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Bugs are evolving to eat plastic, study finds
- xwdv 4y agoGiven the amount of microplastics humans consume, could humans one day evolve to eat and digest plastic?
- thriftwy 4y agoWe're not doing most of the digestion ourself, rather delegate it to bacteria. And bacteria are learning to do that - either the existing gut bacteria or new strains that we would collectively acquire.
- wyldfire 4y agoNot humans that have access to conventional nutrients. There's no selection pressure to encourage that kind of mutation. There's less and less selection pressure in general, these days.
- SoftTalker 4y agoIndeed. So many things that would have killed off our ancestors are now surviable and managable today, it seems likely to me that we are probably "de-evolving" i.e. more and more undesireable traits are surviving and being passed along to our offspring.
- leksak 4y agoDepends on evolutionary pressure. If it improves your chances of procreation and survival.
- theonemind 4y agoI'd guess we'd end up hosting bacteria that do that first. I think mitochondria themselves started that way with early cells.
- bee_rider 4y agoIt doesn't even need to be so intimate/permanent as our relationship with mitochondria, gut bacteria are just little mercenaries who are here to help with digestion. Maybe some of them will figure out plastic (although I suspect they'll produce some bad byproducts while doing so).
- convolvatron 4y agothe bacteria really have an advantage with generation time and population and the lack of a society keeping the 'less fit' members procreating. but maybe they'll get integrated into our gut biome since we do eat the stuff
- dqpb 4y ago> society keeping the 'less fit' members procreating Society is part of the ecosystem within which fitness is determined.
- Decabytes 4y agoIt's possible but unlikely. There really isn't any selective pressure on humans to do this. It's much more likely that we will figure out how to handle microplastics before our bodies evolve to digest them.
- nend 4y agoWhat evolutionary pressure is giving an advantage to humans who can digest plastic? The article is talking about "bugs" as in microbes, bacteria. Not animals.
- soylentgraham 4y agoMy first assumption would be lack of food
- hanniabu 4y agoCancer and other health issues that make you either die early or affect your health/lifestyle enough where it becomes more difficult to find a mate to reproduce with.
- Invictus0 4y agoI would imagine the more probable scenario is that, if plastics truly have a deleterious effect on human health, as many people say, then we will evolve to have more plastic-resistant bodies. But this can only really occur if we incur so much damage due to plastic that it broadly effects our reproductive potential at a relatively young age--a very high bar, and at which point it is probably much too late.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoIt can work more subtly than that, but takes admittedly a much longer time. If being slightly more plastic tolerant give you a slightly longer reproductive window, then those genes will become more common. Simple as that.
- munk-a 4y agoYea - the thing that a lot of comments seem to be missing here is that evolutionary pressure comes in the form of mass die offs of those unfit for the new environment. If some people just have a higher incidence of cancer when they're 40+ there will be essentially no evolutionary pressure unless it's socially enforced (aka eugenics which is a really bad idea).
- bee_rider 4y agoI don't think we could possibly evolve fast enough to keep up with the rate at which we change the environment (downside to having giant brains -- we can change the world at an incredible rate, but our generations iterate at a glacial pace compared to, say, bacteria)
- bogdanoff_2 4y agoIt could be more subtle than that. If someone feels depressed and low-energy, they're less likely to find a mate and reproduce, and less likely to be able to take good care of their kids.
- dfxm12 4y agoThere's no cause and effect like "my parents consumed a lot of plastic, so I will be able to digest them", if that's what you're asking. For humans to evolve to be able to eat & digest plastics, we'd probably have to be in a situation where we'd die or be unable to reproduce if we didn't. There's probably been some interesting research around gluten/lactose tolerance that might be related (or maybe not).
- masklinn 4y ago> For humans to evolve to be able to eat & digest plastics, we'd probably have to be in a situation where we'd die or be unable to reproduce if we didn't. That's really not how it works. If you get dumped into a desert you don't become able to eat sand. You first need to luck out on the ability to digest the thing, before it can become an evolutionary advantage. Because we're so big and we evolve so slowly, the thing in question would have to be a micro-organism colonising our guts. But we consume so little microplastics compared to our size and the rest of our feeding that it's unlikely to happen. There are much better odds for large seaborne life e.g. seabirds, as not only do they ingest a good amount of plastics (macro and micro both) it accumulates and becomes deadly as they can ingest pieces large enough that they can't excrete or vomit the bits, and it fills their stomach. Likewise sea turtles for instance. Still not great odds though.
