| Title | Plastic-Eating Caterpillars Can Degrade Polyethylene | |
| Date | Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:21AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the butterflies-with-plastic-wings dept. | ||
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39694553
Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered that the larvae of the moth, which eats wax in bee hives, can also degrade plastic.
Experiments show the insect can break down the chemical bonds of plastic in a similar way to digesting beeswax.
[...] caterpillars of the moth (Galleria mellonella) can make holes in a plastic bag in under an hour.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30231-2
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