The island of Vulcano is part of the Aeolian archipelago in Sicily and is making headlines these days for an important discovery made by some American scientists. It would have been identified here, in fact, a bacterium capable of quickly cleaning the atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

Vulcano is an area with an ancient history around which myths and legends have been built. The island, which had made tourism its strong point in recent years, was the focus of the Italian media a few days ago because of concerns expressed by local businessmen.

Excursions to the summit of the volcano, in fact, have been banned as well as the mud lake has been closed: the island's two major tourist attractions are uninhabitable, which is why the tourist season may not start this year.

These days, however, Vulcano is also in the international headlines for a sensational discovery made by experts from Harvard Medical School during a mission subsidized by the American company Seed Health. Seed Health is a California company founded in 2015 and has always been at the forefront of probiotic development so much so that its goal is "to use bacteria to improve human and environmental health."

During a mission to Vulcan, the university's scientists long observed and studied a particular microbe that belongs to the family of "cyanobacteria," which are single-celled organisms that mainly inhabit aquatic environments. Cyanobacteria are believed to be bio-building organisms, as their photosynthetic activity removes CO2 from the environment. The special cyanobacterium was first found in September 2022 by Americans in a hot spring of volcanic origin found here on the island and very rich in carbon dioxide. The lengthy analysis performed by experts led to the discovery that this microbe has an above-average photosynthesis capacity. This means that this organism is able to extract carbon from CO2 molecules at a truly extraordinary rate, greater than that of any other cyanobacterium.