Organisms discovered by Yale undergraduates growing within fungi in the Amazon Rainforest can degrade polyurethane, a findings that may lead to innovative ways to reduce waste in the world’s landfills.
The paper, accepted for publication in July by the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is the work of undergraduates who participated in Yale’s Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory course, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (more…)
*Symbiogenics — a New Strategy for Reducing Climate Impacts on Plants*
Seattle – Rice – which provides nearly half the daily calories for the world’s population – could become adapted to climate change and some catastrophic events by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi, just-published U.S. Geological Survey-led research shows.
In an effort to explore ways to increase the adaptability of rice to climatic scourges such as tsunamis and tidal surges that have already led to rice shortages, USGS researchers and their colleagues colonized two commercial varieties of rice with the spores of fungi that exist naturally within native coastal (salt-tolerant) and geothermal (heat-tolerant) plants. (more…)
