Prediction: evolution will solve what humans are incapable of. That means species of fish evolving that specializes in eating plastic. Kinda makes sense. While plastic isn't bio-degradeable in the normal sense, perhaps the digestive system of a specialized fish will succeed. After all there is an abundance.
Fish are eating lots of plastic
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Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#12Prediction: evolution will solve what humans are incapable of. That means species of fish evolving that specializes in eating plastic. Kinda makes sense. While plastic isn't bio-degradeable in the normal sense, perhaps the digestive system of a specialized fish will succeed. After all there is an abundance.
That's an interesting prediction. From what I can remember from a previous HN article, there is a bacterial that already eats plastics. How long would such a evolutionary step take place, I wonder?
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#13Prediction: evolution will solve what humans are incapable of. That means species of fish evolving that specializes in eating plastic. Kinda makes sense. While plastic isn't bio-degradeable in the normal sense, perhaps the digestive system of a specialized fish will succeed. After all there is an abundance.
Yes, the bigger worry is that evolution will solve humans, but thankfully nature is already working on a cure for plastics[0].
[0] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chow-down-plastic-e...
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#14Bioaccumulation 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.
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#15What's wrong with fish these days, They didn't do that when I was a kid.
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#16Prediction: evolution will solve what humans are incapable of. That means species of fish evolving that specializes in eating plastic. Kinda makes sense. While plastic isn't bio-degradeable in the normal sense, perhaps the digestive system of a specialized fish will succeed. After all there is an abundance.
There are some microbe that breaks down plastic. Maybe some sea life will form a symboitic relationship with with.
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#17And also cetaceans, sea-birds and turtles.
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#18Bioaccumulation 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.
yes, people do. Not all the countries are pure meat eaters...
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#19I 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…
You could probably get it off the ground a lot faster if you lost the self-replicating requirement. (Self-replication / self organization is super cool and a research field of mine, but still a ways away from production). Just make a lot of them to start with and clean them up when/if they're done. Or make them biodegradable.
The swarm is self-replicating, not each individual bot. (Have you ever read Alan Dean Foster's "Sentenced to Prism" (sic)?) The system is more like an ant nest.
Self-replication is required to be able to make a lot of them in a reasonable amount of time.
Once the bulk of the plastic has been sequestered excess robots will be glued together to make a floating island.
There's no "done" state until/unless we stop throwing non-biodegradable matter into the Oceans.
Re: Fish are eating lots of plastic
#20And also cetaceans, sea-birds and turtles.
I was watching a documentary, that proposed Humans do as well, since we end up consuming some of the fish that eat that stuff.