An engineered PET depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles

They're Plastic, but They Recycle

Dendritic spines form and grow during hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). In this issue of Neuron, a new study by Park et al. uses both serial reconstruction electron microscopy and time-lapse imaging to show that plasma membrane for such spine expansion is trafficked from recycling endosomes that reside locally at the spines themselves.

Sorting Plastic Bottles for Recycling

Scrambling Eggs in Plastic Bottles

This issue of PLoS Genetics contains the second of two important papers describing the high levels of meiotic failure caused by exposure of female mice to a chemical known as Bisphenol A (BPA) [1]. In the first article [2], Pat Hunt and her collaborators demonstrated high levels of meiotic failure in females exposed to BPA, suggesting that BPA exposure affects maturing oocytes. This conclusion ...

Another way to break down

hen yeast secretory proteins are improperly folded, the ER quality control system directs them into the HRD/DER pathway, which targets the proteins for degradation. Blocking the HRD/DER pathway, however, does not completely stop degradation, implying that there must be an alternative way to destroy misfolded secretory proteins. Haynes et al., reporting on page 91, have now characterized that pa...

Bottles to trees: Plastic beverage bottles as an alternative nursery growing container for reforestation in developing countries

Reforestation is needed globally to help restore degraded sites, combat desertification, protect watersheds, and provide forest products. This involves planting forest tree seedlings grown in local nurseries, but technologies to produce quality seedlings are lacking in developing countries. Modern nursery containers used to propagate seedlings have internal-surface barriers (ribs or ridges) or ...