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Scientists Accidentally Create Mutant Enzyme That Eats Plastic Bottles (theguardian.com)
Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles -- by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles. From a report: The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic, at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug. The international team then tweaked the enzyme to see how it had evolved, but tests showed they had inadvertently made the molecule even better at breaking down the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for soft drink bottles. "What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock," said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, who led the research. "It's great and a real finding." The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic -- far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans. But the researchers are optimistic this can be speeded up even further and become a viable large-scale process.
If it gets loose, will it eat the bottles on the shelves? Will it also eat the fleece jackets made from recycled PET bottles?
"speeded up"? Are we hiring writers and editors at bus stops now?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59
Plastics evolve antibodies to fight off plastic-eating bacteria.
So we have to go back to crystal and paper containers.
Does the enzyme release CO2, (or any other greenhouse gases), while it's breaking down the plastic?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
So there was a SF book years ago called Mutant 59 the plastic eaters and the disaster that struck after it got out into the wild.
Yes I know its technically correct but it sounds so weird!
How many inventions were the result of accidents? Microwave ovens? Telephone?
This is the precursor to the great plastic plague of 2020
So the churches have been wrong all along. The end of things won't be a fiery death but everything dissolving into the classical grey goo syndrome. Imagine if this got loose in a hospital, all the tubes and plastic based equipment dissolving around the patients and doctors.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Plastic which was born out of an accident is about to die because of another accident..
Enzyme + PET equals what exactly? Surely not nothing. Hopefully something harmless.
Long signatures suck.
No, you can also go to Checkers. Not White Castle though. Only stoners go there.
I can see endless military applications.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
...with breeding plastic destroying bacteria in a world where just about every common item is partially or wholly made of plastic or plastic components?
Nope, I see no issues.
-Styopa
Oh shit, we altered the enzyme and now it eat's human flesh!
I knew nature was going to catch on eventually (long before the "thousands of years to decay" prediction) and I'm glad it has. Plastics are nice but the half-life of the products they are used in are astonishingly short. My hope is that we will be able to spray trash with a variety of monocelluar critters and it will turn it into various gases that can be harvested and used for something else. Once they have done their job, they'll leave a biosludge and elemental components like metals that can be reclaimed. The sludge will make a great fertilizer.
I hope people realize this is a good thing rather than flailing nonsensically about how their iphone is going to fall apart.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Kill it now! I don't want want retro 8-bit gizmos disappearing into a puddle of bacteria poop!
I was thinking of it getting into the bottling plant. A few days should be just long enough to fill em and get them on a truck before they start to go bad :O Either they start to disintegrate when it hits a bump or they make til someone tries to stock the shelves.
I think some people are being confused by the use of the term "mutant" in the headline. This is not a creature. It doesn't reproduce. It's a chemical. You can worry about spills, but it's never going to be a plague.
The bacteria it was derived from might become a plague, but that's an already-existing worry, since it's a naturally occurring critter which is already out there in the wild. But this is just stuff. If it "gets loose", it'll just sit there. At worst, it might contaminate the groundwater or something, but that's true of a lot of other chemicals.
No, seriously.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why not just burn all that shit? No silly enzymes or science required.
... when in contact with a saline environment it produces crystals of "ice-nine"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Can we recycle our plastic bags instead of paying 5 cents per for the privilege of using them?
In other news, all major cruise lines are reporting that all onboard plastics are disintegrating, causing major alarm and concerns that the ships might sink as sea.
They could do the same thing with H2SO4
H2SO4 you would notice instantly (if for no other reason than the pilots would be unable to see out of the cockpit), and wouldn't have the supervillian level of diabolical delay before taking effect.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
+1
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
You mean dissolve?
Polystyrene foam is notoriously hard to recycle and a common type of litter and trash.
For example, electric wire insulation... I'm assuming this bacteria will go pretty slowly, not having a negative impact on all the disposable stuff we go through. However, there are lots of plastic uses that are expected to maintain their integrity for decades, in places that can't/won't be checked or replaced.
Lets not release this without understanding the full implications of letting a plastic converting molecule loose in a plastic world.
either A) convert back to plastics (not sure how) or B) http://science.sciencemag.org/... ---> ethyl glycol ---> *burn* ---> Carbon Monoxide (a down hill raction) --->https://www.anl.gov/articles/new-leaf-scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-back-fuel --- > methenol ---> burn in cars
... then it's back to wax cylinders.
