When she put them in a polyethylene shopping bag, holes would appear within 40 minutes. But Bertocchini saw that her waxworms-from a different species called the greater wax moth-were working much faster. In both cases, the microbes did their work over the course of weeks or months, which is impressive since plastics can last for decades without decay. And in 2014, Chinese scientists suggested that two species of bacteria from the guts of Indian mealmoths, a type of waxworm, can degrade polyethylene (PE)-the world’s most common plastics. Last year, a Japanese team identified a previously unknown bacterium that can degrade PET. Other scientists have also discovered plastic-busting species, including various fungi and bacteria. So when plastic enters the environment, it usually stays there. They’re very long chain-like molecules with lots of powerful carbon-to-carbon bonds, which can’t be easily broken by bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that normally decay organic matter. Plastics make for good packaging-and even better pollutants-because they are so hard to degrade. But you can’t keep a good scientist away from an interesting question, and the perforated bags posed an obvious one: Were the waxworms actually digesting the plastic? And when she returned to the bag, she found it full of holes.īertocchini doesn’t study insects, waxworms, or plastic-she focuses on the early development of animal embryos. Bertocchini picked out the pests and put them in a plastic bag, while she cleaned out the hives. These insects are the bane of beekeepers because they voraciously devour the wax that bees use to build their honeycombs. One day, when she looked at her hives, she found them infested with caterpillars called waxworms. When she’s not working in her lab at Spain’s IBBTEC institute, Federica Bertocchini keeps bees.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |