plants recycling metals

It has been known for centuries that certain kinds of plants thrive on soils heavily contaminated with toxic metals, even on mining waste. It took a while for people to realise that these plants can be used to extract desirable metals from such soils. Especially in our times with ever-growing hunger for resources like nickel, gold, and rare earth metals, the rising prices of these metals have led to some plant-based mining methods becoming economically attractive.

Read all about it in my latest feature which is out today:

Mining metals with plants

Current Biology Volume 36, Issue 3, 2 February 2026, Pages R73-R75

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(Unfortunately, this year's features will no longer become open access one year after publication - do contact me if you would like a PDF. Last year's features will still move to the open archives as this year advances.)

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See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

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Last year's thread is here .

The yellow zinc violet (Viola lutea ssp. calaminaria) has historically served as an indicator plant for soils rich in zinc ores. It is still found on former mining sites in the area where the borders between the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. (Photo: Gilles San Martin/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).)

a rare find

At the beginning of January I discovered a 19th century French book selling for a very affordable £ 1.50 at a charity shop and really liked the look of it so I just bought it without thinking much about it.

With a leather back and nice marbling on the hardcovers it looks like this:

It's a first edition of Le docteur Pascal, the last volume of Emile Zola's epic series of novels Les Rougeon-Macquart, from 1893. Sadly somebody cut out the family tree of the Rougeon-Macquart family which was included as a fold-out page. Otherwise it is in good condition, slightly foxed as they like to say in the trade but I love it.

More photos:

The good thing about French books in the Oxford second hand and antiquarian market is that there's supply from expats and visiting academics but virtually no demand, so I can snap up some rather amazing things sometimes (I don't do that for German books very often these days because I get them free in the street libraries in Dusseldorf, but see this one and these from pre-plague times). Abe books currently has several copies of the Zola for sale at prices of a few hundred pounds, so I think I managed to find a bargain here ...