Using Plant-based Plastic to Help Fight Climate ChangeTop of Mind with Julie Rose • Season 1, Episode 966, Segment 5
Dec 17, 2018 • 20m
Guest: Joseph Rollin, Postdoctoral Researcher, US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory Most of the plastic that surrounds us, fills our landfills and floats in giant trash islands on the ocean is made from oil. And most of that plastic doesn’t recycle all that well. Plastics made from plants may be the solution in the long-run. They biodegrade faster and can also be recycled more completely than traditional plastic. There’s also the intriguing possibility that plant-based plastics could be used to permanently trap harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

What's Better than an Antibiotic? A Virus That Kills BacteriaDec 17, 201822mGuest: Julianne Grose, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU; Richard Robison, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU; Mike Alder, Director, BYU, Technology Transfer Office BYU Unless we find a way to deal with antibiotic resistance, health experts predict that thirty years from now bacterial infections will be killing as many people as diabetes and cancer do. Inventing new antibiotics to tackle so-called superbugs that are resistant to the current arsenal is a top international health priority. Here at BYU, the focus is on finding viruses that kill deadly bacteria. Instead of pumping a patient full of antibiotics, doctors might instead pump that patient full of viruses – but nice ones.
Guest: Julianne Grose, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU; Richard Robison, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU; Mike Alder, Director, BYU, Technology Transfer Office BYU Unless we find a way to deal with antibiotic resistance, health experts predict that thirty years from now bacterial infections will be killing as many people as diabetes and cancer do. Inventing new antibiotics to tackle so-called superbugs that are resistant to the current arsenal is a top international health priority. Here at BYU, the focus is on finding viruses that kill deadly bacteria. Instead of pumping a patient full of antibiotics, doctors might instead pump that patient full of viruses – but nice ones.