- eevilspock 4y agoRate of population evolution is proportional to generational turnover rate. Microbes can cycle through generations in minutes. Humans these days 2-3 decades. https://www.quora.com/Why-do-living-things-die/answer/Vas-Sudanagunta https://www.quora.com/Why-do-living-things-die/answer/Vas-Su...
- ianmcgowan 4y agoMaybe not evolve, but perhaps bio-engineer? Brings to mind this awful story - people choose to evolve to eat anything, and it doesn't go well for all other life on earth: https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/people-of-sand-and-slag/ https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/p...
- trashtester 4y agoWe can already eat plastics, even if it is usually a bad idea. Digesting them is another matter. For us to digest it ourselves is very unlikely, I think. Breaking down protein is already a big challenge for our stomachs without help. Much better to get help, in the form of digestive bacteria with the right enzymes.
- pornel 4y agoIt's be hilarious when these become widespread, and plastic will start rotting like wood.
- walleeee 4y agohilarious and super convenient, assuming there are no side effects nastier than inhaling and ingesting plastic as we all inescapably do now honestly sounds like a potential best case scenario
- stavros 4y agoYes! I can't wait for all my plastic keyboards/monitors/furniture/phones to start rotting.
- heurisko 4y agoI've got wooden furniture. It doesn't rot, because it's inside. If plastic rotted like wood when exposed to the elements, that would be great.
- dwater 4y agoWell, it would be great when we wanted to get rid of those items. It would be less great when we wanted to preserve those items, like the massive amount of goods and infrastructure that are constructed out of plastic. The insulation on power cables, for one thing, would be bad if it started rotting.
- bmitc 4y agoThis article doesn't address microplastics. These enzymes degrade plastics, but what is left over? Does the problem of microplastics still occur such that the plastics only degrade to a certain size?
- nonrandomstring 4y ago> Does the problem of micro-plastics still occur such that the plastics only degrade to a certain size? Long polymer chains unravel, so my guess is that the product, depending on whether they're aerobic or anaerobic bacteria, would be carbon dioxide and water, or methane. Presumably smaller grains expose greater surface area and would be digested faster. I spoke about the uncertainty around plastic pollution in this interview just the other day [1], and the wisdom that came to mind was George Carlin's on the role of humankind being here just to create plastic, perhaps so that some new life form can evolve [2]. [1] https://www.thisishcd.com/episode/andy-farnell-perils-of-e-waste-and-benefits-of-being-a-digital-vegan https://www.thisishcd.com/episode/andy-farnell-perils-of-e-w... [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=v3Yom-EuX0U https://youtube.com/watch?v=v3Yom-EuX0U
- ars 4y agoIf you "eat" a plastic for energy what's left is water and CO2. Cutting a plastic into microplastics actually consumes energy, so there's no way they are doing that. The atoms in plastic are just Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon. (Chlorine sometimes, but rarely.) If you burn, consume, degrade, whatever you like, plastic, all you can get is water and CO2.
- surfpel 4y agoIn my view this is the most likely way microplastics will be removed from the ecosystem, as there is neither the collective will to clean it up nor will there likely be a way to clean it up through human intervention within a reasonable timeframe. In a way, plastic pollution is like a rapidly growing and untapped market that could be taken advantage of by microbes. A whole microbial ‘industry’ could take hold to process the various types of plastics along with the waste products that are generated when broken down by other microbes.
- paulmd 4y agoIt's nice that plastics/microplastics will be gone but it's still very concerning in terms of their plasticizers and other impurities/contaminants making their way into the food chain, as those are potential endocrine disruptors.
- wpm 4y agoAlso it’ll mean all of our non-waste plastic will be pretty useless, since the bacteria aren’t going to discriminate.
- surfpel 4y agoNot necessarily. They can still be infused with antimicrobial chemicals. The longevity of the plastic would then also be determined by those additives, since those would have their own half life too.
- aiisjustanif 4y agoThe humans better make collective will I guess. It’s our responsibility.
