Sunflowers that love heavy metal
Sunflowers take up uranium twice or even three times better than their maize and soybean counterparts, making them a top 'clean crop' for removing toxic metals from the environment. Scientists at the Centre for Pesticides and Environmental Research, Yugoslavia, studied growth and uranium uptake in sunflower, soybean and maize crops. Sunflowers were found to have the fastest growth rate and highest concentration of uranium, making them an excellent fast-cleaning crop. Dr Ljubinko Jovanovic will present the study's findings at the Society for Experimental Biology Meeting in Canterbury on 2 April. The Yugoslavian scientists are just one of many groups studying bioremediation to find plants and