MERCURY pollution in the north-eastern US is much more pervasive than scientists had realised. The discovery of high levels of the most toxic form of mercury in a mountain songbird has stunned scientists and will heat up the spat between environmentalists and the Bush administration over how best to control smokestack emissions.
Terrestrial ecosystems, such as that of the Bicknell thrush, were not thought to be affected by mercury fallout from coal-fired power stations. Researchers believed an aquatic bacterium was needed to convert mercury from power plants into its most harmful form, methyl mercury. This then passes up the aquatic…
