Plastic pollution is haunting the planet for a long time. We may have realized the devil that plastic is quite recently, but we are also trying to bring the use of plastic to a halt. In Australia, a teenager has taken up this battle against plastic too, and she has come up with a new solution – prawn shells.

The 17-year-old, Angelina Arora, has been able to produce compostable plastic using prawn shells. This kind of plastic can decompose within 33 days. Her amazing invention has been praised in Australia too. She has earned a BHP Science and Engineering Award. She was also named the Australian Geographic Society’s Young Conservationist of the Year.


Angelina has mentioned that she is in the final talks regarding acquiring a patent over the compostable plastic. However, she has built the final prototype, and it will soon be ready for commercial distribution.

The best part – the compostable plastic is quite cheap and can be used for various purposes. She has been in talks with many companies, and they have found the product promising. It is insoluble, flexible, and durable – the most necessary things desired from plastic.


The product has been developed by mixing a protein from a silk cocoon and an element from prawn shells, which was able to create this compostable plastic.

Angelina is a medical student and is testing out the product as medical packaging too.

To reach her goal, Angelina conducted a few experiments. At first, she tried to make the plastic using organic materials like banana peels and cornstarch, but solubility became a factor for them. While having her dinner, she noticed that prawn shells have a plastic texture to them and that’s when the plan started to form. She started researching the shell and extracted carbohydrate chitin from it. She then used chemicals and transformed the carbohydrates into chitosan. Angelina then mixed the chitosan with fibroin, an insoluble protein found in silkworms. Thus, the new compostable plastic was formed which broke down in just 33 days.


She knew that her age might be seen as a barrier, but she did not think of it like that. For her, age is just another number. She kept on with her research, and in due course, she gained success.

She mentioned how her generation was slowly finding the voice to shout out against plastic pollution and climate change.

Angelina was inspired to make such a product after she saw that her parents had to pay for plastic at the stores. She became curious and asked about the reason, only to learn that plastic harms the environment. So, she wanted to make a cheap substitute. She loved science and experiments and so, she enrolled herself in the science field.

A YouGov study, which was commissioned by the Marine Stewardship Council, looked at about 1000 young people within the ages of 18-24, and they found out that they were most concerned about the environment and its impact on marine life.

Anne Gabriel of Marine Stewardship Council mentioned that oceans are the only wild food source left for us and if we don’t plan to preserve it, our next generation would suffer.

Maybe heroes like Angelina can save the world along with our help.

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Socotra is a small island that’s an offshore territory of Yemen. The isolated environment holds much unique flora and fauna and in fact, 30% of its plant life doesn’t grow anywhere else.

This has earned it the nickname “the most alien-looking place on Earth.” Also, Socotra is a UNESCO-certified World Natural Heritage Site and boasts three geographical terrains: coastal plains; a limestone plateau with caves; and the Haghier Mountains.



















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Iceland's two whaling companies will not be hunting whales this summer for the second straight year.

Icelandic whaling company IP-Utgerd announced on April 24 that it is stopping whaling completely, while the country's largest whaling firm, Hvalur, says it won't be hunting any whales this year, primarily due to social distancing.


Since whaling is limited in Iceland to the summer months, the announcement means no whales will be hunted off the subarctic coasts for the second year in a row.

For IP-Utgerd, the hunt had become too expensive after a no-fishing coastal zone was extended, requiring whalers to go even further offshore.

"I'm never going to hunt whales again, I'm stopping for good," IP-Utgerd managing director Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson told AFP.

Hvalur said it was canceling the season due to stiff competition with Japan and restrictions linked to the Coronavirus.

In the past, Hvalur sold most of its whale meat to Japan, but the company is not currently able to compete with Japan's own whale meat products, which are subsidized by the Japanese government. Japan now has strict requirements for imported whale meat, which has made dealings with Japan even more difficult.

Additionally, the COVID-19 outbreak has made it near impossible for the company to process the meat, since workers would need to be in close proximity to each other, and social distancing rules would be difficult to follow.

For conservationists, this interruption to whaling is good news.

"This is indeed terrific news that for a second straight year, vulnerable fin whales will get a reprieve from Hvalur's harpoons, the sole fin whaling company," Fabienne McLellan, co-director of international relations at Ocean Care, told Mongabay. "This said, fin whaling has been suspended in Iceland in the past, only to resume. While it looks promising that whaling in Iceland might stop for good, the temporary cessation of fin whaling must become permanent."

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A marine biologist in Russia has captured amazing photos of Clione limacina, also known as "Sea Angels".

Credit: Alexander Semenov
Alexander Semenov is the head of the divers' team at Moscow State University's White Sea Biological Station.

"My personal goal is to study underwater life through camera lenses and to boost people's interest in marine biology," he said. "I do this by sharing all my findings through social media and in real life, through public lectures, movies, exhibitions, and various media events."

One of his favorite sea creatures is the Sea Angel.

Credit: Alexander Semenov
"Sea angels are beautiful and mysterious creatures," says Semenov. "These cold-water pteropod mollusks are among the most studied objects in neurobiology, but at the same time little is known about their life cycle. At some point they suddenly appear under an ice cap covering the sea, and in a few weeks there are so many that in one cubic meter of water column there can be up to 500 sea angels! With their size of 3-5 cm it is quite a spectacular sight."

Credit: Alexander Semenov
But once the water gets too warm, they disappear.

"No one knows where they go, but the next winter, in February, they appear again under the ice," Semenov said. "It is only known that they can survive without food for more than six months, significantly reducing their size during starvation. So far, no one has figured out how to track the life of a tiny angel in the Arctic seas all year round to find out where they are going."

Watch the video below:


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