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Full Version: Finding on groundwater arsenic problem n southeast asia
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http://m.phys.org/news/2015-12-mystery-a...water.html

Quote:.     The Stanford scientists hypothesized that bacteria residing in the shallow layers of seasonal wetlands were eating all of the digestible plant material during dry periods, when sediments are exposed to air and the microbes have access to oxygen. As a result, no food is left for the microbes when the floods returned, rendering them unable to cleave arsenic particles from iron oxides.
In addition to the potential woes of that region, rice has a propensity to absorb arsenic from soils contaminated with it. Certainly not because it's a nutrient for it anymore than any other organism, but I guess its processes are too indifferent about mineral intake to make much effort to discriminate it from the rest. Obviously it must have a high tolerance for it as well, so that would contribute to its apathy about evolving to lessen assimilation of it.