Re: Phyto-mining

From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Thu Jun 22 2000 - 12:03:33 MDT


From: "altamira" <altamira@ecpi.com>

>http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm

>USDA Agrucultural Research News

>First 3 paragraphs:

>Miners might have been better off farming plants rather than
>digging pits for high-grade ores.

>U.S. Department of Agriculture agronomist Rufus L. Chaney and
>colleagues in USDA's Agricultural Research Service, at the
>University of Maryland, and in England have patented a way to use
>plants to "phyto-mine" nickel, cobalt and other metals.

>Phyto-mining, or biomining, is the use of plants to extract
>valuable heavy-metal minerals from soils.

I first heard of a member of a group called the Bioneers doing this
a number of years ago. The person involved was actually an artist
and used this to "bioremediate" an area that was a former battery
dump.

Bonnie I think you would like these folks....

www.bioneers.org

Brian

Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Adler Planetarium www.adlerplanetarium.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Mars Society, www.marssociety.org
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W



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