A bacterium that munches on solvents.

Just as few kids like to eat vegetables, not many bacteria favor a diet of chlorinated solvents like perchloroethylene (PCE) or trichloroethylene (TCE). Such solvents, used to clean clothes, machines, electronic parts, and more, are major groundwater contaminants. Scientists have long hunted for bacteria that could digest these suspected carcinogens.

Stephen H. Zinder of Cornell University and his colleagues have now isolated a bacterium that seems to thrive on PCE and TCE. While previously identified microbes can degrade these solvents to less dangerous compounds, the new bacterium converts them to the nontoxic gas ethene, the researchers report in the June 6 Science. A genetic analysis of the solvent-loving bacterium reveals that it's a novel microbe. "It doesn't seem related to much of anything, and we know little about the distribution of this organism," says Zinder.