I'm pretty sure every single one of those anonymous posts are written by the same person. Lol
Stop. Stop. Stop.
Do not accidentally create anything that eats unless it's an offspring/budding/what-not of an existing thing that eats similar things.
Oh, and don't do it on purpose until you've been accepted into the Evil League of Evil's apprenticeship program. Research this dangerous, er, I mean useful, should only be done by qualified individuals or under the supervision of a master evil villain.
Cancer causing microscopic fibers that embed themselves in the skin? Yes eat away.
The mutant enzyme takes a few days to start breaking down the plastic -- far faster than the centuries it takes in the oceans
I grew up in the British Channel Islands. Cold water with big tides. Anything, absolutely anything, plastic that was put in the sea around there was gone in no time. Things like soda bottles wouldn't last a month. 5mm Thick buoys and fenders had at most a few years in them before the sea ate holes in them. Centuries it takes in the oceans? Fucking Citation Needed.
OOPS! Eureka! Science!
Sorry, not sorry for exploiting low hanging fruit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I assume you mean expanded polystyrene aka styrofoam... toss it all in a vat of acetone to disolve then reuse it.
RIP, Kurt Vonnegut.
This appears to be a wildly disproportionate response to someone posting a few Amazon affiliate links or is there some huge back story I've missed, a spurned lover, perhaps?
Title of a book from the â70s.
Spoiler: It did not end well.
Didn't The Andromeda Strain have something similar?
I'm probably much older than the usual denizens of this site and I remember the detergent scare of the 1950's. Basically detergents (Tide was the number one brand) contaminated local streams and rivers and did not readily decompose. A few years later Tide changed its formula and the problem disappeared. The bottom line is that problems caused by technology have technological fixes. Sadly problem cause by human nature like greed, fear and hatred are unsolvable.
Seriously, the only place with a proper DOI link is phys.org but their link is busted, searching PNAS for the paper name comes up empty.
Is there any open access to the paper?
I guess you weren't here last summer when creimer's image got posted on Russian gay websites and his DMCA takedown notices took them down faster than they could be put up. Creimer retaliated by posting Amazon affiliate links to monetize his trolls. Slashdot management even put up Amazon ads once creimer showed how much money they were leaving on the table. Now that creimer has left Slashdot for YouTube, his trolls are pining away for him.
“What we are hoping to do is use this enzyme to turn this plastic back into its original components, so we can literally recycle it back to plastic,” said McGeehan
That's currently a wish. What are the current byproducts, are they toxic and can they be economically reprocessed into something? The key word here is "economically". It it costs less, then any downside with health or environmental issues take a backseat.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I for one would like to welcome our plastic munching Enzyme accidental Overlords. What could possibly go wrong?
Better than fire?
This country has loads of experience with foreign animals. After rabbits, foxes, cane toads, and camels I am excited to see what will become of these bacteria.
So what waste products are created by the enzyme? Is the waste easily dealt with or have any value as a product of the reaction?
Up next: Ice-9
The Daybreak Series: Directive 51, Daybreak Zero, and The Last President.
Something (virus?) eats any type of plastic or petroleum-based material. Things get BAD.
All the signs are there.
He really really enjoys pretending to be a woman just doing what he thinks are normal 30 year old girl things.
Most of all though, FatCashewsLovesMe is obsessed with him, and FatCashewsLovesMe is adamant that he loves all trannies.
Can FatCashews divinely inspired love of trannies see straight through Chris's blubbery exterior to the transsexual inside?
http://www.newser.com/story/19... http://www.newser.com/story/24... http://www.newser.com/story/20... http://www.newser.com/story/23... http://www.newser.com/story/21... http://www.newser.com/story/23... http://www.onegreenplanet.org/... Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Then sign this petition: https://www.thepetitionsite.co...
Definitely not getting on a plane now that plastic eating bacteria is around. Far too risky! Think I'll holiday in England this year and spend a nice quiet afternoon at Byfield Pier.
-- Toby Wren
Is there a way to use this to deal with microplastics? Bottles are easy since they're all in one place, but the micro stuff is all over the environment.
J