Tag Archives: methylmercury

Surprising Mercury Concentrations in Pandas

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IMG_9760Thanks to the Xinbin lab of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for analyzing our samples in record time. The results of the analysis completely surprised us. Every sample was nearly ten times lower than the World Health Organizations recommended limit.

This great news sparked us to take a further look as to why the levels are so low. At first glance, as was previously thought, the pandas are eating bamboo covered in deposited soot from a smog covered sky. You can rub your fingers over the bamboo and they come off black. What we discovered next explained the pandas clean bill of health.

I will reveal their secret in a future post as we get closer to writing up the results.

Xinbin Lab to Analyze Panda Hair

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courtesy of google images

courtesy of google images

The extreme difficulty in obtaining permits to transfer biological samples back to the United States from China has caused our mercury project to use a lab here in China. We are very pleased to have made contact with one of China’s foremost Methylmercury experts, Prof. Feng Xinbin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guiyang, China, who is currently analyzing all of our samples. We expect to have results within a few months.

Coal Use and Mercury Bioaccumulation

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The perforations allow more air to get to the coal and it burns much more efficiently

The other afternoon I managed to convince a local restaurant owner to drive me to several coal brick production facilities here in Ya’an.  These shops, which are often in the middle of town are simply redistributors of the same coal that is mined near the province capital, Chengdu.  Often a one man operation, they purchase large quantities of coal, break it down into a coarse powder and compress it into the honeycomb cakes seen in these pictures. You can see the delivery carts buzzing all around town and in the cities outskirts. The cart operators are easily recognized by a stained black outfit and a pyramid shaped stack of coal in tow. Continue reading →