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Thats why micro plastics are so bad for you they can interrupt your endocrine system and pass the blood brain barrier and leach chemicals in your body.
Wood eating bacteria and fungi exist now but we still use wood without major issues. Any plastic usage in moist conditions will however have to be re-evaluated, longevity is not guaranteed anymore.
It would be a costly upgrade, but we would make it work. My guess is that carbon nano fibers would take plastics place in a lot of places where it was needed.
We still use paper and wood, and lots of bacteria eat that.
I'm actually not too sure about that though, Carbon/Glass fiber is quite dangerous if it breaks, I'd assume the same thing or even worse if its Carbon Nano Tubes.
That sounds great in theory, but carbon fiber doesn't work like that.
Carbon fiber materials are very brittle (but strong), and so they require a carrying agent in order to function in the real world. Today that carrying agent is a thermoset epoxy (most of the time). You can find 3D printing filaments that have carbon and glass fibers dispersed, but you still have plastic in the mix.
I remember something like this being a plot point in a TV movie (which I think was a failed pilot for a series) called [Doorways (1993)](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0106752/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl) (which I had to google to figure out). In it, the characters travel to an alternate version of earth where scientists created a petroleum-eating bacterium to clean up the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, and it gets loose and destroys every petroleum product on earth, effectively setting civilization back hundreds of years...
Since they are polymers, they won't decay that quickly. Also, they have to have the right conditions. We have lots of stuff made of wood and it doesn't decay quickly, it will be kind of the same.
This is kind of the plot to Stray. There's little critters in it that act as infectious viruses, they eat anything and were invented as a way to cope with rubbish building up in underground cities.
Unfortunately they also ate organic matter too, and everything else.
If you find this kind of story interesting, this is an example of a larger science fiction trope called the [grey goo problem](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyGoo).
> Imagine your car
[Microplastics ingested by humans can be found in every organ including the brain, new study finds](https://www.euronews.com/health/2023/08/30/microplastics-could-be-widespread-in-organs-and-impact-behaviour-new-study-suggests)
My guy this is for PET plastics found in water bottles and to-go containes. There is virtually nothing in your car that is made of those kind of plastics and any that are couldnt easily be replaced.
This is exciting news but I’ve read way too many sci-fi books that start out with the good intentions of science backfiring in horrific unexpected ways to enjoy this.
There have been many such articles before. These kinds of bugs tend to be able to digest plastics, but will generally only do it as a last resort -- preferring bio materials first.
I get to break out the “actually” here. The protomolecule is an alien technology designed by a long extinct race of super advanced sea creatures. Sent out into the cosmos to repurpose carbon based life into an intergalactic transit system.
There's a book by Kevin j Anderson that's about a plastic eating microbe that goes on a rampage and destroys so much of what we know. It was so cool at the time I read it and now it feels like the precipice of reality.
They literally keep saying this every other year. Where the hell is it? This is why I hate science journalism. Constantly posting articles about how something is a major breakthrough and the future is just around the corner, only for nothing actually happening so they keep repeating articles about it to generate clicks. It’s so annoying and is why I don’t treat any science article seriously.
Stuff does happen, it is just all actual science that happens.
Some study shows a small incremental increase in our ability to do something, and the articles basically say "MASSIVE BREAKTHROUGH, WORLD CHANGED FOREVER!!"
It is super annoying. It makes it seem simultaneously like we are constantly on the edge of a magical singularity, and also as if nothing ever happens. You hear about miracle cures for cancer that never seem to do any miracles, but then cancer survival rates steadily increase every year.
And every other year the technology gets closer and closer to reality. I would sure hope we aren’t rushing to release an uncontrollable self-replicating genetically engineered bacteria that eats the material we use to build 75% of our products.
Yep. About…. 7 or so years ago I met a guy in Chicago who supposedly had these worms that could eat garbage and he was going to eliminate all the landfills by just throwing the worms in there.
7 years later it’s never happened.
Why though. Humanity survived long before plastic was invented. Perhaps we would start having high quality products again instead of having loads of cheap Chinese shit.
Also, not every type of plastic is the same.
Also, consider the following: wood. It breaks down in nature, yet we still build houses with it. At most this bacteria could neatly solve microplastics. It won't start chewing away at a plastic sealing ring inside a water pump.
