# Plants take in uranium from both the soil and air

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 28, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719 "2015-04-28T14:42:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![carlowplayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@carlowplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlowplayer)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719/1 "2015-04-28T14:42:33Z")

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Are there any plants that uptake uranium from either the soil and/or air for use in bioremediation?

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**Author:** ![halfreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@halfreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/halfreal)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719/2 "2015-04-28T16:48:39Z")

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> [@carlowplayer](#):
>
> Are there any plants that uptake uranium from either the soil and/or air for use in bioremediation?

There’s a number that do that for soil: [Hyperaccumulators table – 3 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperaccumulators_table_%E2%80%93_3)

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719/3 "2015-04-28T21:11:38Z")

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None will take it in from the air, though, as you’re not going to get gaseous uranium under any conditions that plants could live in. You can have airborne dust particles containing uranium, but the way for plants to take those in would be for them to first settle to the ground.

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**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plants-take-in-uranium-from-both-the-soil-and-air/718719/4 "2015-04-28T23:28:24Z")

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[Here’s a decent article](http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/09/08/helpful-uranium-muching-bacteria-breathe-it-through-electric-wires/) (from Ars Technica) that tells of how ceratin bacteria (_Geobacter_?) can be used to help decontaminate uranium-containg stuff.

I remember awhile back reading about how bacteria were thriving at very-contaminated sites around Chernobyl - forget details, but it was totally unexpected as the bacteria should have been ionized to death at those exposure levels, so to speak. A small revelation at the time, so to speak.