#Hyperaccumulators

[dwarvendiaries]

someone left a comment on my dwarf fortress mod that gives elves access to metal and i just learned something new. this game is insane

oooo

Grown metal for the win.

[kerryanncleaver]

A few weeks ago I came across this project on Dezeen 'H2ERǴ ring made with metals "mined" by plants’ (last slide) it was so exiting to see something I had researched and formed a speculative projects about, manifest into a actual product! - https://www.dezeen.com/2024/08/30/phytomined-h2erg-ring-metals-plants-design/  . These plants are called 'Hyperaccumulators' - plants which can be used as tools to collect materials such as metal from the ground. As explored in James Bridle's book 'ways of being' he sees these plants being used in Greece -  ‘The plot (in Greece he is at) produces between 6 and 13 tonnes of biomass per hectare, depending on the crop, and each of those hectares produces between 80 and 150KG of nickel. By comparison, a tonne of mined nickel ore contains about 1 or 2% nickel, or 10 to 20KG.’ - Such a hyperaccumulator is also seaweed - which is a current talking point in the 'New Scientist' podcast published on the 31st of May 2024.  . My project 'Eco Fenders for Hyperobjects' looks at this topic from a different angle. Of using these plants as barriers for future concern -  . This project germinated from a profound awareness of the multifaceted crisis gripping the UK- ranging from biodiversity loss and energy concerns to mounting waste and a perceptible apathy towards enhancing the well-being of its populace. I embarked on a journey to craft a natural method of crisis aversion. This dynamic map seeks to unravel ways in which our small island can address and rectify the human-induced crises through ecological solutions. Examining locations of landfills, nuclear reactors and soil fertility.  Functioning as a speculative endeavor, the project introduces a visionary plant symbolic of climate change and other land-related challenges we currently confront.

[botanyone]

Green Goldmine: The Surprising Role of Plants in Rare Earth Element Accumulation

Imagine plants not just beautifying our gardens and purifying our air, but also acting as natural mines for critical resources like rare earth elements (REEs). These elements, vital for modern technologies, are scarce. But scientists have uncovered several new plant species with exceptional abilities to accumulate REEs from soil. By screening thousands of specimens across different lineages, Léo…

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So you may have seen my posts about AI foraging guides, or watched the mini-class I have up on YouTube on what I found inside of them. Apparently the intersection of AI and foraging has gotten even worse, with a chatbot that joined a mushroom foraging groups on Facebook only to immediately suggest ways people could cook a toxic species:

First, and most concerningly, this once again reinforces how much we should NOT be trusting AI to tell us what mushrooms are safe to eat. While they can compile information that's fed to them and regurgitate it in somewhat orderly manners, this is not the same as a living human being who has critical thinking skills to determine the veracity of a given piece of information, or physical senses to examine a mushroom, or the ability to directly experience the act of foraging. These skills and experiences are absolutely crucial to being a reliable forager, particularly one who may be passing on information to others.

We already have enough trouble with inaccurate info in the foraging community, and trying to ride herd on both the misinformed and the bad actors. This AI was presented as the first chat option for any group member seeking answers, which is just going to make things tougher for those wanting to keep people from accidentally poisoning themselves. Moreover, chatbots like this one routinely are trained on and grab information from copyrighted sources, but do not give credit to the original authors. Anyone who's ever written a junior-high level essay knows that you have to cite your sources even if you rewrite the information; otherwise it's just plagiarism.

Fungi Friend is yet one more example of how generative AI has been anything but a positive development on multiple levels.

[charseraph]

Your works are very impressive - How do you come up with such good words, eg. Nooscionics? Where do you get all these great pre/suffixes from??

(I might've asked this before but i can't recall - sorry ^^')

Lots of brainstorming and inspiration from my friend @dracogriff.

Also, I like to pull from a theme. Neobotanics, the field of seedlets, SOIL, and scionry, pulls a lot from botanical terms.

