Bertocchini and her team reported study results in April claiming to show that wax moth caterpillar intestines chemically biodegrade plastic. The Bertocchini team had applied a mush of squished wax moth caterpillars to plastic in the lab, and reported it breaking down into ethylene glycol. But the German team said that "essential signals of ethylene glycol are missing" from the original study results. Their findings were published in the journal Current Biology, which also printed the original study. The authors of the original study have not responded to a request for comment.

Source: The Local September 15, 2017 17:48 UTC