Petroleum-eating mushrooms
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 19:00
in Biology & Nature
Mohamed Hijri's team evaluates the progress of work on a contaminated site in the Greater Montreal region, where they have planted cuttings that carry petrol‑eating mushrooms. Take a Petri dish containing crude petroleum and it will release a strong odor distinctive of the toxins that make up the fossil fuel. Sprinkle mushroom spores over the Petri dish and let it sit for two weeks in an incubator, and surprise, the petroleum and its smell will disappear. "The mushrooms consumed the petroleum!" says Mohamed Hijri, a professor of biological sciences and researcher at the University of Montreal's Institut de recherche en biologie végétale (IRBV).