Mustards are seedlets that safely absorb semiohazards. Just like how mustard plants can be hyperaccumulators.

Chronotics of chronal fracking, cenotes, and chronal boring pulls from geologics and mining.

So on and so forth, every term has a pun or connective theme to it. And or sounds intentionally ominous. I try to strike a balance between “means what it sounds like” and “unsettling meaning sounds obscured.”

[sergeant-norman-allen]

Heeeeeeeeeey Norm

What's your favourite plant? Tell me everything about it

I have many, considerin’ I had t’ grow lots of ‘em t’ make a livin’, but one o’ my favorites are sunflowers. Not only are they beautiful, they’re mighty interestin’ too.

Sunflowers originated from North America and have been cultivated for over 4,500 years because o’ their source as food. They are entirely edible, even though it’s really only their seeds that’re used nowadays. One o’ my favorite facts about ‘em though is that they’re classified as “hyperaccumulators”, meanin’ they absorb massive amounts o’ toxic materials an’ things like radiation compared t’ other plants.

I o’course learned about th’ Chernobyl tragedy recently, an’ with that learned that scientists planted millions o’ sunflowers in order t’ help aid th’ recovery o’ th’ land.

Last thing I’ll say is that I read somewhere that th’ tallest sunflower ever was 30 feet tall, but one year I went to a small county fair where they had lotsa produce an’ plant contests an’ th’ winner o’ th’ sunflower height category was 34 feet tall. I remember bein’ mighty jealous o’ that boy an’ whatever blessed ‘em with th’ power t’ grow a sunflower like that.

[sas-afras]

man. man. man!!!! i’m having so many thoughts about hyperaccumulators (plants that suck large amounts of toxins out of soil) in the commonwealth. the possibilities for it are gorgeous.

the banks of the sanctuary river blooming with sunflowers, tulips, mustard, amaranth. minutemen carrying crates upon crates of seeds out to settlements, purging radiation from the soil and the water. bright spots of color in the wasteland that tell you this place is safe, the poison is gone! overgrown cracks in the asphalt of every highway, flowers grown from seeds that fell off the back of a caravan brahmin!!!

aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A video file is embedded. It begins as Amy sets the camera up, obscuring most of the frame with a shirt that simply says 'Bread.' in large letters over a photo of a baguette. As they step back the inside of the barn in revealed, once again back in some sort of order, though one of the folding tables is covered in samples of that yellow flowered plant, as well as a few sad looking examples of the white flowered Paldean Burr. Beetroot the Meganium dozes happily in a beam of sunlight just behind the professor.

"Ok, alright. I'm recording this because i think I may have figured something out and I think this might be the best format for this. So, as you can see with these plants side by side they really are nearly identical. Or well, they would be if the samples from Paldea had fared the postal system a little better but-"

Amy is stopped short by the head of Beetroot swinging over towards the table, and they seem alarmed for just a moment until she simply exhales onto the wilted plants which spring back to life almost instantaneously. She then simply settles back into her comfortable position and closes her eyes.

"... I sort of forgot you could do that. It really has been awhile, huh old girl?" he pats her neck and she responds with a sort of deep thrumming noise deep in her chest, which Amy repeats as a gentle hum. After a moment he brings his attention back to the table with a start.

"Right! So, as you can see a little more clearly now, these plants are near identical. The only difference that one can discern visually is the obvious one, the yellow flowers on the Sinnohan samples. now there is one major difference that can't be seen here." Amy leans forward, a bit of excitement in his tone.

"The Sinnohan samples of this plant had a concentration of cadmium that was more than two thousand times the level in the nearest soil samples. In fact, the level of cadmium around clusters if this plant were lower than the average of other places in the area. My friends I think we have ourselves the discovery of a hyperaccumulator property in these common Paldean plants."

