Rubber Flowers
Attention, tire manufacturers: Could be a GOOD YEAR for dandelions!This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Tires get elasticity from rubber, which is the sap from rubber trees. They're grown mostly on plantations in Southeast Asia. But a fast-spreading fungus is threatening those trees--making tire makers worry their industry might go flat. Enter the lowly dandelion. Remember snapping off dandelion stalks as a kid? A drop of milky goo would ooze out, then quickly harden. Botanists call that substance--here's an idea!--"dandelion rubber." In Russia, it's been long used to make tires. But it's expensive; you only get one drop per dandelion before the stuff solidifies on contact with air. Molecular biologists at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute recently identified the enzyme responsible for the hardening process, or "polymerization." They genetically modified dandelions to switch off the gene that produces the enzyme, slowing the hardening. Result? Five times the dandelion goo. Will that help the tire industry bounce back? Maybe--biologists say three acres of modified dandelions could produce up to two TONS of rubber. Just don't blow on them, okay?!!? Okay!
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