A newly discovered organism actually lives in nuclear waste.One of the world's tiniest celebrities hails from one of the planet's toughest neighborhoods.
Its story began a couple of years ago, when scientists fished a strange slime off a probe used to examine decades-old, high-level nuclear waste inside tanks stored at Savannah River Site.
"At first, nobody was sure what it was," said Christopher "Kitt" Bagwell, a senior scientist at the top-secret Savannah River National Laboratory. Turns out, the greenish-orange slime was alive. The more it was studied, the more it enamored scientists who were fascinated with its ability to survive radiation doses thousands of times greater than what is considered lethal to humans.
"Finding an organism in such a toxic environment is very unexpected," said Dr. Bagwell.
Source: AugustaChronicle
Image: Thebmag / Flickr
Tags: Nuclear Waste | Organism
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