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It feels like this development will eventually force us to "help evolution" in this regard and heavily invest in engineering plastic eating organisms that can s
by worldsayshi 8y ago
It feels like this development will eventually force us to "help evolution" in this regard and heavily invest in engineering plastic eating organisms that can sustainably live in the environment.
- carlmr 8y agoWe might not need to engineer them, they already evolved, and they might succeed us.
- oarsinsync 8y agoWikipedia suggests the first man-made plastics were made around 1856. I'm not sure 163 years is enough time for evolution to do it's thing.
- bluGill 8y agoFor bacteria that is more than 10000 generations.
- kamarg 8y agoFor microorganisms it's plenty of time. Things with very short reproductive cycles can evolve quicker than humans. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_ex... they state that the e. coli went through 66,000 generations in 28 years. That allows for a very large amount of genetic differences to respond to environmental pressures.
- fubar1983 8y agoIt already has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis
- worldsayshi 8y agoSure they exist but we could and perhaps should make them more efficient?