Follow your curiosity

What discovery has been shared with you?

FACTREE gives you something interesting to discover every day — and something worth talking about together.

Start with one fact. Explore it, go deeper, then follow whichever branch catches your imagination.

Choose subjects for a surprise

Exploring any topic

Begin your discovery

Your next discovery is one click away.

Choose one or more subjects above, or leave Any Topic selected and let curiosity decide.

Environmental Science

The Process of Phytoremediation for Soil Cleanup

Quick fact

The hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens can pack more than 2% of its leaf dry weight with zinc without showing any signs of poisoning—a level that would kill most other plants.

Why this is interesting

What if scrubbing toxic soil required nothing more than a field of plants? Some plants have the surprising ability to absorb dangerous heavy metals as if they were drinking polluted water through a straw.