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...
Imagine this sprayed over a modern army.
"The guns.. they are melting."
Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
31–40 of 329 posts
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#32"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...
Maybe the antithesis to the discovery of antibiotics is the mostly accidental discovery of Tabun: "In January 1937, Schrader observed the effects of nerve agents on human beings first-hand when a drop of tabun spilled onto a lab bench." (Wikipedia)
I think that one might stand out somewhat since I'd expect most accidental advances to be helpful to humanity. Or maybe I'm just an optimist. :)
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#33What is new here compared to the linked paper from 3 years ago? https://phys.org/news/2014-12-gut-bacteria-worm-degrade-plas...
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#34Link to the original paper: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(17)3...
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#35Earlier 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.
I'm very well aware of that. I was thinking of a fictional scenario. Also, our modern electronics are not made of wood, many have plastic components.
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#36There's a new Godzilla movie coming in 2019 which is supposed to be a series that revisits all the classic monsters.
Perhaps this could be the new Mothra original story.
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#37Would 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...
> but be careful not to take down our whole civilization with it
We make lots of things from wood which is biodegradable, without real problem.
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#38Earlier 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.
>"If a single enzyme is responsible for this chemical process, its reproduction on a large scale using biotechnological methods should be achievable"
If they're right about the enzyme then the threat is possible. It's different from organisms that eat wood because we are pretty good at mass producing stuff.
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm very well aware of that. I was thinking of a fictional scenario. Also, our modern electronics are not made of wood, many have plastic components.
Which can be replaced with glass, ceramics metal and carbon fiber.
I can't think of a single component that uses plastics to function for any other reason than costs.
Also you always have fluoropolymers to fall back on partially.
Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution
#40"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.
Five years ago my balcony was invaded by fly larvae (maggots i guess) because my flatmate left some raw meat in the trash bin. While trying to contain the invasion, i put some of them in two or three nested plastic bags, but they ALWAYS found their way through the plastic after some minutes. They were literally making holes in them. I thought this was normal and well-known!