Now for a little good news: Some seaweeds metabolize TNT.

[NNadir]

"
SEAWEED SUPPER Red tropical seaweed actively removes TNT from ocean water in laboratory experiments.
COURTESY OF GREG RORRER

Certain seaweeds can efficiently take up TNT in coastal areas, providing a new twist to phytoremediation--the practice of using plants to remove pollutants from the environment. The finding was reported last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Some coastal training ranges may contain TNT from unexploded munitions...

...Red tropical, as well as green and red algae from temperate regions, take up TNT five to 10 times faster than other aquatic plants.

The seaweeds also metabolize TNT. Rorrer and graduate student Octavio Cruz-Uribe, along with Donald P. Cheney at Northeastern University, have shown that a nitroreductase within the algal cells reduces one of TNT's nitro groups to an amine...

From the Feb 28 issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i09/8309notw7.html

[hatrack]

1. Interesting!

I'd heard of various algae able to metabolize this or that toxin, but didn't realize that it was possible with seaweeds. Cool!

[jpak]

2. Bacteria also metabolize TNT and have been used

in the bioremediation of contaminated groundwater...

www.engg.ksu.edu/HSRC/97abstracts/p31.html

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct99/940452802.Mi.r.html

www.serdp.org/research/CU/CU-1212.pdf

www.nitrate.com/tnt2.htm