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Microbes in the Mississippi

Professor and students study how microbial life changes along the river

The mercury is pushing 100, but professor Michael Sadowsky and two assistants leave the indoor coolness for the bank of the Mississippi River as it flows by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.

The three men send a bucket splashing into the current and haul back a water sample. That doesn’t affect the river much, but information locked away in bacteria from the sample may tell them a great deal about how the river’s microbial communities change along its course through Minnesota and how human activity affects them. (more…)

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