He leans back a moment now, before bending over are retrieving a small pot containing another of the same plant, but this one's flowers are a pale yellow, somewhere between the other samples. "This sample was to test a thought I had, and while of course the sample size is low I think it is enough to solidify a theory. This plant is a Paldean sample, planted in soil from just outside. Look how in just a few hours the flowers are already acquiring a color!"

"A plant that only becomes Poisonous once invasive, isn't that fascinating?" the professor laughs a little before leaning forward, obscuring the screen once again before the video ends. }:

[theweeowlart]

Sunflowers have a remarkable ability to absorb toxins, including toxic metals and radiation. Following nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima, scientists planted millions of sunflowers to help the land recover Similarly, they’ve also been planted in areas with high concentrations of lead. In scientific terms, they’re ‘hyperaccumulators’ which means they can absorb much more of these contaminants than other plants. It’s believed plants develop this ability partly to make them less tempting as a snack for herbivores. This is another of my featured artworks for August, you will find it available here☺️👇 Original oil pastel painting - Sunflower field https://etsy.me/3qdscFX via @Etsy

You will also find a link in my profile that will lead you to my Etsy shop, where you can find all my original art including the work posted here, and also my other social media.

[oaresearchpaper]

Nickel-Accumulating Plants: A Taxonomic Survey in Manicani Island Mining Site

Abstract

A taxonomic survey of the nickel accumulating plants found in Manicani Island, Eastern Samar, Philippines is conducted to assess the phytoremediation potentials of indigenous vascular plant species found in the area.  Dimethyglyoxime (DMG) kit field test was conducted to screen the encountered vascular plant species on site for nickel content in their aboveground tissues. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) was done both on the soil and leaves of the collected plants to determine their respective nickel contents.  Vitex parviflora A.Juss. together with other fourteen species from thirteen genera and twelve families were classified as hemi-accumulators (nickel content between 100-999 μg/g in dry matter). Fourteen species were classified as nickel non-accumulators, ten species still need further identification measures to confirm its species identity and Ficus pseudopalma which is endemic to the Philippines is found in the island.  A careful morphological examination combined with molecular identification protocols are recommended to know the identities of the unknown plant species.

Introduction

Heavy metal accumulators are plants with the rare ability to extract given metals and metalloids, have the capacity to accumulate them in normally toxic shoot tissue concentrations without any evidence of physiological stress (Baker and Brooks, 1989; Baker et al., 2000). This marvel has been observed in less than 0.2% of all angiosperms, commonly manifesting as exceptionally high foliar concentrations (>1000 μg/g dry weight) of one of these elements in the leaf dry matter (Pollard and Baker, 1997). Commonly, these plant species known as metal accumulators are predominantly herbaceous and generally occur on substrates high in content of these accumulated elements. Host soil environments are commonly serpentine, characterized with high levels of heavy metals and magnesium, usually depleted in plant macronutrients, but surprisingly supports highly specialized floras (Brooks, 1998). As of present, there are still many metalliferous parts of the tropics in which no plant collections have been undertaken, thus resulting to very limited analytical work on this area. As presented by Proctor (2003) and Reeves (2003), these sites include parts of the Philippines and Indonesia. In same paper, it has been estimated that the Philippine ultramafics (referring to the geological formations containing high Mg/Fe ratios) make up around 5% of the country’s land area. With the prior knowledge that these land areas support large assemblages of extreme nickel hyperaccumulators and nickel accumulators, the researcher conducted this study. In this paper, the researchers collected and taxonomically identified the species found in metal rich soils of Manicani Island, and conducted a field semi-quantitative screening for nickel accumulation (among the plants encountered) on site. The abovementioned field screening test was adapted from the works of Baker et al. (1992) and Fernando et al. (2014). The field screening involved thoroughly washing of the leaf samples with distilled water, crushing these in a mortar and pestle, and then testing with filter paper previously soaked in 1% of the nickel specific colorimetric reagent, dimethylglyoxime, dissolved in 95% ethanol. The formation of pink or purplish red color indicated exceptionally high (above 1,000 μg g-1) concentration of Ni in the dry plant matter

Source : Taxonomic survey of nickel accumulating plants in a mining site of Manicani Island, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, Philippines

[secularbakedgoods]

It's capital all the way down

This is a crosspost of my newsletter! If you’d like to get posts like this direct to your inbox or RSS reader, subscribe here.

