Fish are eating lots of plastic • Hacker News Board

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#111

Post by o_____________o » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 1:45 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #105

o_____________o wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're being flippant, but we'd lose a lot of what makes language beautiful if we beat the looseness and poetry out of conversational exchanges. Pendatic assertions often miss the fact that words drift in an ever-shifting consensus.

No it's more than that; perhaps you haven't discussed with some people, but a great many people actually do believe fish are not animals. It's not mere semantics, they don't actually consider them animals at all, as if animal, plant, and fish are all different categories. Don't dismiss as pedantry what is actually a very interesting topic.

Point generally taken, but that's a conceptual leap to make when talking about what "meat" means in a casual conversation. As an aside, I don't think I've encountered anyone who thinks fish aren't animals (but of course they exist)

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#112

Post by King-Aaron » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 7:03 AM UTC

cropsieboss wrote: post #14

dev_throw wrote: post #4

Bioaccumulation is a serious thing. I suspect increase of plastic in fish might be related to the reduction in sperm count in men.[0][1] [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-semen-quality... [1] http://www.deepseanews.com/2014/10/a-story-about-fish-plasti...

Do people really eat that much fish? I thought fish is mostly raised as fishmeal for cows. Making an even worse bioaccumulation chain.

I am honestly stunned by this comment.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#113

Post by King-Aaron » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 7:11 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #21

carapace wrote: post #9

I have a plan, but it's taking me a bit longer than I'd hoped: http://phoenixbureau.github.io/ReGPGP/ > The only way to clean up such a huge mess is to create a system that mimics the way life would do it. Really, if something could eat plastic there wouldn't be quite such a bad problem. It is because no living creature can digest plastic that it stays around and accumulates. So the solution is to create a kind of ar…

That's called a bacterium. Why not create an actual bacterium to break plastic down like everything else in the environment? It's not really that hard--high school students have done it before. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-plastic-eati... Bonus points if you can make the bacterium specific to particular kinds of plastic.

There was mention of this concept in Ringworld (Larry Niven, 1970). If I recall it was what destroyed the society in the books, because the bacteria got out of hand and started breaking down critical technology and infrastructure, and basically brought about a complete social collapse on the ring world..

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#114

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 10:10 AM UTC

With only the info available in the article, It seems that there are some serious flaws with the design of this study. I didn't read the original article and I could be wrong but at this moment is not conclusive to me.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#115

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 10:33 AM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #114

With only the info available in the article, It seems that there are some serious flaws with the design of this study. I didn't read the original article and I could be wrong but at this moment is not conclusive to me.

Ok, I found the link to the study. This is one of the things that I was looking for:

these behavioural responses were absent in clean plastic and control treatments.

Much better then. Some questions remaining still.

Anchovies are preys. Is aggregation a signal of food or are they just afraid of a strange odour?.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#116

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 11:09 AM UTC

avodonosov wrote: post #31

bsder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called a bacterium. Why not create an actual bacterium to break plastic down like everything else in the environment? It's not really that hard--high school students have done it before. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-plastic-eati... Bonus points if you can make the bacterium specific to particular kinds of plastic.

Yes. One possible problem: if the bacteria also eat plastic in our useful devices, not yet garbadge.

Yup, no more fish nets or buoys, no oceanographic devices or tsunami detection sensors, fiberglass falling apart in small ships, antifoul paint falling from quills and tunnels, no seafarms, seapipes, small submarines, 30 minutes to load a web page located in Dublin because the submarine cable is damaged again...

This 'the last of us' chapter is practically writing itself.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#117

Post by bsder » Wed, Sep 06, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

avodonosov wrote: post #31

bsder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called a bacterium. Why not create an actual bacterium to break plastic down like everything else in the environment? It's not really that hard--high school students have done it before. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-plastic-eati... Bonus points if you can make the bacterium specific to particular kinds of plastic.

Yes. One possible problem: if the bacteria also eat plastic in our useful devices, not yet garbadge.

You do realize that "plastic" encompasses a lot of very chemically different compounds?

Breaking down a "plastic" is going to be a very specific thing because it takes a LOT of energy to do so (plastics are really stable--that's why we use them).

In addition, if it's so evolutionarily advantageous to eat plastic, something would have evolved already. It's really not--plastic is very stable, and doesn't really give you anything useful when you break it down.

So, even if you created a plastic-eating grey goo, it will evolve to eat something that takes less energy very quickly.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#118

Post by avodonosov » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #117

avodonosov wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. One possible problem: if the bacteria also eat plastic in our useful devices, not yet garbadge.

You do realize that "plastic" encompasses a lot of very chemically different compounds? Breaking down a "plastic" is going to be a very specific thing because it takes a LOT of energy to do so (plastics are really stable--that's why we use them). In addition, if it's so evolutionarily advantageous to eat plastic, something would have evolved already. It's really not--plastic is very stable, and doesn't really give yo…

Hm, interesting, thanks.

In this case we feed them in reward for collecting plastic. As flowers feed bees for spreading their pollen.

Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic

#119

Post by carapace » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 8:50 PM UTC

King-Aaron wrote: post #113

bsder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called a bacterium. Why not create an actual bacterium to break plastic down like everything else in the environment? It's not really that hard--high school students have done it before. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-plastic-eati... Bonus points if you can make the bacterium specific to particular kinds of plastic.

There was mention of this concept in Ringworld (Larry Niven, 1970). If I recall it was what destroyed the society in the books, because the bacteria got out of hand and started breaking down critical technology and infrastructure, and basically brought about a complete social collapse on the ring world..

Yah the bugs ate the superconductor.

A lot of sci-fi can be understood as scenario planning.