- markm248 4y agoGeorge Carlin was right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRquiS1pis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRquiS1pis
- nemacol 4y agoIn the world of wild imagination - I wonder if we will, at some point in the distant future, have an ethical obligation to continue producing plastic to stop some species of animals from going extinct. Or will it be an arms race where we have to lace our plastic with pesticide to stop everything from being eaten the moment it comes out of the injection molding machine! Not likely but it is fun to have a few minutes of wide eyed day dreaming. Edit: Another thought - perhaps next to my organic compost I will have a plastic compost where I layer old clothing, cellphone covers, food packaging along with some coal tar or old motor oil to break down into a bin of ... hell I have no idea what.
- ars 4y ago> we have to lace our plastic with pesticide to stop We already do that, it's called PVC, and the pesticide is just chlorine. Currently we do that to enhance UV stability, but it also works against microorganisms.
- ars 4y ago> Edit: Another thought - perhaps next to my organic compost I will have a plastic compost where I layer old clothing, cellphone covers, food packaging along with some coal tar or old motor oil You are making the same mistake so many people make: Plastics are not all the same. Each one is different, and something that can break down one will not break down another. You can not combine them this way. > to break down into a bin of ... hell I have no idea what. Most of those things would break down into water and CO2. Unlike soil, or food, plastics don't have many types of atoms: It's mostly just Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen. Plastics are very clean. You would be better off burning all those, the end results (the waste) would be identical, but you could capture the energy, instead of letting it get wasted as heat. Some plastics, like Nylon, have nitrogen, but there's very little. It would probably becomes ammonia and evaporate, or be released a nitrogen gas. Some, like PVC, have chlorine, which would also evaporate. Basically: If you did have some magical ability to compost plastic, you'd end up with water, with some harmless gasses being released.
- 1270018080 4y agoI spent a few minutes googling around expecting the researchers or funding to have heavy ties to the fossil fuel industry. This seems like something created to make people feel less guilty and reduce social pressure on using less plastic. But I didn't really find anything, so maybe a tiny bit of optimism is allowed.
- nick__m 4y agoThe last phrase of the article is either a clue or a pretty good deception: Last week, scientists revealed that the levels of microplastics known to be eaten by people via their food caused damage to human cells in the laboratory.
- andrewmcwatters 4y agoWe’re eating plastic too. It’s just harmful. I wonder if we will ever encounter a gene expression where it isn’t. What a neat idea. Maybe there is a future where plastic vitamins intentionally trigger desired hormonal responses.
- klyrs 4y agoJudging from the number of decades it's taken for organisms that reproduce on the order of hourly/daily to develop that capacity, I wouldn't hold my breath. We haven't even evolved the ability to digest wood, after all. But, we are cyborgs. One could imagine a probiotic treatment to introduce plastic-digesting bacteria to our gut flora within a decade.
- andrewmcwatters 4y agoA lot of kids eat paper. Maybe we'll get somewhere on that front one day. :)
- philipkglass 4y agoThis study from 2013 was a revelation about how plastic is colonized and metabolized (!) in the ocean: "Life in the “Plastisphere”: Microbial Communities on Plastic Marine Debris" Full PDF: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/branco2014/files/2014/08/Zettler-2013-Plastisphere.pdf https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/branco2014/files/2014/... First part of abstract: Plastics are the most abundant form of marine debris, with global production rising and documented impacts in some marine environments, but the influence of plastic on open ocean ecosystems is poorly understood, particularly for microbial communities. Plastic marine debris (PMD) collected at multiple locations in the North Atlantic was analyzed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and next-generation sequencing to characterize the attached microbial communities. We unveiled a diverse microbial community of heterotrophs, autotrophs, predators, and symbionts, a community we refer to as the “Plastisphere”. Pits visualized in the PMD surface conformed to bacterial shapes suggesting active hydrolysis of the hydrocarbon polymer. Small-subunit rRNA gene surveys identified several hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, supporting the possibility that microbes play a role in degrading PMD. ... The pictures are striking. It really looks like the plastic is being eaten. The 2013 study only covered floating debris, though. High density plastics that sink to the benthic zone arrive in an environment with much slower biological turnover and different organisms than the near-surface environment. This current study is interesting in that it sampled enzymes from different ocean depths, not just the surface, and found elevated degradation signals even at depth.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI for one welcome our plastic eating overlords.