One of the latest developments in the world of fanfiction is a debate over "archive-locking": making one's fanfics only visible to registered users of the archive on which they're hosted (usually Archive Of Our Own). The argument in favour is that this prevents unintended use of the work (such as scraping into LLM training datasets) while still allowing members of the "community" to read it. The argument against is that this makes fanfiction less accessible, especially to newcomers and long-time lurkers.

This isn't exactly a new issue. I archive-locked a lot of my fanfiction years ago, after a similar uproar: someone (or several someones) had been scraping works off AO3 in ebook format and selling them. And before that there was another round of archive-locking, specifically in hockey fandom, over some fucking thing Aja Romano was doing.

The reason scammers keep trying to steal and monetize fanfic is that the internet financially incentivizes them to do so. Amazon's Kindle publishing platform has both wide reach and a relatively low barrier to entry, and Amazon itself has grown so huge that it would be a logistical nightmare to moderate its listings — so, for the most part, it doesn't (especially since the company gets a pretty big cut of every fraudulent sale on its platform). The end result is that Amazon is awash with stolen fanfic (and AI-generated books by models trained on fanfic) and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

Now, there isn't a lot of money in this kind of scam. Even if you luck into the attentions of Amazon's algorithm, there's only so many people who will see a book with an AI-generated cover and a description that sounds suspiciously like erotic Star Wars fanfiction and decide that's something they want to buy. But, as we learned from 404 Media's investigation into AI slop on Facebook, even the relatively small margins on content spam can help pay the rent — especially if you're living in a place where "legitimate" employment is scarce, dangerous, or pays like shit.

Ultimately, this archive-locking debate is one small facet of a big, old problem that those in power refuse to fix — either because they don't consider fixing it to be their job, or because fixing it would be actively detrimental to their business model. All AI has done is increase the scale of the consequences.

itch.io Autumn Sale

For the next week, all my paid titles are on sale over at my itch.io store! You can get any book for 25% off, or all my books in a bundle for just $6.00 USD (50% off what it would usually cost to buy them all).

Sale prices are valid until end of day December 5th.

Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight You

In the latest episode of I Will Fight You, we discuss the Tim Burton movie Big Fish and get really emotional. There's some crying involved. Don't worry about it.

You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is now up for all supporters on Ko-fi. If you don't want to wait for Chapter 5, you can also get the entire novelette as an ebook.

This Week's Links

AI Chatbot Added to Mushroom Foraging Facebook Group Immediately Gives Tips for Cooking Dangerous Mushroom

One member of the Facebook group said that they asked the AI bot “how do you cook Sarcosphaera coronaria,” a type of mushroom that was once thought edible but is now known to hyperaccumulate arsenic and has caused a documented death. FungiFriend told the member that it is “edible but rare,” and said “cooking methods mentioned by some enthusiasts include sautéing in butter, adding to soups or stews, and pickling.” The situation is reminiscent of Google's AI telling people to add glue to pizza or eat rocks on the advice of a Redditor named Fucksmith.

This Christmas Party Was So Fun That Now I’m a Communist

This party was so far off the fucking chain that you could have one of two magic women tell you what was going to happen to you in your future. And if you didn’t like what she said, you could get a second opinion, and never be more than thirty feet away from a fondue pot.

We…need worldbuilding?

Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we don’t think too much about something we write – a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brain’s subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype – in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonist’s hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it.

