Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

phys.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 329 posts

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#241

Post by Frogolocalypse »

dmix wrote: post #203
RealityVoid wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"possible unfolding of latent mental conditions" Interesting, can you expand on this? First time I hear this. I know someone that told me of a friend of his that hid some LSD at a border crossing close to the body and as a result of the trip, the guy got severe permanent psychatric damage in that he's currently residing in an institution. I thought he was full of shit, but if what you're saying is true, he might not…

That sounds like the typical word of mouth story FUD that spreads about LSD. I'd be curious to hear more evidence of this "uncovering latent mental illness" as well.

It's disturbing that you have no knowledge of a very real side effect of these drugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotic_break

> Several types of psychoactive drugs have been shown to correlate with psychotic breaks

It is common knowledge amongst psychiatrists and psychologists, and has been for decades. For most people, no problem. For some people, big problem. Most people that have a psychotic break never fully recover from it either.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#242

Post by literallycancer »

freeflight wrote: post #211
philipkglass wrote: post #148

This is scientifically very interesting but pretty much orthogonal to solving problems with plastic pollution. The worms can't live in landfills. If you could separate the plastic before landfilling to feed it to worms, then you could just burn whatever separated plastic can't be recycled. (Yes, that releases CO2, but so does having worms and bacteria eat the plastic.) The problem with plastic as waste isn't that it…

>The problem is that it's mixed in with a lot of other kinds of waste. We don't need new ways to destroy polyethylene. We need ways to separate it from mingled waste streams or prevent mingling in the first place. We already have these ways, they are called waste separation and recycling. As a German, I've been separating my garbage for as long as I can think back: Plastics, paper, organic waste and whatever remains…

Well, since you can't put food stained plastics in the plastic bin (or do you guys do it?), it has to go into the residual waste, and it's that way with many things.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#243

Post by komali2 »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #161
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try not to kill flies, no. The only exception is for multiple flies that won't go away. Ditto for ants. It's a bit strange that violence toward insects is fine, but violence towards dogs is not. Ever killed a dog because it annoyed you? That said, doing it for science at least has a justification.

Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.

To be fair, that's a cheap strike to go straight for hypocrisy as a means to win this argument.

Whether or not the person posting the argument "animal testing is bad" eats meat doesn't change the question - "should we fatally test on animals."

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is really engaging this non-sarcastically. A couple are talking about "drawing a line" somewhere but nobody is being allowed to say "all life should fall on the safe side of the line." I think there are interesting arguments for this position but right now HN is being aggressively hostile to that position.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#244

Post by tossaway322 »

Yet another reason to buy a M1911 instead of a Glock:

Range Instructor: "Mr. Johnson, where's your sidearm?

Mr. Johnson: "I'm sorry sir, the caterpillars ate it!"

But seriously folks, this may turn out to be a problem. I already have ants eating the plastic in my house's wiring.

"'Crazy' Ants, New Invasive Species, Destroys Electric Wiring, Unfazed By Conventional Pesticides":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/crazy-ants-invasive...

This situation is getting out of hand. We need worm- and insect-resistant plastics, obviously!

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#245

Post by mirimir »

matz1 wrote: post #223
mikeash wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because insects have such a primitive nervous system that we don't see them as being aware in the same way that a dog is. You draw the line somewhere , right? Drawing the line at a certain complexity of the nervous system is more sensible than drawing it at "animals" in general, IMO.

I draw the line at Human and Not Human.

Well, that is the biological norm.

And better than friend vs stranger ;)

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#246

Post by grzm »

literallycancer wrote: post #242
freeflight wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that it's mixed in with a lot of other kinds of waste. We don't need new ways to destroy polyethylene. We need ways to separate it from mingled waste streams or prevent mingling in the first place. We already have these ways, they are called waste separation and recycling. As a German, I've been separating my garbage for as long as I can think back: Plastics, paper, organic waste and whatever remains…

Well, since you can't put food stained plastics in the plastic bin (or do you guys do it?), it has to go into the residual waste, and it's that way with many things.

> you can't put food stained plastics in the plastic bin (or do you guys do it?)

I believe this is something that varies.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#247

Post by mirimir »

komali2 wrote: post #243
greenshackle2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.

To be fair, that's a cheap strike to go straight for hypocrisy as a means to win this argument. Whether or not the person posting the argument "animal testing is bad" eats meat doesn't change the question - "should we fatally test on animals." I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is really engaging this non-sarcastically. A couple are talking about "drawing a line" somewhere but nobody is being allowed to say "all life…

Well, if "all life should fall on the safe side of the line", what would you eat? Perhaps only organisms that have died without human intervention. Scavenging, I mean. But that wouldn't support very large populations.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#248

Post by greenshackle2 »

komali2 wrote: post #243
greenshackle2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.

To be fair, that's a cheap strike to go straight for hypocrisy as a means to win this argument. Whether or not the person posting the argument "animal testing is bad" eats meat doesn't change the question - "should we fatally test on animals." I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is really engaging this non-sarcastically. A couple are talking about "drawing a line" somewhere but nobody is being allowed to say "all life…

I can see how it comes across that way but I'm fascinated that OP does not kill flies, I was genuinely curious if it extended to farm animals too. I would have bet they are vegetarian.

The question is worth considering, I wrote up a detailed answer on why I don't care about insects in a sibling thread.

EDIT: I'm not well placed to argue from hypocrisy, I'm like 90% vegetarian but I still eat meat. Meateaters love taking me down a notch for that one time per week or whatever I eat meat.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#249

Post by [deleted] »

komali2 wrote: post #243
greenshackle2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.

To be fair, that's a cheap strike to go straight for hypocrisy as a means to win this argument. Whether or not the person posting the argument "animal testing is bad" eats meat doesn't change the question - "should we fatally test on animals." I'm a bit disappointed that nobody is really engaging this non-sarcastically. A couple are talking about "drawing a line" somewhere but nobody is being allowed to say "all life…

[deleted]

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#250

Post by Florin_Andrei »

Raphmedia wrote: post #52
Clanan wrote: post #16

"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.

As any reptile owner will tell you, wax worms will eat through plastic containers so you should store them in glass. It's common knowledge. It is however amazing that nobody (me included) never thought that this could be a solution to our plastic issues. "It's common knowledge, why waste time thinking about it?"

I'm guessing everyone assumed that was a purely mechanical process - i.e. they just make holes. Lots of critters make holes in lots of things.

Digesting the polymer OTOH - that's a bit of a paradigm shift.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that both wax and plastic bag polymers are large chains of carbon with some hydrogen hanging off the edges. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that wax worms can digest that polymer.

EDIT2: Nevermind, that was in the article, I didn't read the whole thing.

Post reply on HN