Can we turn methane into merlot?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science saying…
Scary question, I know. How did we get here?
Cow burps and landfills trap us with a bad vintage of greenhouse gases. Can the damage be undone?
Enter Ruchira Mitra and colleagues from Penn State. They rewired a methane-making microbe to run backwards.
The team added iron, yeast, and acids. This prompted the microbe to gobble up greenhouse gases and spit out ethanol. Ethanol is the main component of alcohol! It can also be used as biofuel and is easier to store, unlike methane gas.
But don’t fret, methane-liqueur won’t hit local happy hours anytime soon. *BURP*
Reference: Mitra, R., Choi, Y., Hwang, HJ. et al. Reversing methanogenesis to produce ethanol. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03601-0