February 2, 2012
SO WE DON'T HAVE TO CARRY REUSABLE BAGS ANYMORE?:
Fungi Discovered In The Amazon Will Eat Your Plastic (Michael J. Coren, Fast CoExist)
The group of students, part of Yale's annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory with molecular biochemistry professor Scott Strobel, ventured to the jungles of Ecuador. The mission was to allow "students to experience the scientific inquiry process in a comprehensive and creative way." The group searched for plants, and then cultured the microorganisms within the plant tissue. As it turns out, they brought back a fungus new to science with a voracious appetite for a global waste problem: polyurethane. [...]The fungi, Pestalotiopsis microspora, is the first anyone has found to survive on a steady diet of polyurethane alone and--even more surprising--do this in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment that is close to the condition at the bottom of a landfill.
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 2, 2012 6:20 AM
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