Although one might argue that the world is facing plenty of seemingly-unsolvable problems at the moment, two of the most troubling are food shortages and the overabundance of non-biodegradable garbage. Austrian design firm Livin Studio teamed up with researchers at Ultrecht University to develop a brilliant idea for handling both.

Their concept is called Fungi Mutarium. The amazing – yet totally possible – idea is to use plastic-eating fungi to convert waste plastic into totally safe food for humans. The fungi used in the Mutarium are Schizophyllum Commune and Pleurotus Ostreatus, two strains that grow almost everywhere in the world and in some places are already highly appreciated as food sources.

Both strains of fungi have the unique property of being able to digest non-biodegradable plastics. As the fungi break down plastics, they don’t store the toxic ingredients. That means that when the fungi become mature and are ready to eat, they won’t leave behind toxic plastic elements in your `digestive system.

The Fungi Mutarium is segmented into two spaces: one to grow the fungi, and one to hold small cups made of agar, a seaweed-based substitute for gelatin, mixed with salt and sugar. These cups are called FUs, and they are where the action happens. The FUs are filled with UV-sterilized plastic and then sprinkled with fungi spores suspended in a liquid nutrient solution. The fungi go to work breaking down the plastic.

The entire process is pretty long, taking up to a few months before it’s ready to consume. But when you consider that the average piece of plastic takes hundreds of years or longer to decompose, a few months is a blink of the eye. The Fungi Mutarium could quite possibly solve (or at least slow) the global food crisis as well as the growing garbage dilemma. It could allow food to grow in places where typical crops can’t grow.

However, the technology is pretty far off from being perfected. So far, the Mutarium can produce food that is edible and varies widely in flavor. We will probably never be able to replicate the flavors and textures of the food we’re used to eating today, but who knows? The future is a strange place where just about anything is possible.

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In developing countries, water quality is something that often hampers progress. Proximity to water altogether is a threat to quality and something that led American social venture company Wello to create a portable water transporting device.

In regions of India, the trek to water can be up to five miles long. Retrieving it is a task done mainly by women, and the distance can cause it to take up to 25% of their day. The inventors at Wello created the WaterWheel, a spherical container that rolls on attached handles. It can hold 50 liters, a five-fold improvement on the traditional head-carrying method.

Wello created the WaterWheel after first visiting people in villages in the region of Rajasthan in 2011. They won a $100,000 Grand Challenges Canada prize that allowed them to fully develop the idea, which is now being manufactured in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat.

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Scientists have estimated that there might be as many as 100 million species of plants and animals on Earth, but so far we’ve only identified some two million. Finding a treasure trove of new species is a huge accomplishment for any team of biologists and researchers. A group in Australia recently completed a four-year comprehensive study of some very harsh environments in the outback, and the result was the discovery of 850 new species in underground caves and bodies of water.

The species found in these underground habitats were mostly blind and lacking pigment due to the environment in which they live. Above is an amphipod, a shrimp-like crustacean. Of the water-dwelling creatures found, crustaceans represented about seventy-five percent of the new species.

These otherworldly inhabitants of the subterranean outback have adapted to their light-less environments, sometimes by evolving past the need for eyes. They navigate using vibration and chemical senses. Above: a pseudoscorpion, a predaceous diving beetle, and a woodlouse.

Scientists suspect that the species went underground when the previously-wet outback underwent a climate change millions of years ago, turning it into the harsh and arid environment of today. After retreating to the underground habitats, they evolved separate from their above-ground counterparts, giving them completely different appearances and characteristics.

So far, only about 10 percent of the areas likely to share similar creatures have been explored. Experts worry that the extreme isolation of the habitats – and the fact that they rest in the midst of ranching and mining territory – could make conservation efforts challenging.

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Since the last eruption of Mount Bosavi 200,000 years ago, the Papua New Guinea volcano has become a rich environment full of animals and insects that can’t be seen anywhere else on Earth. And when an expedition of researchers from the US, UK and Papua New Guinea ventured into the crater of Mount Bosavi earlier this year, they found a wealth of previously undiscovered species.

The expedition, filmed by the BBC for a three-part series, took the team into one of the remotest areas of the planet. The rain forest in the dormant volcano’s 100-meter-wide crater is nearly inaccessible. The nearest village is 15 miles away, and the local language is spoken by fewer than 1000 people. The team had to explain to the villagers the concept of paying them for their help and the temporary use of their land to set up base camp. Shown above: the fruit dove and an iridescent beetle found in the crater.

The world inside the crater was completely untouched by human influence. The giant rodents they discovered had no knowledge of humans and therefore showed no fear of the researchers. Above, the king bird of paradise and a detail of its ornate tail plumage used in mating rituals, and the buff-faced pygmy parrot.

With the rain forests of Papua New Guinea disappearing at a rate of 3.5% each year, these newly-discovered species are at risk of losing their habitat. Above, the black and yellow noctuid caterpillars group together to appear larger to predators; the hairy caterpillar was just one of more than 40 new species discovered in the crater.

Because of their extreme isolation, the species in the Mount Bosavi crater evolved completely separately from other wildlife. A new species of fanged frog was found, along with the above spider which disguises itself as lichen to trick predators. Since there are no cats or primates in the crater, the main predators are large monitor lizards.

The spectacular new species discovered in the crater included this large wooly rat, which may prove to be the largest in the world at 3 pounds and 32 inches long. The striped possum shown above releases a noxious odor as a defense mechanism when alarmed.

The never-before-seen marsupial Bosavi Silky Cuscus, seen here relaxing on the shoulder of a member of the research team, resembles a small bear and feeds on the fruit and leaves in the trees where it lives. This common tube-nosed bat may not be a previously undiscovered species, but it is just one part of the incredible lost world researchers found in the remote crater.

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