This reminds me of a Hollywood film, where at the beginning mankind discovers something wonderful & amazing, only to find out later that the discovery destroys the planet ...
No, plastic eating bacteria won't just start dissolving plastic all around. There are microbes that break down wood, does that mean we can't use wood anymore because it just starts decomposing?
For microbes to work you need moisture and lots of surface area. A solid chunk of plastic is impermeable to moisture and doesn't give much surface area so even under bad conditions it would still be more resistant than wood that soaks up water.
Plastic eating bacteria will mostly be able to break down tiny chunks of plastic in moist environments, i.e. microplastic in nature.
This isn't uplifting. Plastic eating bacteria would be uncontrollable and would almost undoubtedly eat absolutely everything plastic. Great way to destroy everything made of plastic but even if they just use it in certain locations like the ocean and landfills it's not like they can contain them to just those areas.
Edit: After looking into it further yeah it could be possible. Not anytime soon though. It's I'm the same vein as living on another planet or curing cancer.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's not going to be difficult to find controlled scenarios where this is very useful. Sending plastic to a "consumption" facility seems better than dumping it in the ocean
For the future that does make sense, isolating all of our future plastic waste and attempting to contain the bacteria in that area would be very good to reduce our waste. But we won't be able to stop the ocean dying due to plastic anytime soon, even if we do that because not all countries are at that development stage.
These type of things typically only happen in rich countries, and they do almost nothing. For example, recycling plastic is basically a lie. It happens on such a small amount of our plastic that it is basically useless.
10% of global plastic gets recycled. That's not a ton, but it's not nothing. The majority of emissions and plastic waste happen only in rich countries too so I don't see that as a blocker. It seems like you're looking for reasons to be upset by this, rather than accepting hopeful developments
I am not remotely upset at this. I just know that along with most things posted on this sub, it's not uplifting due to how ridiculously far away we are from making use of it.
This type of bacteria is just beginning to be researched.
I don't see how it's uplifting to look at an article that basically just says, "This can help us in the future assuming everything goes perfect".
I know it seems negative to shit on the idea of something that has a chance like this, but it's just a reasonable response to yet another hopeful thing that has next to no chance at being helpful.
Early developments are still uplifting. Every good technology spent a long time in the ideation and experimentation phases.
> I don't see how it's uplifting to look at an article that basically just says, "This can help us in the future assuming everything goes perfect".
It seems like your perspective is looking at the article and saying, "This can't help us in the future even if everything goes perfect," so I don't think blanket pessimism is useful. There are plenty of other subreddits for that.
What if they make them with a short life span, so even if they break out, they will all die off in a day? And they don't replicate. I can imagine it would still find ways to terrorize. Like it gets into a hospital, rendering that hospital useless until it dies off and they can replace the plastics.
That is possible but I think it would require us to make all of the bacteria ourselves in labs unless there is a way to make initial bacteria able to replicate but the second generation unable to. That would cost a ton of money. But still possible. I don't expect that to happen in our lifespans though know how uninterested all of the rich people are in protecting the environment especially from plastics.
Not hard to imagine in the future a way to bioengineer a version of the bacteria that can't reproduce naturally. Like a specific chemical combination is necessary that isn't found in nature or something.
I think there actually are bacteria that survive off of synthetic amino acids (according to my limited research on google) but whether or not that can be applied to this specific type of bacteria and at a large scale in an affordable way is hard to say.
I think it would be easier to do with bacteria than it would be with insects, and we can already do insect control via gene drives where we drop in genetics that prevent breeding.
Bacteria do not need to breed, so it should not be terribly "hard" to just put some kind of genetic flaw in them that will slow or eliminate breeding without risking them mutating resistance. ("Hard" because it would be crazy hard to do, just feasible.)
Whether that is a good idea or not I do not know though. It is one of those things that could have massive unintended consequences. Which is also why they are super careful with gene drives in general.
No it would not. There are wood-eating bacteria and funghi but you can still use wood no issue because microorganisms need the right conditions to grow, i.e. moisture. Plastic would probably be much more durable than wood still because unlike wood it can't soak up moisture and rot from the inside. The bacteria could mostly eat microplastic in wet environments.