- TheMerovingian 4y ago/me starts wearing non-plastic clothing
- karaterobot 4y agoI believe this is how The Andromeda Strain escaped from the lab. Time to stock up on Sterno.
- elil17 4y agoThere’s a theory that most coal comes from a period after plants evolved lignin (the substance that makes wood woody) but before bacteria and fungi evolved the enzymes to break lignin down. Perhaps something similar will happen with plastic.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThat's been debunked. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113
- whateveracct 4y agonet zero information
- ceejayoz 4y agoNo; "Devonian-to-Permian woods infiltrated with fungi and possessing damage consistent with white rot decay or other forms of fungal degradation of lignified tissue" means the original theory simply doesn't work.
- infogulch 4y agoInteresting. Their alternative hypothesis from the abstract: > Rather than a consequence of a temporal decoupling of evolutionary innovations between fungi and plants, Paleozoic coal abundance was likely the result of a unique combination of everwet tropical conditions and extensive depositional systems during the assembly of Pangea.
- elil17 4y agoInteresting. I guess that aligns well with how quickly we’ve seen bacteria evolve to digest plastics.
- everdrive 4y agoI had no idea! Is this definitive, or just another supposition?
- forgetfulness 4y agoThe coal formations we exploit today were formed during 60 million years period in between the evolution of wood and bark, and the evolution of fungi and bacteria that could break them down. I wonder if wood had other noxious effects on biology back then as our plastics do today. Perhaps not.
- mrguyorama 4y agoAs others have pointed out, that theory doesn't hold water https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113
- hawksprite 4y agoAt this point humans are behind the curve. We should take this as a sign to adapt.
- aliswe 4y ago> The first bug that eats plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste dump in 2016. That wasn't a bug! It was the bacteria Ideonella sakaiensis, if my Google-fu serves me right. Maybe the whole article (meaning the title as well) is off?
- masklinn 4y agoThe entire article talks about microbes. In the article's context, it's quite clear that bug is used in the colloquial meaning for that, as in "a stomach bug", not in the sense of insects or arthropods.
- hosh 4y ago> “The next step would be to test the most promising enzyme candidates in the lab to closely investigate their properties and the rate of plastic degradation they can achieve,” said Zelezniak. “From there you could engineer microbial communities with targeted degrading functions for specific polymer types.” John Todd has been working on ecologies (in a vat) that can process waste for over fifty years now. Among his accomplishments was developing an ecology that can break down DDT in a matter of weeks, instead of years. The main thing he does is drawing from all five of the major kingdoms together, and have them self-organize around the waste being processed. (https://www.toddecological.com/about https://www.toddecological.com/about) With the self-organization, it's not always necessary to model and engineer everything.
- carapace 4y agoYou might already know, but the New Alchemy Institute journals and quarterlies have been made available in PDF form: https://newalchemists.net/publications/new-alchemy-1971-1991/ https://newalchemists.net/publications/new-alchemy-1971-1991... I am mystified why their "living machines" are not more popular.
- omarhaneef 4y ago"The first bug that eats plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste dump in 2016. Scientists then tweaked it in 2018 to try to learn more about how it evolved, but inadvertently created an enzyme that was even better at breaking down plastic bottles. Further tweaks in 2020 increased the speed of degradation sixfold. Another mutant enzyme was created in 2020 by the company Carbios that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours. German scientists have also discovered a bacterium that feeds on the toxic plastic polyurethane, which is usually dumped in landfills." Would love to see the timeline and capacity plotted on a chart. I wonder how much we need to make it practical. 6x increase in 2 years but did we go from decades to years? Hours on bottles sounds like we are getting there in speed but how much bacteria, and how quickly do they multiply and what do they do once they are done? I am asking because breaking bottles down in hours doesn't sound "promising", it sounds like we are there. Just pour that on the plastic island in the ocean! If we cannot, there must be something else going on that prevents us.
- burlesona 4y agoI would be very wary of the unintended consequences of just releasing such a thing into the ocean…
- nitwit005 4y agoProbably convert the trash dense parts of the ocean to sparkling water from the emitted CO2.
- barkingcat 4y agoYup! those fiberglass boat hulls? dissolved in hours!
