{"id":23986,"date":"2024-06-05T10:25:19","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T04:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=23986"},"modified":"2025-10-07T12:56:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T07:26:55","slug":"parengyodontium-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/parengyodontium-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Parengyodontium album"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Parengyodontium album:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>marine fungus<\/strong> that can <strong>break down plastic polyethene (PE)<\/strong>, the most common plastic in the ocean.<\/li>\n<li>It was discovered by <strong>Marine microbiologists<\/strong> from the <strong>Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>In this <strong>bioremediation<\/strong> process, the<strong> PE-derived carbon <\/strong>is converted into the fungal biomass of <i>P. album<\/i>, serving as its energy source.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Initial photodegradation of PE by<strong> UV sunlight<\/strong> is crucial for this process. It makes the fungus useful to degrade the floating oceanic plastic litter.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Humans produce over <strong>400 billion kilograms<\/strong> of plastic annually, much of which ends up in the ocean.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Considering <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/fungi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">fungi<\/a> as the <strong>\u2018masters of degradation\u2019 <\/strong>that they utilise a plethora of digestive enzymes for plastic degradation, researchers expect that there could be more plastic-degrading fungi in the <strong>deeper parts of the ocean.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1. What is the bioremediation process?<\/h3>\n<p>Bioremediation is a process that uses microorganisms, fungi, or plants to break down pollutants in soil, water, or air, converting them into non-toxic substances through natural biological processes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.laboratoryequipment.com\/613396-Fungus-Breaks-Down-Plastic-Polyethylene-in-the-Ocean\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fungus Breaks Down Plastic Polyethylene in the Ocean<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parengyodontium album is a marine fungus that can break down plastic polyethene (PE), the most common plastic in the ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}