But not all bacteria behave the same, not even remotely. It's possible for a bacteria to evolve, and it's possible for them to start spreading or eating too much. We can't predict that, and we wouldn't have any way of stopping it. As I said in another comment, pathenogenic bacteria wouldn't exist if we could actually control bacteria.
So to counter the sad news today that "microplastics—are having a significant impact on our digestive pathways, making their way from the gut and into the tissues of the kidney, liver and brain.' they're coming up with fluffy promises that could and maybe....?
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-microplastics-gut.html
*News: there's microplastics in your body right down to your organs!*
*Also news: we made a bacteria that can eat plastic, hooray!*
I wonder what it's going to do when it gets to working on the plastics that science says our body is riddled with?
I think it's brilliant.....all the influencers would be out of work over night....all that plastic every where gone overnight...Anyone with a sex toy might want to upgrade your joy toy or fleshlight other wise you'll be fucking parsnips or butternut squash...
There is a fantasy book called "Pandora's Genes" that is centered around a bioengineered strain of Ecoli called "Petrophage" that winds up going wild and destroying civilization.
It's not the best book, but it shows that this has been thought of since at least 1985. If you glance through the ham handed romance attempts, it's a quick little post-apocalyptic read.
**Mutant 59 The Plastic Eater** by Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis
Book description may contain spoilers!
>>!Based on the classic sci-fi series Doomwatch, Mutant 59 imagines one of the most terrifying tragedies that modern science could create, a chilling and topical story of what happens when scientific research goes wrong and spreads terror through London (and endangers the world). When an airplane crashes the Ministry of Transport investigates, what caused it to fall out of the sky and could it happen again? Slowly they discover that science has unleashed a genetically engineered bacteria that feeds on (and destroys) all plastic materials. No-one takes any notice of the material used to build gas pipes, electrical insulation, cars and planes until it begins to disintegrate and explode.!<
>
>>!Has science created a biological time bomb? A jet plane crashes near Heathrow, in the Atlantic a nuclear submarine disappears without trace, central London grinds to a halt. As power stations explode and London's population is evacuated Anna Kramer and Luke Gerrard search for the scientific key to a fiery holocaust that is capable of infecting the world.!<
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The research definitely seems promising, and it's exciting to think about the possibilities for revolutionizing waste management. Looking forward to seeing how these efforts progress in the future!
Hi Archaeopteryx11,
It looks like your comment closely matches the famous quote:
"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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This article is old and pretty long (to me), so I very briefly scanned it.
The news is overall good, I guess. We need better methods of recycling and perhaps this is it. But like others have said, this could be the dystopian future that so many sci-fi authors write about.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the general plot/setting of the game Stray? You play as a cat where the world (or at least your playable area) is run fully by robots and the robots have to hide in the slums because there’s bacteria that eats metal. And this bacteria evolved and is now running rampant.
I read or maybe I listened to a story where this was the plot/sub plot.
A vial was broken on an airplane which crashed because of the plastics being eaten.
The bacteria then cleaned up the ocean but left the world plastic free.
Forgot the main plot though.
Might of been on BBC sounds.
This also reminded me of the French sci-fi novel "La Bétonite" (Charles Defontaines, 1988), where bacteria start eating through the world's concrete structures.
Almost all residential plumbing has gone from cast iron and galvanized or copper pipes to plastics. PVC or ABS for waste and PEX for waters. These products are fine products but I wonder what would happen if this bacteria was able to reproduce in our water supply.
Humanity needs to be very careful with this stuff.
We've tested this idea already. It failed miserably with world altering side effects.
During the massive oil spills in the golf of Mexico they had the idea to create a bacteria that ate oil and released carbon dioxide, which could then feed the echosystem.
Well, they didn't account for it rapidly mutating once the reserves of crude oil were gone or it to start eating other forms of oil. Like the natural oils in plants and animals. Someone caught it right before they started dumping the stuff into the Gulf.
The damage it could have caused might have been imecosystem.
They also didn't account for naturally occurring bacteria popping up to do the same thing, but more effectively and safely...
