The Compost Microbe That Eats Your Sneakers: Eight Answers Science Nearly Missed

Tucked inside a pile of composting trash in Denmark, Rosie Graham found something surprising: a bacterium that was quietly eating plastic. "We have flooded the environment with so much plastic of different kinds," says the Aarhus University researcher, "but there are lots of organisms out there that are already using these materials as a source of energy."

That humble compost microbe is now an enzyme called CCPUR1 — genetically tweaked to break down the polyurethane foam in your favorite pair of sneakers. Published Sept. 11 in Chem Catalysis, the work could one day recycle waste from shoes, mattresses and kitchen sponges. That's roughly 22 million tons of polyurethane churned out every year, more than 5% of all plastics hitting the market.

It's a fitting reminder from the natural world: the solutions are often already there, hiding in plain sight.

Searching by shape, not sequence

At the University of Miami, Daniel Isom wondered what biology science was missing entirely. For decades, researchers have hunted proteins by their genetic sequences. But at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Isom and his team decided to search by three-dimensional shape instead — comparing the forms of more than 214 million predicted proteins with AI.

They found hidden members of the GPCR family, the protein group that helps cells sense and respond to signals. "We wanted to know what biology we might be missing if we searched by three-dimensional structure instead," Isom says. "What we found suggests there is another layer of biology" — a new way to understand how cells communicate, survive stress and possibly contribute to disease. The work appears in Nature.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Ningbo used a graph-based AI to extract entire physical laws directly from solid-material data — discovering concise equations for alloy steels, lithium metal and filled rubbers that outperform mainstream empirical models. As lead author Hao Xu notes, predetermined equation structures "inherently restrict the model's descriptive and predictive capability." Give AI the freedom to see fresh patterns, and it finds new laws of the universe.

The hidden abundance

Nature has been hiding nutritious treasure too. A KAUST-led study in Nature examined 30 nutrients essential for human health and found that current global production of aquatic invertebrates — oysters, mussels, crabs — contains enough vitamin B12 and selenium to meet the annual requirements of more than 5 billion people.

That's a staggering, overlooked bounty. And an international team including CIIMAR has developed a new genomic tool for two of the most economically important clam species, helping produce clams more resistant to disease and climate change while conserving their genetic diversity.

Even the fight against extinction is getting a creative boost. In a 15-year experiment across thousands of red flour beetles, University of East Anglia researchers found that when females could mate with multiple males, offspring inherited significantly fewer harmful mutations. After 156 generations, populations with greater sexual selection were healthier and more extinction-resistant. As Dr. Michael Pointer puts it, choice itself is a survival strategy.

Seeing what we missed

Some discoveries are about looking where we never looked. At Charles University, scientists used laser microdissection to capture proteins secreted by schistosomiasis parasite eggs directly inside living tissues — a first that could reshape treatment of a disease affecting more than 250 million people. And at Boston University, Benjamin Scott built a video game that people with autism — including those who are nonverbal — can actually play. Around 1 in 31 U.S. children have autism, yet research often excludes those with more severe symptoms. This game measures how the autistic brain interprets information, opening doors to new therapies.

From compost microbes that eat shoes to AI that reads the shape of proteins, the thread is the same: progress comes from looking at old problems with new eyes. The hidden layers — of biology, of nutrition, of the autistic mind — were always there. We're just finally learning to see them.

And that's a comforting thought. Because if the solutions to our plastics problem were hiding in a compost pile, imagine what else is out there, waiting to be found.