- xyzzyz 4y agoFiberglass is not plastic. It’s glass, bonded by epoxy resins. I guess epoxies are a kind of plastic, but they’re completely different chemicals than the polymers typically used in plastic items, and so likely would be immune to enzymes in question.
- gentleman11 4y agoMicroorganisms that eat plastics will be great at first, until hospitals see breakouts of them. At least with insects, outbreaks are far easier to prevent
- cultofmetatron 4y agothey'll still need access to water. your table doesn't spontaneously degrade but its biodegrabable
- windows2020 4y agoIt's fascinating that evolution can occur so rapidly. Perhaps human genome editing will one day be required to help cope with novel externalities. Or, in some cases, maybe we'll get by with additional help from new enzymes. I had not considered the evolution of new biological functions may not require the death of the organism.
- triyambakam 4y agoI'm not convinced that it can happen so rapidly. My suspicion is that the bugs already had bacteria or fungi in their digestive systems that were able to break down plastic, but that capability was latent in the fungi. We only notice it now because it's a helpful ability. Bringing out a latent ability isn't really evolution.
- Jweb_Guru 4y agoThat's unlikely, considering these kinds of plastics simply did not exist before. Famously, scientists were able to study in detail the evolution of the brand new capability for a group of microbes living in waste water from a factory to metabolize nylon, a completely artificial polymer with no natural analogue. Moreover, scientists were inspired by this to try replicating these conditions in a lab, with a brand new strain of bacteria. I think it took a few decades, but they eventually found that that strain, too, evolved the capability to metabolize nylon, despite the required enzymes definitely not being present ahead of time. Microbial evolution proceeds at blinding speed, so maybe you could argue this doesn't apply to insects, but insets also have pretty short gestation cycles and at least some species are clearly experiencing dramatic selective pressure due to human activity, so I don't think it's at all inconceivable.
- triyambakam 4y agoI think it's more likely that the fungi in the bugs' digestive system have already had the ability to break down plastic, only it was latent and unnecessary until recently.
- chaosbolt 4y agoLots of species evolved to survive the cretaceous paleogene extinction event, it still doesn't mean you should go on throwing asteroids on people because eventually some mouse will survive and reproduce to eat the plant who survived and reproduced.
- rglover 4y agoNo. But it does mean not having a panic attack (not saying you are, just in general) and allowing psychopathic environmentalists to enforce ridiculous policy that, in aggregate, harms more than it helps. That nature evolves to give us a helping hand is an absolutely beautiful thing.
- diob 4y agoSome others have mentioned it, but it could honestly be a worse scenario if it ends up making it's way into our food because of it (more so than it already does).
- rglover 4y agoGood point. In that case we should observe animals that we eat and know to eat the bugs exhibiting this behavior and see if there's a noticeable change in their biochemistry. Would be curious to what degree the composition of the plastic is broken down by the bugs digestive system vs. what lingers indefinitely.
- sigg3 4y agoNature doesn't evolve in order to do anything. Evolution is not a helping hand it's a process, the hollowed out chronological pathways in the ocean of death. And what eats plastic might as well eat us, or our foodstuffs. It is prudent to fear any invasive species.
- rglover 4y ago> Nature doesn't evolve in order to do anything. Evolution is not a helping hand it's a process, the hollowed out chronological pathways in the ocean of death. By that logic lizards and bugs didn't evolve to change their pigment defensively to avoid predators. Easy on the pedantry, Francis.
- betwixthewires 4y agoThe earth is going to return petroleum to the biosphere, and humans are a part of that process. We are the bacteria that eats oil. The utility of plastic as a material that is very durable is a temporary state of affairs. As more of these microbes evolve traits that allow them to metabolize it, the utility of plastic will wane. It's primary selling point, as well as it's primary detrimental trait, is it's ability to withstand decomposition. Climate change due to carbon dioxide is a part of this process. Returning sequestered carbon to the carbon cycle necessarily causes disturbances in balance for a time. In the end, what you wind up with is more biomass, or more specifically, biomass that once existed that is now being reintroduced.
- WalterBright 4y agoThe plot of a scifi book I read some years ago was a group of people wanted to destroy mankind but leave the Earth intact. Their method was to unleash a virus that ate plastic. Civilization ended because of our reliance on plastic.
