3 ms·
If I remember right but I may not be I think I have read they found one that eats arsenic. I'm going to have to double check that though.
by X86BSD 10y ago
If I remember right but I may not be I think I have read they found one that eats arsenic. I'm going to have to double check that though.
- ars 10y agoArsenic is an element, you can eat it, but it's still there, just inside the bacteria. However different compounds of arsenic have different toxicity - elemental arsenic is most toxic, organic arsenic less so, so perhaps that's what they do - convert it to a less toxic form. Interestingly mercury is the opposite - elemental mercury isn't very toxic (because it's a metal and just doesn't absorb, it just stays as a clump of metal). But organic mercury is very toxic because the organic part makes it available to interfere with biological processes.