It seems genetic modification may indeed be the way towards the future. The process is getting more popular (remember the HIV killing enzyme?), not to mention useful, as scientists have altered plants to suck up pollution and render it harmless.

Three groups of scientists have grown different mutant plants. A group from Britain developed plants to clean residues of military explosives from the environment. From the University of York comes plants that can degrade the explosive RDX which may cause cancer. A group from the University of Washington developed plants that can clean up contaminated ground water.

Of course normal plants do all the stuff the super plants do - only they're really, really slow. The plants from UW metabolized the toxins in the ground water 100 times faster than normal plants. Not only that but they cleaned up 91% of the toxins where normal, everyday plants only got 3%.

However, the plants are also considered a potential threat when they propagate. To address this the UW group chose poplars for their mutant plants because it can grow for years before flowering, which would allow them to be harvested before they can grow new mutant plants. (The X-Men will be furious.)

The process is environmentally sound and cost-effective: they are 10 times cheaper than other existing technologies. This is not to mention that they're prettier to look at than bulky machines. Perhaps Captain Planet can use a sixth planeteer: Jean, with the power of gene splicing.