- equinoxmist 4y agoSounds interesting, is it Mutant 59? If so, I will try find a copy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59
- WalterBright 4y agoSorry, that's not it. I can't find it. It's a trilogy.
- feydaykyn 4y agoThere's Ringworld too https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61179.Ringworld https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61179.Ringworld
- trashtester 4y agoViruses could not possibly eat plastic, though, as they don't have metabolism. Would have to be bacteria or fungi.
- sunjester 4y agomind the gray goo please.
- 323 4y agoAt some point bugs will evolve to eat electricity directly. After all, that's what the electron transport chain does in respiration. So just cut the food middleman.
- surfpel 4y agoThat’s exactly what plants, algae, etc. do during photosynthesis. Photons are self propagating electromagnetic waves, just another form of electricity.
- tomxor 4y agoWas a bit disappointed by the absence of insects. Maybe fix the title to "Microbes" rather than "Bugs".
- Sprocklem 4y agoThe usage of "bugs" to refer to microbes in the press release was quite confusing, although note that the study does cite work that found some similar plastic-degrading microbes in the gut microbiota of some insects: > Certain species, such as larvae of Plodia interpunctella (waxworms), Tenebrio molitor (mealworms), and Galleria mellonella, were even found to have developed a flora that can degrade polyethylene (82, 83), polystyrene (84, 85), or both plastic types simultaneously (86). However, these organisms might have a highly adapted and specialized microbiome due to their direct exposure and breeding in specific plastic-contaminated habitats (82, 84), [...].
- t_mann 4y agoFeeling somewhat vindicated vis-à-vis my middle school biology teacher after being belittled for asking whether this would happen.
- alanh 4y agoAnnoying this uses the word "bugs," which is commonly used to mean insects; the article actually discusses only "microbes" and "bacteria." These can be called bugs colloquially, but why not just use the word "microbes" in the title? This might seem pedantic, but it is not a new result to have find microbes that can digest plastics; AFAIK no "bugs" (insects or other creepy-crawlies) have gained such abilities yet, so the result is a very clickbaity headline.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago"I'm not feeling well" "Oh, got a bug from someone?"
- misnome 4y agoSo, colloquially?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago"Bugs" is more or less only ever used as a colloquial term.
- cwkoss 4y agoI think I read about some mealworm-y bug that can eat styrofoam (however the microbes in that worm's gut were doing the actual digestion of the styrene) Edit: found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uoOUAfY6Cc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uoOUAfY6Cc and Thoughtemporium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS9PWzkUG2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS9PWzkUG2s
- danwills 4y agoActually there's a worm/larva that can eat styrofoam, not sure whether this is a great link, but: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/beetle-larvae-can-survive-on-polystyrene-alone-67251/amp https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/beetle-larvae-can...
- 4y ago
- headelf 4y agoDoes this mean our trash has been biodegradable this whole time and that 3000yr estimates were not accounting for evolution?
- Uptrenda 4y agoArticle is apparently about microbes and not insects (lol.) The author also uses the word "evolve" but is this really correct? Doesn't it literally take millions of years for evolutionary changes? IMO: what's happening is they're finding microbes that already had the ability to break-down plastic rather than microbes literally changing forms to be able to break-down plastic? Or can these kind of environmental changes really happen that fast?
- aesch 4y agoEvolution doesn't take millions of years for fast reproducing microbes. Another example is Covid, we've already seen half a dozen evolutions (that we know about) within the past several years.
- brian_cloutier 4y agoTo add to this, evolution typically happens _all at once_. Change does take a very long time but most of that time is spent in statis: everything has found its niche and lives in an equilibrium. Once the environment changes (such as by introducing a whole new kind of food) species can very quickly adjust to the new reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
- throwaway1777 4y agoBugs eat plastic, people eat bugs, people make plastic. It’s the circle of life.
- ABCLAW 4y agoThe Guardian's version of the article contains an update correcting a misattribution. The study was published in mBio: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/bugs-across-globe-are-evolving-to-eat-plastic-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/14/bugs-acr... Just an FYI for anyone who's interested in tracking down the actual academic paper.
