21–30 of 329 posts
"To confirm it wasn't just the chewing mechanism of the caterpillars degrading the plastic, the team mashed up some of the worms and smeared them on polyethylene bags, with similar results." A disturbing but effective way to test the hypothesis.
Yeah, pretty horrible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The analysis showed the worms transformed the polyethylene into ethylene glycol, representing un-bonded 'monomer' molecules." Moderately toxic, but breaks down in the air in about 10 days. Used in antifreeze. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol
Interesting... is this why I've never heard any issues with the amount of windshield washer fluid that is used? I got through many litres every winter.
"To confirm it wasn't just the chewing mechanism of the caterpillars degrading the plastic, the team mashed up some of the worms and smeared them on polyethylene bags, with similar results." A disturbing but effective way to test the hypothesis.
"A chance discovery occurred when one of the scientific team, Federica Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper, was removing the parasitic pests from the honeycombs in her hives. The worms were temporarily kept in a typical plastic shopping bag that became riddled with holes." What a great accident.
The history of science is full of such accidents, the discovery Penicillin being one of the most famous. http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/penicillin-found-fun...
Isaac Asimov
"A chance discovery occurred when one of the scientific team, Federica Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper, was removing the parasitic pests from the honeycombs in her hives. The worms were temporarily kept in a typical plastic shopping bag that became riddled with holes." What a great accident.
The history of science is full of such accidents, the discovery Penicillin being one of the most famous. http://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/penicillin-found-fun...
Would be good to have plastic waste broken down, but be careful not to take down our whole civilization with it. Almost everything today is made out of plastic...
In many post-apocalyptic works of fiction it's a disease that wipes out much of humanity; what if instead it was a bacteria or pest that rapidly consumes all our plastic that causes civilization to collapse?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting... is this why I've never heard any issues with the amount of windshield washer fluid that is used? I got through many litres every winter.
Probably. The primary complaint I've heard about ethylene glycol is that it smells sweet and it's poisonous, so it attracts animals (esp. dogs and cats) and kills them. It's not highly concentrated in windshield washer fluid, but it is in engine coolant, so sometimes people would leave it out and their dog would drink it and die (and the death was awful IIRC due to the way the poison worked). Years ago, there were so…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many post-apocalyptic works of fiction it's a disease that wipes out much of humanity; what if instead it was a bacteria or pest that rapidly consumes all our plastic that causes civilization to collapse?
We've been building things out of wood for a long time and wood is a food source to plenty of organisms. If that was going to make civilization collapse, it wouldn't have risen in the first place.