ONE of the most harmful and persistent families of pollutants, dioxins, may have a formidable foe: a bacterium that digests them.
It is the first time anyone has isolated a pure strain of bacterium that is capable of breaking down dioxins, says Michael Bunge at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. The strain could eventually be used to clean up contaminated sites that can’t be treated with existing techniques.
Dioxins are well known to be carcinogenic, but they also play havoc with the developing immune and nervous systems of children. They are a by-product of industrial processes such as incineration, paper…
