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Enzyme could overcome industrial bleaching waste problems

Taken from a microbe that thrives in the depths of a Yellowstone National Park hot springs pool, a newly discovered enzyme may be the key to transforming industrial bleaching from environmentally problematic to environmentally green. Chemical engineer Vicki Thompson and biologists William Apel and Kastli Schaller from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory discovered that the catalase enzyme from a Thermus brockianus microbe flourishes in both a high temperature and high pH (basic or alkaline) environment.

Alaska Quake Seems to Trigger Yellowstone Jolts

A major, magnitude-7.9 earthquake that rocked Alaska on Sunday apparently triggered scores of earthquakes some 2,000 miles away at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. By 8:30 a.m. MST Monday Nov. 4 – about 17 hours after the Alaskan quake – more than 200 small earthquakes had been detected occurring in clusters throughout the Yellowstone area. The quakes were recorded by the Yellowstone seismic network operated by the University of Utah Seismograph Stations.