Not all hope for the planet Earth is lost; great strides have been made to produce waste-reduction methods or renewable energy machines. But it seems Mother Earth is helping out too, producing her own plants, animals, and bacteria to consume our waste and adapt to the world we're building. Now we can add Pestalotiopsis microspora to the mix. This little fungus consumes polyurethane, the main ingredient in plastic, and could prove immensely useful to reducing the massive plastic landfills that take up so much of our land and do so much more hard than good. Not all is lost; Pestalotiopsis microspora is here to save the day.
Link to article here

Diatom Art!

I thought the photos of diatom art that John showed us in class were beautiful and I couldn't believe they were made of algae! While this was originally a Victorian art form, Klaus Kemp is the sole modern diatom artist and Smithsonian magazine recently published a piece on him. Below is some of his art.

A type slide displaying the various shapes and colors of diatoms 

"Bike" made of Arachnoidiscus and Nitzschia

"Bunch of Flowers with Foliage" made of butterfly scales and diatoms

"Circle" made of 25 forms of diatoms