Mount Everest Contaminated

Though climbing Mount Everest has always been potentially dangerous for your health, now even the snow is toxic, report researchers of the University of Southern Maine. While still a chemistry student, hiker Bill Yeo conducted the survey by collecting samples as he climbed most of the way up Everest. In the journal Soil Survey Horizons, he and his professor Samantha Langley-Turnbaugh report that the higher Yeo climbed, the more contamination he encountered, indicating wind-driven pollution from industrialization in Asia is to blame.

Between 17,500 and 25,400 feet in elevation, the snow and soil samples they tested exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's tolerance levels for both arsenic and cadmium.

"Arsenic is associated with bladder, skin, and kidney cancer, while cadmium is linked to lung and prostate cancer through the ingestion of contaminated food and water. Both are the by-products of fossil fuel combustion," reports the Soil Science Society of America.

Though there is no indication as of yet that the toxic metals are finding their way down the mountain and into local drinking water, one-tenth of the world’s population relies on mountain snowpack as their sole source of fresh water, according to the press release for the study. 

"Understanding the amount of pollutants in soil and snow is critical to maintaining the quality of alpine water sources," the scientists report.

For now, hikers in the Himalayas are advised not to drink melted snow at altitudes.

 by "environment clean generations"

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Posted in: everest,food,pollutants,toxic,water

Enviropig: A Bioengineered Pig

Fresher Water Elevated phosphorus levels in water, often traceable to pig-waste runoff, are a major contributor to algal blooms that steal oxygen from fish and render drinking water toxic. This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. And this little piggy is genetically modified to poop less phosphorus, making it the most environmentally friendly pig in the world.

Like all animals, pigs' cells need phosphorus to make DNA, build cell membranes, and transport energy. But pigs can’t digest phytate, a phosphorus-heavy molecule in grains, so farmers fortify pig feed with pure phosphate or phytase, an enzyme that breaks usable phosphate off phytate. Still, pigs excrete nearly all the phosphorus they eat, and this washes into the ocean, where it feeds bacteria and algae that create oxygen “dead zones,” a major killer of marine wildlife.

The Enviropig is the first swine (a Yorkshire, to be exact) able to digest phytate on its own. The project started a decade ago when Cecil Forsberg, a biologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, genetically modified pigs so that their salivary glands would secrete phytase. This allows the pigs, now in their eighth generation, to get their phosphate from grains alone, and to excrete about 40 percent less of it.

Switching to Enviropig herds will be expensive for farmers, Forsberg says, but in the long run subtracting supplements will save $1.75 per pig annually—a windfall for a 100,000-pig farm. He is currently petitioning the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health Canada for permission to serve Enviropig meat. “Unfortunately, it is illegal for us to do taste tests at this time, despite the temptation,” he says. “But I expect they’ll taste quite good.”

Inside the Enviropig

1. Make the enzyme
As the pig chews, the Escherichia coli genes implanted in its salivary glands begin promoting phytase production.

2. Break up the pollutant
Phytase begins breaking phytate into digestible phosphate in the mouth, but it really ramps up its activity when it hits the stomach’s strong acid.

3. Poop and pee away!
Because they don’t need phosphate supplements, Enviropigs excrete 30 to 65 percent less phosphorus.

 by "environment clean generations"

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Posted in: environment,enviropigs,molecule,oxygen,pig,pollutants