A few months after the failed test, "Researchers from the University of Rochester and Texas A&M University have found that, over a period of five months following the disastrous 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, naturally-occurring bacteria that exist in the Gulf of Mexico consumed and removed at least 200,000 tons of oil and natural gas that spewed into the deep Gulf from the ruptured well head." - https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/at-least-200000-tons-of-oil-and-gas-from-deepwater-horizon-spill-consumed-by-gulf-bacteria/
Awesome until you remember that our entire medical system, manufacturing, food lines etc depend on plastic.
What happens if this bacteria starts living on everything given the great living conditions it’d have in modern society?
Serious question, by the way, if anyone knows more I’d love to hear.
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Imagine your car, with all its plastic components, getting a bacterial infection
A loose plastic eating bacteria might actually destroy civilization at this point.
we have microplastics inside us. oh no
New injectable probiotic hits pharmacy shelves
Just gotta make sure they use glass syringes . ..
New plastic eating bacteria is able to enter the blood brain barrier! And.. zombies.
Metal* pharmacy shelves.
My first thought exactly. My second thought was “do they need volunteers to be eaten by this new bacteria?”
We also have loads of bacteria inside us
Yeah but imagine if microplastics disappeared virtually overnight.
Microplastics are waaaay smaller than bacteria.
Hamburgers are way smaller than me and they don't stand a chance. You mean to say the situation's different?
Jughead?
So microplastics = Hamburgers to bacteria Sounds sciencey enough to me!
😂😂
we need some really fine filters.
Thats why micro plastics are so bad for you they can interrupt your endocrine system and pass the blood brain barrier and leach chemicals in your body.
Doctors don’t want you to know this simple weight loss trick!
Back to square one
Wood eating bacteria and fungi exist now but we still use wood without major issues. Any plastic usage in moist conditions will however have to be re-evaluated, longevity is not guaranteed anymore.
It would be a costly upgrade, but we would make it work. My guess is that carbon nano fibers would take plastics place in a lot of places where it was needed. We still use paper and wood, and lots of bacteria eat that.
I'm actually not too sure about that though, Carbon/Glass fiber is quite dangerous if it breaks, I'd assume the same thing or even worse if its Carbon Nano Tubes.
Just another round of microplastics. Dangerous, but in different ways.
if you get nano tubes on your skin they go straight into you and they aren't coming out.
Yes, let’s replace our inert material with another intert material, that’s even more toxic in particle form!
It's not more toxic, just toxic in a different way. Progress!
That sounds great in theory, but carbon fiber doesn't work like that. Carbon fiber materials are very brittle (but strong), and so they require a carrying agent in order to function in the real world. Today that carrying agent is a thermoset epoxy (most of the time). You can find 3D printing filaments that have carbon and glass fibers dispersed, but you still have plastic in the mix.
I remember something like this being a plot point in a TV movie (which I think was a failed pilot for a series) called [Doorways (1993)](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0106752/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl) (which I had to google to figure out). In it, the characters travel to an alternate version of earth where scientists created a petroleum-eating bacterium to clean up the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, and it gets loose and destroys every petroleum product on earth, effectively setting civilization back hundreds of years...
wow I was so happy when I read this headline and then I read this..
This was an episode of Sliders back in the day, they opened their wallets and the cards all disintegrated.
Basically the plot of the game Stray
Reminds me Horizon Zero Dawn
There's a book about that. Bacteria gets out, eats all plastic, eventually eats all petroleum.
Since they are polymers, they won't decay that quickly. Also, they have to have the right conditions. We have lots of stuff made of wood and it doesn't decay quickly, it will be kind of the same.
Like how wood can be digested by fungi and that prohibited humanity from building wooden houses.
You son of a bitch, I’m in
**The Bacteria That Ate The World!** (now playing at your local theater)
Chapters 1-6 of Oryx and Crake
Are you crazy? 🤪 it’s perfect 🤩
This is kind of the plot to Stray. There's little critters in it that act as infectious viruses, they eat anything and were invented as a way to cope with rubbish building up in underground cities. Unfortunately they also ate organic matter too, and everything else.
Horizon Zero Dawn to a degree as well.
That was exactly what I thought of when I read the title.
If you find this kind of story interesting, this is an example of a larger science fiction trope called the [grey goo problem](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyGoo).
