Plastic is notoriously hard to break down, but researchers in Austria have found that bacteria from a cow's rumen—one of the four compartments of its stomach—can digest certain types of the ubiquitous material, representing ...
Biotechnology
Jul 2, 2021
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A new study published in Nature Sustainability provides the first complete diagnosis of the origin and nature of the litter dumped into the ocean. The collaboration between research institutions such as Wageningen University ...
Environment
Jun 14, 2021
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40
In an effort to fight the millions of tons of marine litter floating in the ocean, Florida State University researchers have developed a new virtual tool to track this debris.
Environment
Apr 28, 2021
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That is the question that Prof. Alan Deidun, resident academic within the Department of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science, along with a cohort of high-profile co-authors, posed within a study recently published in the ...
Environment
Feb 1, 2021
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Benthic plastic litter is a main source of pollutants in oceans, but how it disperses is largely unknown. This study by Guangfa Zhong and Xiaotong Peng, published today in Geology, presents novel findings on the distribution ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 27, 2021
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In a study of local rivers, experts at the University of Nottingham in the UK have discovered more invertebrates—animals without a backbone, such as insects and snails—living on litter than on rocks.
Ecology
Jan 25, 2021
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20
Underwater seagrass in coastal areas appear to trap bits of plastic in natural bundles of fibre known as "Neptune balls," researchers said Thursday.
Environment
Jan 14, 2021
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317
Removing all of the plastic litter from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Aldabra Atoll—a ring of islands formed from coral reef in the Seychelles—would cost US $4.68 million and require 18,000 hours of labour, according ...
Environment
Sep 10, 2020
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3
Every year, the world produces about 300 million tonnes of plastic. Somewhere between 5 million and 12 million tonnes of it finds its way into the oceans, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck and colleagues. But only ...
Environment
Jun 8, 2020
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A new method of detecting patches of floating macroplastics—larger than 5 millimetres—in marine environments is presented in Scientific Reports this week. The approach, which uses data from the European Space Agency Sentinel-2 ...
Environment
Apr 23, 2020
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