{"id":1317,"date":"2015-10-01T23:25:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T23:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2015-10-01T23:27:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T23:27:49","slug":"making-a-mealworm-out-of-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/animal-research\/making-a-mealworm-out-of-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Meal(worm) out of Plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is pretty amazing! Researchers from Stanford <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/innovation\/styrofoam-eating-mealworms-could-happily-dispose-plastic-waste-n435901\" target=\"_blank\">raised mealworms on a diet of styrofoam<\/a>. And the results?<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 11.5px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;\"><em>Each worm ate about a few dozen milligrams every day, converting about half to carbon dioxide and leaving half behind as non-toxic waste.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Assuming there are no ill\u00a0effects down the road for these worms or predators that eat them, the implication of this styrofoam diet are huge!<\/p>\n<p>According to the EPA, Americans toss\u00a0out\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/reg3wcmd\/solidwasterecyclingfacts.htm\" target=\"_blank\">25,000,000,000 styrofoam cups each year<\/a>,\u00a0which do not break down fast or easily &#8212; and that&#8217;s just <em>cups<\/em>! But if mealworms are willing and able to lend a helping mouth (or, more accurately, the helpful bacteria in their guts that\u00a0breaks down\u00a0plastic), this could be a powerful solution for the world&#8217;s plastic waste.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1318\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1318\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1318\" src=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Mealworms-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Hungry Mealworms Photo: Yu Yang, Stanford\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Mealworms-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Mealworms.jpg 780w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1318\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hungry Mealworms<br \/>Photo: Yu Yang, Stanford<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Who says worms are slimy and gross?<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is pretty amazing! Researchers from Stanford raised mealworms on a diet of styrofoam. And the results? Each worm ate about a few dozen milligrams every day, converting about half to carbon dioxide and leaving half behind as non-toxic waste. Assuming there are no ill\u00a0effects down the road for these worms or predators that eat [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}