Scientists are rushing to study a toxic lake before we environmental engineers get to it to clean it up. Nearby mining has caused the lake’s pH to plunge to 2.5. The lake is so acidic, hardly anything can live in it — except fungi that reduces the rate of cancer and blocks debilitating migraines!
Read it in New Scientist: Dirty old mine has rich seam of drugs.
Hey Joan
I actually read the paper about the isolation of berkelic acid a couple of weeks ago. If anyone cares, it interests my group because it has a spiroketal moiety in it. Anyway, it looks like our next PhD student (if we ever get one) will be working on the total synthesis of berkelic acid. Thank god for those poor defenceless fungi and sponges and the like that produce toxic chemicals to protect themselves and/or get rid of predators. A gold mine for pharmaceutical companies.
Nice work on the trivia…I think Lake Superior is still one of the freshest “Great Lakes” to swim in…but it is a bit chilly!!
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