
A tree that bleeds metal - funkylexoo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45398434
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Iem3ohvi
> Dr Antony van der Ent

Nominative determinism strikes again

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kaiby
reference from wikipedia[0]: Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that
people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism)

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DoreenMichele
Excerpt:

 _some scientists are hopeful that hyperaccumulators could be used to "clean"
soil where there has been a build-up of toxic material due to human activity.

Other potential applications include phytomining - growing hyperaccumulator
plants on nutrient-poor but metal-rich soils to extract the elements they take
up._

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willyt
They could mine contaminants from the WW! battlefields in the Zone Rouge.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge)

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kazinator
> _They think it may use the nickel to defend against insects._

Wood(en) nickel!

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sp332
Here's an informative and entertaining video that explains how the synchrotron
light source works and how they use it to image things other tools can't.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028723)

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jeletonskelly
It's pretty metal to bleed metal

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kazinator
It's pretty normal to bleed metal, since blood has iron.

Also, chlorophyll (what makes plants green) contains magnesium , which is a
metal. "Mag wheels" are named after magnesium.

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vanderZwan
It's pretty metal to bleed heavy metal?

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vlehto
Yeah it would be for the short time you manage to do that.

"The term heavy metal refers to any metallic chemical element that has a
relatively high density and _is toxic or poisonous at low concentrations._
Examples of heavy metals include mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As),
chromium (Cr), thallium (Tl), and lead (Pb).

Read more: [https://www.lenntech.com/processes/heavy/heavy-
metals/heavy-...](https://www.lenntech.com/processes/heavy/heavy-metals/heavy-
metals.htm#ixzz5QJsjcY3f)

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peterlk
Why does no one ever talk about these with respect to Mars? It seems like a
research-worthy pursuit to see if we can engineer plants (bacteria?) like this
to modify the climate of Mars, or to make artificial superstructures self-
sustaining.

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overcast
Shouldn't it be a research-worthy pursuit to modify(fix) the climate of the
planet we're already living on? I'm not sure what attempting to live on a
desolate planet is going to do for us. Say we turn it into another Earth, now
what? We ruin that one too?

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UnpossibleJim
We should research stabilizing our climate. Absolutely. But while we are at
it, it would also be in our interest to make humans a multiplanet species, in
order to protect us from a global extinction threat that isn't man made, as
well. Super volcanoes, calderas (pretty much the same, I know), large meteor
strikes.... none of these have anything to do with man made pollutants, and
survival of the species is kind of a neat little concept, in my opinion =)
Granted, we would probably become a new species in several thousand years,
once we were off planet, due to the radiation and gravity differences, but
hopefully the problem solving and intelligences would remain.

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mr_overalls
Imagine doing a little genetic tinkering to produce a tree that bleeds gold or
platinum.

Although I _am_ wondering if the three could incorporate enough metal to make
increased lightning strikes a survival issue.

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lawlessone
Just googling and that is exactly what some scientists are trying to do.

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Nursie
_" Pycnandra acuminata is a large (up to 20m tall) rare rainforest tree,
restricted to remaining patches of rainforest in New Caledonia," says Dr
Antony van der Ent_

If ever there was an appropriate name for a tree researcher!

This sounds like it could have multiple potential uses, if we can figure it
out, and maybe if we can genericise it - Nickel is toxic, but its far from the
only metal contaminant . If this could be adapted to, for instance, help
process landfill sites, that could be big news.

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kaffeemitsahne
Could this result in differently coloured amber? I found this [1], but it
seems the colouration is due to a different mechanism not involving metals.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_amber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_amber)

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loa-in-backup
> Other potential applications include phytomining - growing hyperaccumulator
> plants on nutrient-poor but metal-rich soils to extract the elements they
> take up.

Why nutrient-poor? Isn't it enough for them to extract metal?

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biohax2015
Nutrient here means phosphorous and nitrogen, the main non-carbon elements
that plants need to survive.

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ginko
So is this actually metallic nickel or just nickel ions?

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Engineering-MD
It’s not clear but I would hazard that it’s ions, as it would likely
precipitate out of suspension otherwise. Also, as an ion it’s more likely to
have a biological effect.

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lawlessone
>Its latex has an unusual blue-green colour as it contains up to 25% nickel.

That's insane

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coherentpony
Humans bleed metal too; there's iron in haemoglobin.

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Retric
It's a different scale. Human blood is well under 0.08% iron, this tree has
25% nickel. So over 300x as concentrated.

PS: 4 grams of iron in a persons body, ~5kg of blood.

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13of40
The hemoglobin molecule itself only has something like one iron atom per 1000
non-iron atoms.

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Retric
Yea it's: C2952 H4664 O832 N812 S8 Fe4 so 2315:1.

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samirm
Fascinating. Thanks.

