Reducing methane in cow burps

For a long time, researchers have been trying to tackle the problems caused by cow burps. The animals’ belches release methane into the atmosphere, a gas that contributes to climate change. Now, researchers in Australia, at a company called Loam Bio, have come up with a possible answer – growing a fungus (a type of organism that gets its food from rotting plants or other living things) that produces a substance called bromoform. When fed to cows, bromoform affects the production of methane in their stomachs, so the animals’ burps contain less of the gas. The researchers discovered the fungus by searching through a big database they had created that contains lots of different species of fungi. The team picked out the ones that could produce bromoform and tested them…

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The Week Junior (UK) (Digital) - 1 Issue, 484

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