http://phys.org/news/2015-06-scientists-bacterium-uranium-immobile.htmlA strain of bacteria that "breathes" uranium may hold the key to cleaning up polluted groundwater at sites where uranium ore was processed to make nuclear weapons. A team of Rutgers University scientists and collaborators discovered the bacteria in soil at an old uranium ore mill in Rifle, Colorado, almost 200 miles west of Denver. The site is one of nine such mills in Colorado used during the heyday of nuclear weapons production. The research is part of a U.S. Department of Energy program to see if microorganisms can lock up uranium that leached into the soil years ago and now makes well water in the area unsafe to drink. The team's discovery, published in the April 2015 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS), is the first known instance where scientists have found a bacterium from a common class known as betaproteobacteria that breathes uranium. This bacterium can breathe either oxygen or uranium to drive the chemical reactions that provide life-giving energy. "After the newly discovered bacteria interact with uranium compounds in water, the uranium becomes immobile," said Lee Kerkhof, a professor of marine and coastal sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. "It is no longer dissolved in the groundwater and therefore can't contaminate drinking water brought to the surface."
