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Added on the 17/04/2018 09:00:00 - Copyright : AFP EN
The 300 million tons of plastic that are produced annually worldwide will take centuries to break down. What's more, they really just shatter into tiny, microscopic bits that will likely never really disappear. But now, Business Insider reports a new study describes a 'super-enzyme' can recycle a common type of plastic in just days. Researchers from Colorado and the UK engineered the enzyme using proteins derived from plastic-eating bacteria. Other researchers are looking into the use of magnetic 'nano-coils' to break down plastics. Just half the width of a human hair, they convert plastic into carbon dioxide and water.
Littering doesn't only make surroundings look bad, it can have a devastating effect on wildlife. This cobra ate an entire plastic bottle, probably thinking that it was food, and struggled moving and breathing. Footage from India's Goa showed the cobra regurgitating the empty plastic bottle as villagers in the town watched. Eventually, the snake did manage to force the bottle completely out of its system and was reportedly unharmed in the incident, but many other wildlife creatures which consume plastic are not so lucky.
This creepy crawly insect is called a wax worm and, believe it or not, this little guy may just be the answer to global pollution. Footage provided courtesy of the Spanish National Research Council shows a brilliant new discovery made by researcher Federica Bertocchini. She discovered that wax worms are capable of eating through polyethylene plastic. The researcher demonstrated her discovery at a laboratory in Madrid on Wednesday. Although polyethylene is one of the world's most resistant forms of plastic, the worms can destroy the material by munching their way through it. According to the researcher, 100 worms can biodegrade up to 92 milligrams of polyethylene in just one night. That might not seem like much, but what if we multiply that by a thousand? Or even a million? The discovery is touted as the first all-natural solution to the disposal of the dangerous and wasteful material worldwide. Wax worms are now seen as the best way to biodegrade plastic without causing more harmful effects to nature. Polyethylene plastic, the material used to make plastic bags, is very durable. That's why we use it so often. The problem is that polyethylene is not biodegradable, which means that it stays in the environment for hundreds of years after being thrown away. It can cause all sorts of problems for wild animals and the natural environment in general. That's why this new discovery has the potential to help us clean up our act and restore areas like landfills and other areas polluted with plastic.
About 8 million tonnes of plastic are leaked into the ocean annually, and its impact on the fragile underwater ecosystem has scientists worried.
Scientists of the Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health claim to be the first to use genome modification to double the muscle mass of dogs.
Researchers led by scientists at Stanford University in U.S. and Beihang University in China have found that the mealworm can safely biodegrade various types of plastic, Stanford News reported.
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