Researchers have just discovered a feat long thought impossible: the biodegradation of polystyrene plastics—also known as Styrofoam. The ecological disaster plastic is apparently edible where mealworms are concerned—thanks to certain microorganisms in the worms' stomachs.

There's a worm out there that could offer solution-driven solace to some of humankind's Styrofoam-induced woes.

Long thought not to be biodegradable, Styrofoam is apparently a perfectly fine meal for the minute mealworm. 

Scientists from Stanford and China have discovered that mealworms can safely eat and expel Styrofoam just like it was anything else they're used to eating. 

Roughly half of the digested Styrofoam is excreted in the form of carbon dioxide; most of the rest comes out in what researchers term