That's Some Hungry Fungi! Fungus Capable of Eating Plastic Found.

Pestalotiopsis Microspore

Originally created in the 1900s, synthetic plastics have myriad uses. Plastic makes up disposable water bottles, bags, packaging, headphones, cellphones, and countless other everyday items. However, plastics are also detrimental to the environment. Incredibly durable and taking hundreds or even thousands of years to degrade, we waste alarmingly large amounts of the substance every year. The plastics that we throw out can sit in landfills for generations, seemingly impossible to get rid of. However, researchers at Yale have found a fungus from the Amazon rainforest with a rather fantastic property - it is capable of digesting polyurethane.

Known as Pestalotiopsis microspore (member of the family Amphisphaeriaceae, order Xylariales, class Sordariomycetes, subclass Xylariomycetidae, and phylum Ascomycota), the fugus was first found in Ecuador. It is able to subside solely on polyurethane and is the first fungus ever discovered that is capable of doing so. Not only is this remarkable in and of itself, but the fungus can also break down the plastic anaerobically (without oxygen). The team of scientists also found the enzyme that enables the fungus to digest the polyurethane. The researchers believe that this enzyme is a promising development in bioremediation and a huge leap forward in removing plastics from landfills.

Formation Reaction of Polyurethane 

Sources:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249216/yale_discovers_a_fungus_that_eats_plastic.html

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/rainforest-fungus-eats-plastic-potentially-solving-landfill-problems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Environmental_issues

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pestalotiopsis_microspora

Images courtesy of:

http://www.jessicastuartmusic.com/wp-content/gallery/pre-jsfew/mushroom-spores.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Polyurethane.png

Study Reveals Ability of Yeast to Quickly Evolve

An article on today's New York Times chronicled a fascinating study at the University of Minnesota, a study that may change the way we study evolution. In the study, students discovered that yeast cells used to brew beer can form basic bodies in approximately two weeks.

Researchers created an experiment in which brewer's yeast was fed sugar and encouraged to reproduce, in hopes that the typically unicellular organism would perhaps create some kind of multicellular creature. To encourage this evolution the scientists raised so called "lines of yeast" from a single cell in 10 individual flasks full of "broth" - a soupy substance of nutrients. The flasks were shaken constantly for twenty four hours, and then allowed to settle. One drop of settled cells were put into a new flask and the yeast grew again. This meant that if the yeast fell quickly it would have a larger chance of survival. In a few weeks Dr. Ratcliff, the leader of the study, found that the yeast cells fell rapidly and created a small cloud of yeast at the base of the container. When examined under a microscope, it appeared that the yeast was, in fact, growing in small colonies. Each of these contained hundreds of individual cells. These colonies appeared to be in the shape of snowflakes, and appeared after a mere 60 generations of cells.

One cell of yeast would grow to full size in a matter of hours. Then it's "branches" that grew outwards would cut into each other until they broke. The broken branches would then each sprout another yeast section, which would again snap. This phenomenon is not unique to yeast. A group of unicellular organisms, choanoflagellates, often grow in the same way.

The researches plan to continue their work by looking into the genomes of the new yeast organisms, attempting to find the mutation that allowed for this growth. The yeast themselves are still evolving, changing so that they may reproduce faster and grow more.

source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/yeast-reveals-how-fast-a-cell-can-form-a-body.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=test-tube-yeast-evolve

Image courtesy of:
http://dft.ba/-yeast