Big Data Roots: Toxic Soil, Heavy Metals, and Grass

Time for TARTLE to deliver another good news shoutout. With so much bad news flying around on a constant basis, it’s good to take a moment every now and then to stop and appreciate the good that some people are trying to do.  Today’s shoutout goes to Siobhan Brady, a geneticist currently at the University of California. She began her research career investigating types of grasses that can actually absorb toxic heavy metals from the ground. Imagine being able to remove toxic metals and chemicals from the ground with something as simple as grass? If one could isolate the genes responsible, it would be a fairly simple matter to breed new species of grass that would be specialized to absorb even more. The grass could then be harvested and the concentrated chemicals within would be contained. This would make it possible to clean up industrial accidents, old manufacturing sites built before there were any kind of regulations, or even just the generic soil contamination that is found even in non-industrial ar