In today’s story, we spoke with Parisa Sazaeim, a postdoctoral research associate at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Before she arrived in Madison, Sazaeim’s education in water resources engineering took her from her hometown University of Tehran to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Read on to learn about how growing up in an arid region shaped her passion for water and water accessibility.

Muconic acid is a chemical building block that can be used to make plastics such as those used in food and drink packaging, which are typically made from fossil fuels. Here, scientists genetically modified strains of the soil bacterium Novosphingobium aromaticivorans that produce muconic acid from an underused but abundant type of plant fiber called lignin.

UW–Madison’s team, known as WiscWind, is one of 12 selected for the third round of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2024 Collegiate Wind Competition, which aims to prepare college students for jobs in the wind energy workforce through hands-on experience.

Xylose is the second-most abundant sugar in plant biomass. Most yeasts cannot eat xylose even though many have the required genetic pathway. This study showed that gene content is necessary but not sufficient for xylose metabolism and that codon optimization can be a predictor of this trait.

Every time we flip a switch, it's connected to an energy bill. But, the impact of that energy bill isn't the same for everyone. For many Americans, they experience unaffordable energy bills and undue energy burden–spending a greater portion of their income on energy bills than the average household. In this episode, we look at energy justice and ways we can make energy equitable for all. We speak to Jaime Garibay Rodriguez about his research into carbon lock-in and the barriers to adopting cleaner, and cheaper, energy technologies.

We often look to the smallest lifeforms for help solving the biggest problems: Microbes help make foods and beverages, cure diseases, treat waste, and even clean up pollution. Yeast and bacteria can also convert plant sugars into biofuels and chemicals traditionally derived from fossil fuels

Experts agree that CDR is and will continue to be critical to mitigate the effects of climate change, but some forms of CDR can be slow and ineffectual, and commercial CDR technologies are costly to scale and can be hugely inefficienct. Climate hawks fear carbon capture and storage and CDR could provide excuses to continue burning fossil fuels. Yet in spite of the pitfalls, scientists widely agree that CDR investment is necessary.