Plastic pollution, particularly from synthetic polymers like caprolactam and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), poses a significant environmental threat. This study explores the potential of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a soil bacterium, to degrade these pollutants, including disposable face masks. The bacterium demonstrated 61% degradation of caprolactam and 96% degradation of PVA, producing adipic acid and fumaric acid as byproducts. Field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed a 97.89% reduction in face mask fiber diameter, highlighting the potential of microbial remediation in combating microplastic pollution.

Yala (යාල) National Park is the most visited and second largest national park in Sri Lanka, bordering the Indian Ocean. It is situated in the southeast region of the country with 124 km distance towards east from University of Ruhuna. Including Sri Lankan elephant, 44 species of mammals are resident in Yala National Park, and it has one of the highest leopard densities in the world. Shown in the cover image is the Patanangala, a rock outcrop in the Yala beach.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala_National_Park

Group living in Grey-langur monkeys at University of Ruhuna premises.

Cover image: Architectural beauty of University of Ruhuna main campus. Chief Architect was Geoffrey Bawa. "Bawa’s design deployed over fifty separate pavilions linked by a system of covered loggias on a predominantly orthogonal grid and used a limited vocabulary of forms and materials borrowed from the Porto-Sinhalese building traditions of the late Medieval Period, but it exploited the changing topography of the site to create an ever varying sequence of courts and verandahs, vistas and closures. The result was a modern campus, vast in size but human in scale." (https://thearchiblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/geoffrey-bawa-ruhunu-university/). Photo Credit: Kalana Sugeeshwara (ksugeeshwara@gmail.com) - BBA UG in Marketing and Management - University of Ruhuna.