Savannah: The ocean is drowning in plastic.

Yet a team of scientists may have just cracked this problem with eggs. As discarded plastic ages, it breaks down into particles smaller than a sesame seed, called microplastics.

This debris accumulates in giant patches, and, more worryingly, in the cells and tissues of marine organisms. And because these particles are so tiny, they're extremely hard to get rid of. But researchers found a way to create an aerogel that can filter them out using protein.

And y'know what happens to be almost pure protein and really easy to come by? Egg whites. Once freeze dried and super heated they transform into a lightweight lattice of carbon fibres and graphene.

The resulting aerogel is 99.9%) efficient at filtering out microplastics from sea water. But if you're worried that scientists are going to be making a run on eggs don't be. They connect the carbon lattice from other protein sources too. Otherwise that would require a cluck ton of chickens.