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Bacteria That Can Help Find Land Mines
- jfarlow 10y agoThe various compounds released by the (organic (containing carbon)) explosives can be metabolized by bacteria. And bacterial metabolism is often linked to sensors within the bacteria already - so that the machinery for metabolizing X isn't actually produced unless the bacteria can sense X in its environment. If we find a bacteria that already has this system, we can commandeer it so that upon sensing TNT/DNT/Nitrates it produces a reporter (color, it moves, another sense-able chemical) instead of or along with the enzymes used to metabolize those explosive materials. A list of tested analytes and reporters: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/table/T1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/table/T... And a very basic diagram: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/figure/F1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/figure/... And images of what the bacteria look like when 'turned on' by TNT, DNT, or nitrates: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/figure/F1/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/figure/... [From the paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625088/ ]
- dazhbog 10y agoArticle with no paywall http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bacteria-that-can-help-find-land-mines-1492786346 http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the...