New "Nano-Wire" Bacteria Used to Clean Uranium

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14796579

A new bacteria, named Geobacter found that could have dramatic effects on the amounts of Uranium in our Earth, but for a good reason. Uranium is well known to be found naturally in the Earth, but often is not harmful due to its location lower in the ground. Due to excessive mining, Uranium is becoming more and more present in everyday lives. Since it is incredibly radioactive and can easily be strong enough to be lethal. The Geobacter, however, was found to reduce the amount of Uranium in the Earth. Using filaments that are all four nano-meters across each, producing a very large total surface area, the dissolved Uranium is precipitated outside of the bacteria. This process allows the now less soluble bacteria to be removed by sediments much easier than previously. These bacteria can be placed in places such as Chernobyl and can help to make its Uranium concentration decrease drastically. Now that three times as much Uranium can be collected, the Earth can start to recover from some of our human-induced harms, which very rarely occurs for us.