. Earth Science News .
Biosensors To Probe The Metals Menace

Simple pond creatures are often more tolerant of metals than humans, who accumulate the toxins over a much longer period of time, leading to cancers, immune system breakdown, nerve or brain damage or other forms of poisoning.
by Staff Writers
Canberra, Australia (SPX) Aug 30, 2007
If the pond life goes star-shaped, you'd be wise not to drink the water. Researchers from CRC CARE are pioneering a world-first technology to warn people if their local water or air is contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals and metal-like substances.

Andrew McKay, a PhD student at CRC CARE and The University of Queensland, is studying the changes that take place in a unique water microbe when it is exposed to arsenic, cadmium and lead - industrial and natural contaminants around the world.

"Our goal is to develop a simple field test that can warn people or environmental authorities if dangerous levels of toxic metals or metalloids (metal-like substances such as arsenic) are present in the environment, to which they might be exposed," he explains.

The test could provide vital in helping to tackle one of the world's greatest disasters - the poisoning of tens of millions of people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, through naturally-occurring arsenic in their household well water.

"But countries such as Australia and New Zealand also have an arsenic problem from the tens of thousands of old sheep and cattle dips where arsenic was used for decades to control pests," Mr McKay said.

"In many cases these old dip sites have been forgotten and spreading urbanization has covered them.

"We also have numerous old gold mining sites where arsenic was once used, tailings dumps from almost any kind of metal mine and wetlands that were used to trap contaminated runoff."

Mr McKay said old factories which produced paint or batteries had left historical residues of lead in our inner city areas, while fertilizer plants and other industrial processes had deposited cadmium and other toxic metals.

"If toxic metals are present in the soil there is always a risk they will leach into drinking water, get into our food chain and reach infants and children," he said.

"As city land value increase due to demand, we need better ways to make sure the land is clean and safe to live and work on."

He said there was good progress in developing water organisms as an early warning tool for such contamination, especially where a mix of toxic contaminants is involved.

"We've found a number of readily-observable changes which take place in the organism when it is exposed to increased levels of toxic metals and metalloids," he said.

"Their growth and reproduction rates slow down and their shape changes - becoming star or V-shaped.

"And of course, at high levels of the toxins, they die."

These changes will enable scientists to use the pond creatures as living sensors - or biosensors - for toxic metal contamination.

The current research challenge, he says, is to use the organisms to develop a sensitive enough test to discern whether or not the level of contamination poses a risk to human health and life.

Simple pond creatures are often more tolerant of metals than humans, who accumulate the toxins over a much longer period of time, leading to cancers, immune system breakdown, nerve or brain damage or other forms of poisoning.

The research task now is to equate the symptoms observed in the microbes with levels of risk to humans and animals, and to package this as a cheap, simple test that can provide a quick answer in the field - rather than through long and expensive laboratory testing, Mr McKay said.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Research Australia
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Innovative Civil Engineering Application Promises Cleaner Waters
Blacksburg VA (SPX) Aug 29, 2007
Streams, lakes, and bays may soon be cleaner thanks to an innovative approach to managing stormwater runoff being developed at Virginia Tech and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A novel software application will help engineers and planners select the most efficient and site specific methods - called "Best Management Practices" (BMPs) - of controlling the amount of pollutants that enter the receiving waters through stormwater runoff.







  • Devastated New Orleans mourns Katrina dead two years on
  • NKorea searches for fugitives after floods: aid group
  • Death toll mounts as floods, heat wave batter US
  • Dean's death toll rises with new deaths in Mexico

  • Global warming will bring stronger storms, tornadoes: study
  • Flooding risk from global warming badly under-estimated: study
  • Greenhouse Gases Likely Drove Near-Record US Warmth In 2006
  • Corals And Climate Change

  • European Hot Spots And Fires Identified From Space
  • China Develops Beidou Satellite Monitoring System
  • DigitalGlobe Announces Launch Date For WorldView-1
  • Radar reveals vast medieval Cambodian city: study

  • OSU Sweet Biofuels Research Goes Down On The Farm
  • Grain Will Not Become Oil
  • Nigeria losing $14 billion a year in oil
  • Analysis: Venezuelan energy chief fined

  • Discovery Could Help Stop Malaria At Its Source - The Mosquito
  • Discovery May Help Defang Viruses
  • Nanoparticle Could Help Detect Many Diseases Early
  • Online gamers rehearse real-world epidemics

  • First Orchid Fossil Puts Showy Blooms At Some 80 Million Years Old
  • Bioengineers Devise Nanoscale System To Measure Cellular Forces
  • Social Parasites Of The Smaller Kind
  • The World's Oldest Bacteria

  • Biosensors To Probe The Metals Menace
  • Central Targets May Hinder Wider Waste Management Objectives
  • Innovative Civil Engineering Application Promises Cleaner Waters
  • Team Tracks Antibiotic Resistance From Swine Farms To Groundwater

  • Not All Risk Is Created Equal
  • Area Responsible For Self-Control Found In The Human Brain
  • Milestone In The Regeneration Of Brain Cells: Supportive Cells Generate New Nerve Cells
  • Gene Regulation, Not Just Genes, Is What Sets Humans Apart

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement