#Anthony Amend
Mānoa: Mighty marine fungi degrade plastic, can be trained to do it faster
Plastic is the most prevalent marine pollutant, and plastic surfaces are the fastest growing habitat in the ocean. Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa recently discovered that many species of fungi from Hawaiʻi’s nearshore environment have the ability to degrade plastic, and some can be conditioned to do it faster.
Mānoa: Discovering yeast in Hawaiʻi could answer larger questions
It is estimated that scientists have discovered only 1% of the yeast species thought to exist on Earth. A professor in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), hopes to change this by shedding light on what is known as a “dark area” of the fungal tree of life using a $1 million award over the next four years, funded by the National Science Foundation.
UH gets $10.7M for human, environmental microbiome research
Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have been awarded $10.7 million from the National Institutes of Health to study how human health is impacted by exposure to microbes. The studies will also explore how microbiomes are impacted by environmental and social-economic gradients in Hawaiʻi, and how an animal’s microbiome confers persistent health, using invertebrate hosts.
