
Rare plants that ‘bleed’ nickel - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200825-indonesia-the-plants-that-mine-poisonous-metals
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curlyQueue
Mushrooms (and mycelium) can perform similar operations.

Some fungi can accumulate and translocate heavy metal ions and radioactive
isotopes out of a system by drawing them into their mycelia network, where
they eventually accumulate in the fruiting body (actual mushroom) and can be
removed.

These fungi also produce many metabolites which can increase the solubility of
certain metals via reduction, methylation, or dealkylation reactions with the
metals.

The mycelial network can also be used as a filter to bind to certain heavy
metal ions in contaminated water, where they eventually get chelated, adsorbed
and entrapped in the fungal fell wall. The company VTT Technical developed a
process and was able to recover 80% of the gold produced through the
processing of old cell phones and other electronic waste.

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totetsu
This is one of the core parts of world building of Miyazaki's 1980s Nausicaa
manga. A world mostly covered by a vast fungus that is accumulating all the
'bad' things scattered about by the last civilization and eventually making
inert sands.
[https://ekostoriesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/nausica...](https://ekostoriesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/nausicaa-
a-little-smarter.jpg)

~~~
vmception
Is that also featured in the anime movie?

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christkv
Yeah it’s central to the plot

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ComputerGuru
Sun Flower plants have been used for decades to remove radiation from soil,
and are a very important mitigation element in nuclear disaster cleanup. They
grow fast, leech a pretty good amount of radiation from the soil, are
incredibly cheap, and require little care.

~~~
dx87
That's pretty interesting. I remember in the orignal Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles movie they found sunflowers growing over a toxic spill, but I always
thought it was just to show that the spilled chemicals made things grow extra
large, but it turns out it was just a lazy attempt at a cleanup.

~~~
gshixman
Strangely enough, many years ago I read the following webcomic about something
similar:

[http://www.rhjunior.com/tales-of-the-
questor-0587/](http://www.rhjunior.com/tales-of-the-questor-0587/)

The story was about a racoon farmer trying to leech bauxite from the soil and
created a plant to do it.

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joe5150
This is super neat! Off-topic complaint about the text:

"Some nickel-loving species like Alyssum murale, native to Italy, can take up
to 30,000 micrograms of nickel per 1g dried leaf."

30,000 micrograms, also known as 30 milligrams?

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throwaway_pdp09
It's an unwelcome statistical spin but it's still ~3% by weight so not that
bad.

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dpflan
There was a discussion about such plants and phytomining for a post from a few
months ago. It got me more interesting in the topic. Here is the post from 6
months ago for the article and discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22457338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22457338)

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phkahler
Doesnt the use of these plants deplete the metals from the soil? How many
seasons can they be grown?

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HarryHirsch
They wouldn't mind having no nickel in the soil, what they do is segregate the
nickel into special vacuoles as a protection mechanism against the poisonous
metal.

~~~
justinclift
The parent posters point is that it the initial part of the story confusingly
paints this as a way to generate "crops" of the metal almost like general
farming.

But it's not mentioned for how long those metal bearing crops would
potentially grow. If it was only (say) 2 seasons, it doesn't seem worthwhile.
Conversely, if it would be (say) 200 years, that's a different story. :)

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peter_d_sherman
These plants, and other plants like this (plants that can suck up metals from
their soil/environment) could be very useful for a future Mars colony...

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ch4s3
They could be useful for soil remediation here on Earth as well.

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technotony
Yes, it's called 'biomining' and there have been several startups working to
engineer organisms to do this. eg Universal Biomining working on copper (with
bacteria) and a team at University of Washington who took an enzyme from rat's
livers and put it in a plant to remove VOC's from the air (successfully!)!

~~~
Zenst
Yes, rice growing is good for drawing out arsenic from the soil. Actually
measuring what tree's have drawn up from the ground has been used by those
looking for gold to access an area -
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213033-a-company-
has-u...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213033-a-company-has-used-
trees-to-find-gold-deep-underground-in-australia/)

