean, contains microscopic organisms that live attached to rocks, plants, and animals. These so-called sessile suspension feeders are critical to aquatic ecosystems ...

Microbes that immobilize

Using a model organism isolated from a uranium seep of the Columbia River, scientists recently quantified how extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in subsurface environments can be used to immobilize heavy metal and radionuclide ...

Study of phytoremediation benefits of 86 indoor plants published

Formaldehyde is a major contaminant of indoor air, originating from particle board, carpet, window coverings, paper products, tobacco smoke, and other sources. Indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde ...

The dark side of spring? Pollution in our melting snow

With birds chirping and temperatures warming, spring is finally in the air. But for University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) environmental chemist Torsten Meyer, springtime has a dark side.

Detecting caesium with naked eyes

Radioactive caesium 137 has a half-life of 30.17 years, and its accumulation in organisms in exposed regions, such as around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, amplifies the hazard it poses. A new material reported by researchers ...

Removing hazardous substances from the air

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are carbon-based compounds, many of which are hazardous to humans' health. EU-funded researchers coordinated efforts to apply nanotechnology to the capture and sequestration of these compounds.

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