ORNL research reveals new challenges for mercury cleanup

[OKIsItJustMe]

(News release from US Federal lab. Copyright concerns are nil.)

http://www.ornl.gov/ornl/news/news-releases/2013/ornl-research-reveals-new-challenges-for-mercury-cleanup

[font face=Serif]Media Contact: Jennifer Brouner
Communications and Media Relations
865.241.0709

[font size=5]ORNL research reveals new challenges for mercury cleanup[/font]

[font size=3] OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 5, 2013 — More forms of mercury can be converted to deadly methylmercury than previously thought, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience. The discovery provides scientists with another piece of the mercury puzzle, bringing them one step closer to understanding the challenges associated with mercury cleanup.

Earlier this year, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovered two key genes that are essential for microbes to convert oxidized mercury to methylmercury, a neurotoxin that can penetrate skin and at high doses affect brain and muscle tissue, causing paralysis and brain damage.

The discovery of how methylmercury is formed answered a question that had stumped scientists for decades, and the findings published this week build on that breakthrough.

Most mercury researchers have believed that microbes could not convert elemental mercury -- which is volatile and relatively inert -- into methylmercury. Instead of becoming more toxic, they reasoned that elemental mercury would bubble out of water and dissipate. That offered a solution for oxidized mercury, which dissolves in water. By converting oxidized mercury into elemental mercury, they hoped to eliminate the threat of methylmercury contamination in water systems.

ORNL’s study and a parallel study reported by Rutgers University, however, suggest that elemental mercury is also susceptible to bacterial manipulation, a finding that makes environmental cleanup more challenging.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1894

[wtmusic]

1. Dartmouth researcher Karen Wetterhahn spilled a few drops of dimethyl mercury on a protective glove

and died a year later of liver failure. It's nasty shit.

"Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove. On August 14, 1996, Wetterhahn was studying the way mercury ions interact with DNA repair proteins, and was using dimethylmercury as a standard reference material for 199Hg NMR measurements. Dimethylmercury is a synthetic compound used almost exclusively as a reference standard in a particular type of specialized chemical analysis. Wetterhahn was investigating the toxic properties of another highly toxic heavy metal, cadmium, and was using dimethylmercury as a point of reference.

The accidental spill occurred on August 14, 1996, but symptoms of her mercury poisoning were not detected until six months later, by which time the poisoning was irreversible. Wetterhahn suddenly became very ill in January 1997 and was hospitalized; she then went into a coma which lasted until June, at which point she was taken off life support and died."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

[bananas]

2. Oak Ridge is contaminated with mercury from nuclear weapons production. nt