✅ L'eau de Varsovie est contrôlée par des palourdes

The water quality in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, is monitored by 8 clams. If the water gets too toxic, they close, and this triggers analyses that can immediately shut off the city's water supply, if at least 4 are close. Apparently, when the clams (‘molluscs’) encounter heavy metals, pesticides or other pollutants, they close their shells, explains Piotr Domek of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, who has worked on the project for three decades. To create a natural early-warning system, Mr Domek and his colleagues collect the clams from rivers or reservoirs, and attach a coil and a magnet to their shells. Computers register whether their shells are open or closed by detecting changes in the magnetic field. There are drawbacks. Clams, as the idiom goes, cannot talk. So they never reveal which toxin is causing them to clam up. Also, it seems that they may be less good at detecting dangerous pharmaceuticals. Still, Piotr Klimaszyk, who leads the team that developed the system, thinks it ought to be used everywhere. It is cheap: all you need is clams and computers. “It allows you to check the water quality hour by hour, minute by minute, so why not?” https://lnkd.in/eWtmZ4rN