No flash photography, and please, don’t feed the mold.
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Imagine priceless puppets slowly degrading over the years. Museum air TEEMS with sneaky microbes. How can we protect our historical artifacts?
Enter Yuanyuan Wang and team from Beijing’s University of Science and Technology. They vacuum-sampled air from the National Shadow Puppetry Museum.
DNA testing identified hungry bacteria and fungus molds nibbling on leather: Bacillus and Aspergillus! They then tested the antimicrobial effect of two gentle cleaners: BC01 and carvacrol, found in oregano. These kicked the microbes’ butts!
Preserved puppets mean cultural stories stay alive for centuries longer.
Ancient art quietly crumbles, piece by piece. Time to give mold its final curtain call! Just add oregano!
Reference: Wang, Y., Duan, Y., Wang, Y. et al. Microbial analysis in the preservation environments of shadow puppet cultural relics in museum. npj Herit. Sci. 13, 264 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s40494-025-01801-z