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Oil Spill Cleanup Workers Include Many Very, Very Small Ones
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
Among the hidden stars of the gulf cleanup is an oil-hungry bacterium that Dr. Seuss could have named--Alcanivorax. It and fellow microbes are breaking down a significant amount of the oil that gushed into the environment from BP's runaway well, scientists say. The microbial feasting is known as biodegradation.
On Wednesday, a report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said early observations showed that the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill "is biodegrading quickly," adding that scientists were working to measure how quickly and how much of the escaped oil the microbial hordes could consume.
"Until it is biodegraded, naturally or chemically dispersed oil, even in small amounts, can be toxic to vulnerable species," the report says in pointing to the importance of the microbes.
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