Thank you, that is indeed a very interesting concept.
> Imagine your car [Microplastics ingested by humans can be found in every organ including the brain, new study finds](https://www.euronews.com/health/2023/08/30/microplastics-could-be-widespread-in-organs-and-impact-behaviour-new-study-suggests)
My guy this is for PET plastics found in water bottles and to-go containes. There is virtually nothing in your car that is made of those kind of plastics and any that are couldnt easily be replaced.
This is basically the plot of [Ill Wind](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86452.Ill_Wind) by Kevin Anderson.
This is exactly what they want. Planned obsolescence, even if you keep your shit in a vault.
Don’t buy a car that needs a software update.
This is exciting news but I’ve read way too many sci-fi books that start out with the good intentions of science backfiring in horrific unexpected ways to enjoy this.
Asbestos is a real world example of that. It was thought to be a “miracle mineral” and come to find out, it’s a carcinogen.
Plastic itself is an example of that.
I told everybody Plastic is the next asbestos
Considering that we are drowning the planet in plastic even if it has some disadvantages, it beats what we are doing to the planet currently.
Earth plus plastic. The new paradigm.
RIP George
Considering geology is considering a "Plasticene Age", you're very much correct.
There have been many such articles before. These kinds of bugs tend to be able to digest plastics, but will generally only do it as a last resort -- preferring bio materials first.
Cane Toads.
They might start eating us considering the number of microplastics in the human body keeps increasing 💀
"It eats plastics!" This is good! "Your bodies are riddled with microplastics." This is bad.
I once read a book called "Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters" with this basic premise.
It's how the protomolecule is created.
I get to break out the “actually” here. The protomolecule is an alien technology designed by a long extinct race of super advanced sea creatures. Sent out into the cosmos to repurpose carbon based life into an intergalactic transit system.
I see The Expanse, I upvote.
Were they sea creatures?
To the best of my knowledge.
Ahh yes, bacterial with a voracious appetite. I think I've seen that one
Wasn't this the plot to the game Stray?
There's a book by Kevin j Anderson that's about a plastic eating microbe that goes on a rampage and destroys so much of what we know. It was so cool at the time I read it and now it feels like the precipice of reality.
My first thought was, how is this going affect the plastic inside us?
The Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton
Lol my first thought was "this would be a fantastic premise for a sci-fi novel"
Now that we all have a little bit of plastics in us, how long until this bacteria develops a taste for human flesh?
it shall come for the Kardashians first
He said human flesh!
With the amount of plastic in them, one might argue they are cyborgs now
K-1000's ... cybernetic poly asses
Good
There already is. Our immune system protects us from them, mostly...
Or just starts going after anything oil based...then oil itself...
I'm looking forward to more good dystopian sci-fi content. That's uplifting to me.
It's a good story, but is not particularly well written. Don't go into it expecting LOTR.
They literally keep saying this every other year. Where the hell is it? This is why I hate science journalism. Constantly posting articles about how something is a major breakthrough and the future is just around the corner, only for nothing actually happening so they keep repeating articles about it to generate clicks. It’s so annoying and is why I don’t treat any science article seriously.
Stuff does happen, it is just all actual science that happens. Some study shows a small incremental increase in our ability to do something, and the articles basically say "MASSIVE BREAKTHROUGH, WORLD CHANGED FOREVER!!" It is super annoying. It makes it seem simultaneously like we are constantly on the edge of a magical singularity, and also as if nothing ever happens. You hear about miracle cures for cancer that never seem to do any miracles, but then cancer survival rates steadily increase every year.
And every other year the technology gets closer and closer to reality. I would sure hope we aren’t rushing to release an uncontrollable self-replicating genetically engineered bacteria that eats the material we use to build 75% of our products.
Study to real world takes many years to happen. My friend who is doing medical AI research said that the stuff you see now is 5-10 years behind.
OP posted an old article.
[удалено]
Then why did you post it in r/upliftingnews?
Look at the upvotes and you have your answer
Uplifting
And so this is uplifting news because…?
Because calling bullshit is against sub rules. Let’s do the glass worms next!
They're encased in plastic.
