Crab shell by-products could help regulate the marine lifetime of biodegradable plastics

Biodegradable plastics hold potential for reducing marine plastic pollution, but degrade too quickly, limiting their practical use. Researchers from Gunma University now show that crab shell by-products can reduce the breakdown rate of biodegradable plastics in seawater by altering the microbial communities that colonize their surfaces, known as the plastisphere. These findings could help design…

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Renewable energy will boost national security and protect UK from sabotage, minister says | Renewable energy

Renewable energy will boost national security and protect UK from sabotage, minister says | Renewable energy

Renewable energy will boost the UK’s national security and make the country more resilient against potential aggression or sabotage, the government’s energy minister has said. Michael Shanks said widely dispersed wind farms and solar panels were much harder to target than large-scale fossil fuel power stations. They are also not vulnerable to supply shocks, such…

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Two blazing quasars caught waltzing into a merger

Astronomers, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have confirmed the existence of a close quasar pair housed in a pair of merging galaxies seen when the universe was less than a billion years old, at a redshift of 5.7. The system, designated J2037–4537, is one of only two confirmed quasar pairs at redshift greater…

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