Medical Discovery News
Science permeates everyday life. Yet the understanding of advances in biomedical science is limited at best. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today for the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly five-hundred-word newspaper column (http://www.illuminascicom.com/) and two-minute radio show provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics. Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine. Each release is designed to stimulate listeners to think, question and appreciate how science affects their health as well as that of the rest of the world. We also delve into significant biomedical discoveries and portray how science (or the lack of it) has impacted health throughout history.
Medical Discovery News
Cleaning Up Plastics in the Environment with Microbial Help
936 Cleaning Up Plastics in the Environment with Microbial Help
Welcome to Medical Discovery News. I’m Dr. Norbert Herzog.
And I’m Dr. David Niesel
Microplastics and nanoplastics are literally everywhere and yet, we continue to produce three hundred million tons of plastic every year and by two thousand-sixty, that number will triple.
Much of this is from single-use items like food packaging. Up to seventy percent of plastics end up in landfills, the oceans, or randomly discarded into the environment where they eventually degrade.
Because they’re made of fossil fuels, the chemicals within them are released when they break down.
Microplastics are pieces of plastic that are under five millimeters and nanoplastics are even smaller, the size of a single bacterium. Both are found worldwide in the most remote places, on the highest mountains, and deepest parts of our oceans.
They’re also in our food chain and in our bodies – the lung, blood, breast milk, sperm and placental tissue. There’s building evidence that they’re harmful, but we’re mostly unaware of the extent.
Much of our plastic waste ends up in the world’s oceans and the most recognized is the so-called Pacific Trash vortex, a mass larger than the state of Alaska.
New research at the garbage patch has focused on using microbes to break down the plastic. A new study identified a fungus called Parengyodontium album found in the patch's microbial communities.
It feasts on polyethylene plastics that have been altered and degraded by exposure to ultraviolet light. Three other fungi have also been found to decompose plastic. They could be one key to solving this plastic crisis.
We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine. For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.com or subscribe to our podcast. Sign up for expanded print episodes at www.illuminascicom.com
