This Is Why Biology Is Important.

This is why biology is important.

Worm Saliva Breaks Down Tough Plastic

Polyethylene, a durable plastic, is widely considered one of the worst forms of plastic pollution, but chemicals found the saliva of the wax worm may hold the key to breaking it down. One hours worth of exposure to the saliva breaks down the plastic by the equivalent of years worth of weathering.

There are two enzymes responsible for this degradation, and it’s believed that they are the first effective agents found in nature.

Polyethylene comprises 30% of production of a wide range of materials such as pipes, flooring, and bottles. Its hardiness comes from its resistance to oxygen. In order to get oxygen into the plastic, it has to be treated with UV light, but, the wax worms saliva seems to have a similar, if not improved, effect.

Wax worms are well known for destroying honey bee hives, and researchers say that its this ability to destroy hives that may hold the key to their ability to degrade plastics.

The study, published in the journal, Nature, is led by a team of Spanish researchers, who now want to research further into the degradation of polyethylene by wax worm saliva, and hope that one day, people may be able to have a home kit that they can use to breakdown the polyethylene at home.

Source: BBC News, written by Matt Magrath , and, Sanluis-Verdes, A., et al., (2022). Wax worm saliva and the enzymes therein are the key to polyethylene degradation by Galleria mellonella. Nature Communications, 13(1). Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33127-w (Accessed: 5th October 2022)

The Feynman Technique

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

Definitely toy story

What’s your favourite fairly accurate science film

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

Weekly art tip: Drawing folds!

Hope you guys enjoy it I’ve put a lot work to make this ^^

I tried to make it as simple as possible :)

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

Next time transphobes call trans healthcare "experimental" you can show them this

Hysterectomy for trans men 1917 Vaginoplasty for trans women 1923 HRT for cis women 1935 Chemotherapy 1946 HRT for trans people 1949 Phalloplasty for trans men 1951 Birth control pill 1957 Hip replacement 1962 IUD 1964 Heart transplant 1967 MMR vaccine 1971 Puberty blockers for cis kids 1980 Hepatitis A vaccine 1992 Puberty blockers for trans kids 1994 HPV vaccine 2006 Uterus transplant 2011

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

I haven't looked into it, what's it about HD 186 302 that you like a lot?

We only have one example of how life formed. If we had even one other example, even if it was within our own solar system, it would vastly improve our understanding of how abiotic materials make the jump to biotic. But since we don’t have any other examples, all we have to go on is what we know about ourselves.

It comes down to the organic molecules which are the necessary building blocks for life as we know it. We’ve found them in protoplanetary disks— solar systems that haven’t finished forming.

An entire solar system forms together, all at about the same time, shortly after the star is born. For the most part, everything in a solar system will be made of roughly the same Stuff.

What this means is: the most likely place to find Earth-like life outside of our planet is within our own solar system.

It also means that second most likely place to find Earth-like life is in the solar system of our long-lost twin.

Recent studies have suggested that all stars are born in pairs. The vast majority of stars are actually binary systems, two stars orbiting around each other. Our solar system is an outlier. This doesn’t usually happen.

So…. where is our twin? Obviously, something happened and the stars got flung in wildly different directions. But a group of astronomers found 17,000 potential candidates, which they narrowed down to 55, and then to 4 stars that matched ours. And finally, HD 186302 was declared the most likely match. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to detect any transits to see if it has planets yet…

….but the James Webb Telescope will be able to.

We’re still learning new things all the time, so it’s possible HD 186302 isn’t our solar sibling after all. Regardless, we have a solar twin out there somewhere, like another batch of cookies made from the same batter as ours.

The James Webb Telescope has me unreasonably excited for what amazing new discoveries we may potentially find.

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geekybadassorchids

2 years ago

Damn that's a big whale