3 ms·
Wikipedia 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.
by oarsinsync 8y ago
Wikipedia 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