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Podcast: Cloth-eating fungus for sustainable biofuels
"A fungus that plagued GI's during World War II by eating shirts and tent cloth might be put to use to create biofuels from cellulose."
Scientific American reports: "It sounds like something out of a bad science fiction novel. During World War II, a fungus called Tricoderma reesei ate its way through US military uniforms and tents in the South Pacific. It chewed up the cloth and used special enzymes to convert the indigestible cellulose into simple sugars. Now that infamous fungus is getting some good publicity. It looks like it might hold a key to improving the production of biofuels."
Many thanks to our community member, Mr. Runia, for the suggestion!
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