Using microorganisms to detoxify soil and seawater

[jamesadrian]

Our food is grown in lakes, soil and seawater. These are the ultimate sources of our nutrients. I am looking for methods, if they exist, to use microorganisms to separate the compounds in these sources.

I would like to produce a plant food that contains only compounds known to be nutrients for humans. The compounds known to be human nutrients are comprised on fewer than 30 elements. Every stable element in the periodic table is in soil, and some of them never leave our bodies without extraordinary medical procedures. Many late-onset medical conditions might be avoided by finding a low-cost way to ensure that what we feed our plants is not toxic to us.

I have written on this subject in this article:

https://www.futurebeacon.com/nutrients.htm

Can microbiology be of assistance in this effort?

Thank you for your help.

James Adrian
jim@futurebeacon.com

https://www.futurebeacon.com/jamesadrian.htm

[Sensei]

Every stable element in the periodic table is in soil,

And the all unstable also..

 

Every stable element in the periodic table is in soil, and some of them never leave our bodies without extraordinary medical procedures.

Many late-onset medical conditions might be avoided by finding a low-cost way to ensure that what we feed our plants is not toxic to us.

There is 3142 isotopes, of 118 elements, in majority they are unstable, with just few hundred stable isotopes.

Plants are consuming CO₂ from air. But particles from cosmos, mostly relativistic accelerated protons from the Sun,

are hitting upper level of atmosphere, and are creating Carbon-14, which is unstable isotope of Carbon (C-12 and C-13 are stable).

Then C-14 joins with Oxygen, giving CO₂, which is consumed by plants,

and C-14 goes further in life cycle food chain, to animals, then to human.

And we eat food containing radioactive element. That's not just one example. There is also radioactive Potassium-40 (but >200k times larger half-life, much less radioactive)

 

Now imagine what happens if C-14 is part of DNA, or essential part of cell,

and it's randomly decaying:

Carbon-14 -> Nitrogen-14 + e- + Ve + 0.156476 MeV

Highly accelerated electron ionize surrounding body, further molecules are destroyed or damaged.

 

If I calculated right, in human body with mass 80 kg, there is 7.43*10^14 C-14, and 5.914*10^20 K-40, unstable particles.

[John Cuthber]

About 18 kilos of carbon: about 1 part per trillion 14C.

1.5kgmol

about 10^27 atoms of carbon

about 10^15 atoms of 14C.

So, you got the maths about right.

Quite why you insist on reporting things like this to 3 or 4 significant figures is beyond me.

If I happened to have exactly 7.43*10^14 carbon atoms when I got up this morning, the number would change by more than 0.1 *10^14 when I went to the bathroom.

The 10^15 or so atoms of 14C in me will give rise to about 3500 beta particles per second

That's roughly the same as the number of cosmic rays I get hit by.

Only about a tenth of your natural radiation dose is from things like 40K and 14C. So it's hardly worth removing them - even if you could.

 

And none of that has anything much to do with the OP.

Microorganisms are very poor at separating radioisotopes.

 

There's a fundamental issue with the idea. In general (there are known exceptions) most plants are fairly similar in their chemical make-up to us. they generally have similar needs for different minerals etc.

Similarly, they get poisoned by broadly similar things an, as a consequence, they are usually quite good at leaving toxic minerals in the ground. The exceptions- so called hyper- accumulators are not generally used as food.

Plants already separate out the toxic chemicals- they leave them in the ground.

Trying to get them (or microorganisms) to do the opposite would be difficult.

 

And it's far from clear that stripping the tiny residual amounts of these materials from your diet would really help life span much.

[jamesadrian]

Radiation is not my primary concern, although every cubic meter of seawater contains 30 mg. of uranium (an indication of its accumulation in soil). It all comes from space.

 

Uranium substitutes for calcium and stays in the bones indefinitely. It is mildly radioactive and surely accounts for some cancers.

 

Cadmium is not radioactive but it is very toxic and does not leave the organs of the body without special medial treatment. Older people have more of it and younger people have less of it. This is one mechanism for late-onset medical conditions.

 

The idea that only a little bit is harmless is not always true. Hormones are effective in very small amounts and so are some toxins.

 

There is also the Witches Brew effect to consider. Many (let's say N) toxins taken each in very small amounts have a greater biological consequence than N times any one of them.

 

I am hoping that there is an inexpensive way to take unwanted water-soluble materials out of harvested phytoplankton, for instance.

 

The article I mentioned lists the elements that can form safe compounds for plant food (less than 30 elements).

 

Maybe somebody has worked on a general method of using microorganisms to separate seawater into its compounds. The separation of soil into compounds is also very much of interest.

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Jim Adrian

 

https://www.futurebe...m/nutrients.htm

[jamesadrian]

John Cuthber,

 

I am concerned about the ability of the roots to distinguish between water-soluble metal chlorides. Cadmium chloride and the uranium chlorides would not be good to eat, but potassium chloride is.

 

I appreciate the news that microorganisms might not be the best way to separate compounds.

 

Might there be a Science Forums forum that is devoted to plant chemistry where I might bring up this project?

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Jim Adrian

 

https://www.futurebe...m/nutrients.htm

[John Cuthber]

Table two here

http://www.imp.lodz.pl/upload/oficyna/artykuly/pdf/full/Smol10-02-01.pdf

shows that plants do a pretty good job of excluding cadmium uptake.

Plants, on the other hand are very good at picking up potassium- they typically accumulate something like 4% by weight (on a dry weight basis) from soil that contains a lot less (Something like 200 ppm available potassium).

As I said. they really are good at this.

[jamesadrian]

Plants do not do a good enough job to prevent serious polution of the human body.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body

 

https://www.futurebe...m/nutrients.htm

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_(nutrient)

 

Jim Adrian

 

https://www.futurebe...jamesadrian.htm

[John Cuthber]

Plants do not do a good enough job to prevent serious polution of the human body.

 

 

Plainly not generally true or we would all be dead. Most of us in the West live long enough to see our grandchildren grow up.

[jamesadrian]

What a leap.

 

What about all of the late-onset medical conditions.

 

We don't know how long we would live without these toxins.

 

 

Jim Adrian