[eugeniedanglarseloped]

- hyperaccumulators

metal is so fucking good I'm eating it

[lilithsaintcrow]

"...asked the AI bot “how do you cook Sarcosphaera coronaria,” a type of mushroom that was once thought edible but is now known to hyperaccumulate arsenic and has caused a documented death. FungiFriend told the member that it is “edible but rare”..."

[botanyone]

Plant Diversity Thrives in Harsh Soil Conditions

Plant Diversity Thrives in Harsh Soil Conditions https://ift.tt/iup4Ww6 Hocedez and colleagues argue that shrubland is an undervalued sources of biodiversity. They examine the floral diversity of New Caledonia’s shrubland, a biodiversity hotspot known for the extent of its ultramafic rocks. These yield soils poor in nutrients but high concentrations of toxic metals. They found a plot rich in species due to plants each occupying a distinct biochemical niche. The botanists’ study area was a 20m × 20m plot on ultramafic soil, with few nutrients. This might be expected to be sparsely vegetated. However, the team found 475 plants taller than a metre, from 37 different species. This diversity meant that the shrubland was just as diverse as similar sized plots of New Caledonian forests. Hocedez and colleagues investigated the niches the plants occupied by using ionomics, a measure of the chemical make-up of a plant.  Some plants, like Homalium kanaliense, showed an extraordinary ability to accumulate high levels of nickel – over 1000 micrograms per gram of leaf, which is considered hyperaccumulation. Another species, Polyscias pancheri, displayed a talent for manganese absorption, with one individual containing over 13,000 micrograms per gram. The nine most abundant species showed limited overlap in their nutrient profiles, indicating distinct approaches to resource use even among common plants. The rarer a species was, the more distinct the niche it tended to occupy with the rarest species in the plot having the most functionally distinct features, occupying unique positions in the community’s “nutrient space”. The variety of nutrient strategies observed – from special root partnerships to metal hyperaccumulation – demonstrates the adaptability of plants. It also highlights the diversity of shrublands. Far from being a successional habitat colonised by opportunists, it shows they’re a community of interlinked species working in partnership. Hocedez, J., Gotty, K., Hequet, V., Chay, S., Léopold, A., Dray, S., & Pillon, Y. (2024). Community ionomics reveals a diversity of mineral nutrition in a species-rich shrubland on infertile soil. Journal of Vegetation Science, 35, e13301. https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.13301 (OA) Cross-posted to Bluesky, Mastodon & Threads. The post Plant Diversity Thrives in Harsh Soil Conditions appeared first on Botany One. via Botany One https://botany.one/ September 12, 2024 at 12:30PM

[rbesjournal1]

Phytoremediation is a cutting-edge and eco-friendly technique that utilizes plants to eliminate pollutants, including copper, which can pose risks to plants, animals, and humans. In the present study, the hyperaccumulator capabilities of the tomato plant (Lycopersicon esculentum) in the removal of copper, zinc, iron, and manganese from the soil was explored.

Materials and Methods: The tomato plants were cultivated for 70 days in pots containing varying concentrations of copper, ranging from 250 to 1250 ppm. At specific time intervals of 15, 30, 45, and 60 days, plants of each concentration were harvested. Then the soil samples were analyzed using atomic absorption spectroscopy to determine the levels of copper, zinc, manganese, and iron.

Results: The results indicated that zinc removal exhibited a higher rate compared to other metals, with a removal rate of up to 95.79%, while copper removal reached 87.7%. Furthermore, analysis after 60 days of treatment revealed that the aerial parts of the plants accumulated more metals than that of the roots. Additionally, the chlorophyll content in the leaves decreased at both low and high copper concentrations, compared to moderate levels.

Conclusion: The tomato plant, L. esculentum indicated promising hyperaccumulator potential in the removal of copper than other metals from the soil. The current study emphasized the effectiveness of phytoremediation as a sustainable approach to abating copper pollution.

#translation #appl #research #biotechnology #biodegradation

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