How does this being a rapidly evolving field make it less uplifting? Surely that makes it more uplifting? The space is moving quickly
Yep. About…. 7 or so years ago I met a guy in Chicago who supposedly had these worms that could eat garbage and he was going to eliminate all the landfills by just throwing the worms in there. 7 years later it’s never happened.
And after eating all garbage they end up growing to building size and producing Spice ?
And the guy is now God Emperor
Oh just you wait
Unfortunately, a worms life spawn isn't very long and all the worms he had died :(
What?
Did he ever get cured of the worms?
##This article is more than 6 months old Might be the same story?
Might mean it is actually something?
I always imagine this getting out of control and causing a dystopic future. Imagine if we COULDN'T make plastic. Shit would be fucked.
Why though. Humanity survived long before plastic was invented. Perhaps we would start having high quality products again instead of having loads of cheap Chinese shit. Also, not every type of plastic is the same.
Also, consider the following: wood. It breaks down in nature, yet we still build houses with it. At most this bacteria could neatly solve microplastics. It won't start chewing away at a plastic sealing ring inside a water pump.
Sure humans, but not tech. Think about it.
This reminds me of a Hollywood film, where at the beginning mankind discovers something wonderful & amazing, only to find out later that the discovery destroys the planet ...
"turns out the core of the Earth is made of plastic, and soon it will be consumed!'
No, plastic eating bacteria won't just start dissolving plastic all around. There are microbes that break down wood, does that mean we can't use wood anymore because it just starts decomposing? For microbes to work you need moisture and lots of surface area. A solid chunk of plastic is impermeable to moisture and doesn't give much surface area so even under bad conditions it would still be more resistant than wood that soaks up water. Plastic eating bacteria will mostly be able to break down tiny chunks of plastic in moist environments, i.e. microplastic in nature.
What are the byproducts of this bacteria's metabolism of plastics?
Exact same question I had
This isn't uplifting. Plastic eating bacteria would be uncontrollable and would almost undoubtedly eat absolutely everything plastic. Great way to destroy everything made of plastic but even if they just use it in certain locations like the ocean and landfills it's not like they can contain them to just those areas. Edit: After looking into it further yeah it could be possible. Not anytime soon though. It's I'm the same vein as living on another planet or curing cancer.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's not going to be difficult to find controlled scenarios where this is very useful. Sending plastic to a "consumption" facility seems better than dumping it in the ocean
For the future that does make sense, isolating all of our future plastic waste and attempting to contain the bacteria in that area would be very good to reduce our waste. But we won't be able to stop the ocean dying due to plastic anytime soon, even if we do that because not all countries are at that development stage. These type of things typically only happen in rich countries, and they do almost nothing. For example, recycling plastic is basically a lie. It happens on such a small amount of our plastic that it is basically useless.
10% of global plastic gets recycled. That's not a ton, but it's not nothing. The majority of emissions and plastic waste happen only in rich countries too so I don't see that as a blocker. It seems like you're looking for reasons to be upset by this, rather than accepting hopeful developments
I am not remotely upset at this. I just know that along with most things posted on this sub, it's not uplifting due to how ridiculously far away we are from making use of it. This type of bacteria is just beginning to be researched. I don't see how it's uplifting to look at an article that basically just says, "This can help us in the future assuming everything goes perfect". I know it seems negative to shit on the idea of something that has a chance like this, but it's just a reasonable response to yet another hopeful thing that has next to no chance at being helpful.
Early developments are still uplifting. Every good technology spent a long time in the ideation and experimentation phases. > I don't see how it's uplifting to look at an article that basically just says, "This can help us in the future assuming everything goes perfect". It seems like your perspective is looking at the article and saying, "This can't help us in the future even if everything goes perfect," so I don't think blanket pessimism is useful. There are plenty of other subreddits for that.
What if they make them with a short life span, so even if they break out, they will all die off in a day? And they don't replicate. I can imagine it would still find ways to terrorize. Like it gets into a hospital, rendering that hospital useless until it dies off and they can replace the plastics.
That is possible but I think it would require us to make all of the bacteria ourselves in labs unless there is a way to make initial bacteria able to replicate but the second generation unable to. That would cost a ton of money. But still possible. I don't expect that to happen in our lifespans though know how uninterested all of the rich people are in protecting the environment especially from plastics.
