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 microplastic. This debris accumulates in giant patches, and more worryingly, in the cells and tissues of marine organisms. 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 you know what happens to be almost pure protein and really easy to come by? Egg whites! When freeze-dried and superheated, they transform into a lightweight lattice of carbon fibers and graphene. The resulting aerogel is 99.9% efficient at filtering out microplastics from seawater. But if you’re worried that scientists are going to be making a run on eggs, don’t be; they can create the carbon lattice from other protein sources too. Otherwise, that would require a cluck-ton of chickens!