Superfund sites are heavily polluted and toxic environments that are typically far from large population centers. The Gowanus Canal, however, is in the middle of New York City surrounded by approximately 8 million people. The canal originally started as a trading creek and was made into a canal in the 19th century. As surrounding heavy industries were developed, waste accumulated in the canal. It is now a highly polluted environment that hosts a unique microbial ecosystem. Jacques and Irene interview Chris Mason and Elizabeth Hénaff from Weill Cornell Medical College, who have been studying the biology of the organisms living in the canal. Their results show that some of the organisms are able to degrade pollutants, such as toluene. Subscribe to Illumina: http://bit.ly/IlluminaYouTube Links:  Christopher E. Mason at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York http://www.masonlab.net/ Weill Cornell Medicine http://weill.cornell.edu/ For more info on applications in microbiome analysis http://www.illumina.com/areas-of-interest/microbiology/human-microbiome-analysis.html For more info on applications in other areas http://www.illumina.com/science.html See all our Adventures in Genomics videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKRu7cmBQlah8wHBByBXEO0dNW-xNvvX_ http://www.Illumina.com