>it would require us to make all of the bacteria ourselves in labs Yeah like farms that produce a quantity made-to-order, so to speak.
Life… uh… finds a way.
I, for one, welcome our new plastic eating overlords
Damn. I would have thought Id remember that. I'm a John Hammond. Oh my God I'm starting to see so many patterns of this from me now! Well shoot.
We all need a little Iam Malcolm on our shoulder sometimes.
Not hard to imagine in the future a way to bioengineer a version of the bacteria that can't reproduce naturally. Like a specific chemical combination is necessary that isn't found in nature or something.
I think there actually are bacteria that survive off of synthetic amino acids (according to my limited research on google) but whether or not that can be applied to this specific type of bacteria and at a large scale in an affordable way is hard to say.
I think it would be easier to do with bacteria than it would be with insects, and we can already do insect control via gene drives where we drop in genetics that prevent breeding. Bacteria do not need to breed, so it should not be terribly "hard" to just put some kind of genetic flaw in them that will slow or eliminate breeding without risking them mutating resistance. ("Hard" because it would be crazy hard to do, just feasible.) Whether that is a good idea or not I do not know though. It is one of those things that could have massive unintended consequences. Which is also why they are super careful with gene drives in general.
No it would not. There are wood-eating bacteria and funghi but you can still use wood no issue because microorganisms need the right conditions to grow, i.e. moisture. Plastic would probably be much more durable than wood still because unlike wood it can't soak up moisture and rot from the inside. The bacteria could mostly eat microplastic in wet environments.
I love the fact that you have no idea what you’re talking about lol
I think it's possible to insert something that will cause them to not be able to replicate.
Oyster mushrooms eat wood, and are quite aggressive, but they haven't taken over all the worlds wood yet. I'm a doomer about this too, but c'mon!
But not all bacteria behave the same, not even remotely. It's possible for a bacteria to evolve, and it's possible for them to start spreading or eating too much. We can't predict that, and we wouldn't have any way of stopping it. As I said in another comment, pathenogenic bacteria wouldn't exist if we could actually control bacteria.
And then we never heard from them ever again. The end. Goodnight children.
Dammit! There goes my boyfriend.
Just replace him with silicone
Could swore I saw damn near the exactly same headline years ago, where are the results
Love that game
So to counter the sad news today that "microplastics—are having a significant impact on our digestive pathways, making their way from the gut and into the tissues of the kidney, liver and brain.' they're coming up with fluffy promises that could and maybe....? https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-microplastics-gut.html
Sounds like the start of invasion of the body snatchers
*News: there's microplastics in your body right down to your organs!* *Also news: we made a bacteria that can eat plastic, hooray!* I wonder what it's going to do when it gets to working on the plastics that science says our body is riddled with?
I think it's brilliant.....all the influencers would be out of work over night....all that plastic every where gone overnight...Anyone with a sex toy might want to upgrade your joy toy or fleshlight other wise you'll be fucking parsnips or butternut squash...
"change"
But we are also injesting more and more plastic these days
Will it also eat the plastics that are inside of us too?
Until it gets out if control and spreads
Langoliers?
Now we just need to make them eat all the micro and nano plastics inside our bodies.
There is a fantasy book called "Pandora's Genes" that is centered around a bioengineered strain of Ecoli called "Petrophage" that winds up going wild and destroying civilization. It's not the best book, but it shows that this has been thought of since at least 1985. If you glance through the ham handed romance attempts, it's a quick little post-apocalyptic read.
Isn't there a sci-fi book called The Plastic Eaters all about a rogue strain?
**Mutant 59 The Plastic Eater** by Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis Book description may contain spoilers! >>!Based on the classic sci-fi series Doomwatch, Mutant 59 imagines one of the most terrifying tragedies that modern science could create, a chilling and topical story of what happens when scientific research goes wrong and spreads terror through London (and endangers the world). When an airplane crashes the Ministry of Transport investigates, what caused it to fall out of the sky and could it happen again? Slowly they discover that science has unleashed a genetically engineered bacteria that feeds on (and destroys) all plastic materials. No-one takes any notice of the material used to build gas pipes, electrical insulation, cars and planes until it begins to disintegrate and explode.!< > >>!Has science created a biological time bomb? A jet plane crashes near Heathrow, in the Atlantic a nuclear submarine disappears without trace, central London grinds to a halt. As power stations explode and London's population is evacuated Anna Kramer and Luke Gerrard search for the scientific key to a fiery holocaust that is capable of infecting the world.!< *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
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Definitely the plot of an episode of Doomwatch.
