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This is the most outstanding thing I have seen all year!

That is quite cool. Lets start putting up more Nuclear power plants and give these guys something to eat and give us some cheap energy.

I love SEM photos :)

thats really awesome, so the practical uses are pretty much all eliminating radioactive pollution i guess?

It's not exactly "eliminating" the pollution, but the bacteria are certainly making it more manageable by converting it from a dissolved to a solid form. There isn't any biological pathway, that I know of, anyway, that can eliminate radioactive isotopes.

Mirror if needed:http://www.picsyard.info/static/_Bacteria_Eating_U ...

nom nom nom

How cool!

Apparently, these little buggers enable the metabolism of soluble radioactive contaminants into insoluble harmless forms. That really is an incredible capability that would help with the concern about the use of nuclear power in the US as one of the ways to get us off the teat of foreign oil.

But...don't worry...the anti-nuke crowd will come up with something of concern and block efforts to use the technology and in the end, this will never be adopted.

Uranium eating bacteria would be more useful, imo.

Although I have to admit, I didn't know uranium could eat anything!

It's amazing to think that we are so worried about what might happen if Uranium gets loose, bacteria truly is the greatest living creature on this earth.

then they infect poor unsuspecting lab worker, and ... jeez... here we go again with another superhero

I, for one, welcome our uranium eating overlords.

I can't imagine the smell of Uranium compost...

Why don't we just have superman throw our uranium into the sun?

Yellowcake!

looks like some dank

Uranium is the most delicious element ever :P

Step 1: Build nuclear power plant in the middle of nowhere Nevada, one mile underground.
Step 2: Use bacteria to take care of waste
Step 3: Wait, that would mean cheap energy for our peons... CANCEL STEP ONE! ABORT! ABORT!!!!!

Uranium? I barely even know 'im!

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

I could see this going down the same road as Stan Meyer (created the water powered car...needed to be stopped and was poisoned)

What do they eat when they run out of uranium?

That's one weird bud.

That's what the teenage mutant ninja turtles looked like as infants.

Turtle and a half shell, Nuclear Power!

Science is cool.

Huh, I thought Uranium would be more "glowy".

Uranium is an element, "Elements cannot be reduced to simpler substances by normal chemical means." http://www.answers.com/element&r=67
So unless this bacteria can smash atoms it can't break down Uranium.
Its a fundamental principle of chemistry. Think before you bury

This gives being "green" a new literal meaning

I don't know if I trust this stuff enough to be putting it in the water but using it to combat radioactive waste is pretty cool. I just think we need to keep it away from the water supply until we know everything that there is about it and then some.
My 2¢

its still radioactive you tards

That thing looks cool

It's kinda cool to think that an organism could utilize the energy from radioactive materials. It has implications for how long the organism could benefit from a few atoms of this . . . conceivably for years, centuries. What a great science fiction concept. Combine radio active materials into human cells and you could live without oxygen for long periods of time, or with out energy source foods.

Cooooool.

This doesn't mean it isn't radioactive anymore, it's just as dangerous.

now we need radioactive bacteria eating mites to eat them, radioactive mite eating bugs, radioactive bug eating birds which ***** pure uranium again.

i was a bit worried that by looking at the image people in my office might think i was lookin at some choice buds.

I was like "Bacteria eating Uranium"!!....title should be Uranium eating Bacteria.

Schwenella is another bacteria being looked into as a candidate for uranium site cleanup. Stuff has been known to eat the iron in oil pipelines.

It would be more accurate to say that these bacteria "breathe" uranium by using it as a terminal electron receptor.I think. It's also possible they're reducing sulfur compounds (which is very similar to oxygen) and making the uranium precipitate as uranium sulfide.

Organisms like this usually don't grow very well because there's nothing quite like oxidizing organic compounds all the way down with oxygen to produce a lot of electrons for oxidative phosphorylation.