Human-Made Materials Outweigh All Living Beings on Earth

Have you ever considered how the total weight of all the structures, vehicles, and infrastructure built by humans compares to all life on Earth? In their recent Nature paper Ron Milo and colleagues estimate that human made objects now weigh more than all living beings, and warn of an unsustainable trend with potential catastrophic consequences. Continue reading Human-Made Materials Outweigh All Living Beings on Earth

An easier way to break down Cellulose for energy?

Humans can’t digest cellulose. Similarly, we’ve found it hard to efficiently break down cellulose in biomass for energy applications, until now. Researchers show a more efficient breakdown of cellulose than current methods that require energy-intensive pretreatment steps to separate the parts that can be easily broken down from those that cannot, consuming more energy than they yield. Here, no pretreatment steps are required. In this … Continue reading An easier way to break down Cellulose for energy?