- obert 4y agoParaphrasing title, bugs are evolving faster than humans… :-\
- gweinberg 4y agoWell of course they are. A generation of bacteria is about 20 minutes, for human more like 20 years.
- almost_usual 4y agoLiving in the Plastic Age.
- shnp 4y agoImagine this: Monsanto patents a genetically modified bug that eats plastic, sells it to governments and recycling plants. Then, once it gets into nature and it starts eating things that isn’t trash, monsanto patents a series of plastics that is resistant to this bug. Increasing the price of plastic bags by 10x. Repeat this whole cycle over and over again. It becomes an arms race of patented bug, then patented plastic.
- Wohlf 4y agoI doubt it could really be any worse than how wood rots if you don't handle it properly.
- shnp 4y agoThat’s because there is no incentive to ‘artificially’ speed up wood decomposition right now. With the right incentive and no thought on unintended consequences, it might happen. You are probably right though.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI just watched the latest Love, Death and Robots on Netflix, and one of the shorts is about a Scottish farmer, and his rat problem. For some reason, that came to mind, when I read this.
- dmitriid 4y agoThere's also Watchbird by Robert Sheckley: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579
- quixoticelixer- 4y agoThis is insane and simply not realistic.
- throw1234651234 4y agoWhat's not realistic about it? Your garbage can and car are safe in the driveway because nothing eats them. Same for a lot of hose components like gutters now. Pipes too recently.
- andsoitis 4y agomaybe we can engineer humans to eat plastic
- trashtester 4y agoMaybe a 1000 years from now, everyone will have gut bacteria capable of digesting plastic, with no change needed to the actual humans.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoAwesome, proof once more man is not at the pinnacle of evolution.
- rossdavidh 4y agoI really don't like plastic. I prefer to avoid it for any purchase where there is a practical non-plastic alternative. But, I have to say, if we had a bacteria that could rapidly digest most plastics, and spread "in the wild", it could have some catastrophic effects on our world's economy. Imagine everything in the public infrastructure that uses plastic, rotting within a year's time. It could be apocalyptic.
- trashtester 4y agoIt would create a lot of tech jobs, though, as almost EVERYTHING needs to be re-invented.
- kwonkicker 4y agoEasy. Invent a resilient plastic that the microbes don't like to chew. And start counting the money untill that plastic becomes the problem.
- delecti 4y agoWood biodegrades, and yet we still build houses out of wood. It's not that wood rot is never a problem, but it's far from apocalyptic. There is certainly a lot of possibility for bad outcomes, but it seems the potential upsides outweigh them. Wood furniture continues to be a durable option, and well-stored plastic likely would too.
- rossdavidh 4y agoIt isn't necessarily apocalyptic, but we do a lot of things to address wood biodegrading. Paint, arsenic-impregnated wood, etc. If we didn't have any such measures, our use of wood would quickly be a problem. Also, a lot of current uses of plastic have a built-in assumption that they don't degrade. We could adapt, sure, but it would be quite disruptive, and a lot of current uses would need to be changed/replaced.
- dwg 4y agoWhile I’m happy to hear about good developments related with plastic waste, am I the only one worried about the implications of a plastic eating bug? We sort of depend on how he durability of plastic in our modern world. Or is this simply a non-issue?
- tmountain 4y agoYou're not the only one. Not a fan of plastic, but we've come to depend on it heavily. Any remediation strategy has to be highly directed in its approach. Humans tend to be bad at applying the right level of precision to large scale problems, and the consequences could be very dire.
- funny_falcon 4y agoWell, our world is made of plastic. If bacteria will eat plastic, we would have to make other uneatable plastic.
- Lutzb 4y agoIn 2001 scientists also discovered fungus that grows on compact disk's aluminium and polycarbonate layers. https://www.nature.com/articles/news010628-11 https://www.nature.com/articles/news010628-11
- cutler 4y agoGreat. Now all we need is one that breathes in CO2.
- topaid 4y agoYou are exactly mentioning it
- mleonhard 4y ago> The first bug that eats plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste dump in 2016. In 2009, a Taiwanese high-school student (Tseng I-ching) discovered a bacterium that decomposes polystyrene [0]. I think she deserves credit for starting this field of research. [0] https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10,23,45,10&post=15307 https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10,23,45,10&post=15307