A fishy remedy

Fish meal sprinkled on a beach polluted by an oil slick helps the bacteria in the sand clean it up. Stephane Lefloch, chemist at the Centre for Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution, Brest, France, says the fish meal rekindles microbes and provides the sustenance and the time needed to adapt to the presence of oil. After the fish meal is finished, the bacteria start eating up the oil. Lefloch conducted a four-month study on the Brittany coast near Fouesnant, feigning oil spills by pouring crude oil into plots made of wooden frames on the beach ( New Scientist , Vol 154, No 2087).