The article implies that this microbe was found in the wild, rather than engineered in a laboratory. The paper confirms it - https://www.frontiersin.org/article

The article implies that this microbe was found in the wild, rather than engineered in a laboratory. The paper confirms it - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.00404/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.0040... Bacteria that eats nylon was first found in the wild: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria With this in mind, it may be worth considering that plastic-eating bacteria that currently exist in the wild do not appear to present any significant threat of a catastrophic event. I'm sure it's just an oversight on my part, but can you help me understand why this newly identified strain would pose a threat?