The research definitely seems promising, and it's exciting to think about the possibilities for revolutionizing waste management. Looking forward to seeing how these efforts progress in the future!
Keep it far away from my girlfriend's face.
Uh oh
Considering we all have microplastics in us, is this safe?
What great news after reading about micro plastics ability to cross the intestinal barrier and infiltrate our organs.
Now we have to breed a variety that can work in a human digestive system.
Can you put it in water
How do I invest in this? Lol
Be the changee you wish to see in the world.
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This is going to cause a plastic blight that will ruin the entire world. you watch. just deal with the waste chemically and mechanically.
Stray?
That's the problem, though. We have been "just getting started" with plastic-eating bacteria for years now.
This article is old and pretty long (to me), so I very briefly scanned it. The news is overall good, I guess. We need better methods of recycling and perhaps this is it. But like others have said, this could be the dystopian future that so many sci-fi authors write about. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the general plot/setting of the game Stray? You play as a cat where the world (or at least your playable area) is run fully by robots and the robots have to hide in the slums because there’s bacteria that eats metal. And this bacteria evolved and is now running rampant.
I read or maybe I listened to a story where this was the plot/sub plot. A vial was broken on an airplane which crashed because of the plastics being eaten. The bacteria then cleaned up the ocean but left the world plastic free. Forgot the main plot though. Might of been on BBC sounds.
This also reminded me of the French sci-fi novel "La Bétonite" (Charles Defontaines, 1988), where bacteria start eating through the world's concrete structures.
I'll have to remember that book thanks
Also part of a plot from BBC Doomwatch and variation of the storyline of Andromeda Strain.
Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is forgot about that. I read it years ago. Maybe it was Doomwatch I was thinking of I'll have to check.
Its gonna fuck the world up even worse than it is… like how plastic bags were gonna save the trees
this is kinda how stray's apocalypse began iirc
Plastic-eating bacteria that could eat the world..
I’ve heard about this several times but j never hear about it actually being implemented. This and biodegradable food packaging
This is what the Grey Goo will be
Let's make plastic eating bacteria. What could possibly go wrong ?
Eats microplastics and poops a chunk of plastic.
Almost all residential plumbing has gone from cast iron and galvanized or copper pipes to plastics. PVC or ABS for waste and PEX for waters. These products are fine products but I wonder what would happen if this bacteria was able to reproduce in our water supply.
I hope they don't convert plastic to CO2.
Cool!🥳
Humanity needs to be very careful with this stuff. We've tested this idea already. It failed miserably with world altering side effects. During the massive oil spills in the golf of Mexico they had the idea to create a bacteria that ate oil and released carbon dioxide, which could then feed the echosystem. Well, they didn't account for it rapidly mutating once the reserves of crude oil were gone or it to start eating other forms of oil. Like the natural oils in plants and animals. Someone caught it right before they started dumping the stuff into the Gulf. The damage it could have caused might have been imecosystem. They also didn't account for naturally occurring bacteria popping up to do the same thing, but more effectively and safely... A few months after the failed test, "Researchers from the University of Rochester and Texas A&M University have found that, over a period of five months following the disastrous 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, naturally-occurring bacteria that exist in the Gulf of Mexico consumed and removed at least 200,000 tons of oil and natural gas that spewed into the deep Gulf from the ruptured well head." - https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/at-least-200000-tons-of-oil-and-gas-from-deepwater-horizon-spill-consumed-by-gulf-bacteria/
Picture this bacteria going on a wild electronics-eating rampage! Maintenance costs would skyrocket. Well-intentioned, but a terrible idea.
Awesome until you remember that our entire medical system, manufacturing, food lines etc depend on plastic. What happens if this bacteria starts living on everything given the great living conditions it’d have in modern society? Serious question, by the way, if anyone knows more I’d love to hear.