AI-engineered enzyme eats entire plastic containers

submitted by Drewski from chemistryworld.com

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[–]iamonlyoneman 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

There is no possible way this could go badly

[–]JasonCarswell 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

‘What I really liked in their study is the fact that they also they took it outside of the lab to some extent,’

[–]jet199 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

"I just got this state of the art plastic heart valve fitting ... what the hell ... oh my god!!!"

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

You know what's amazing about all this? We've had plastics on this planet for what, 50, 60 years? And here we have bacteria that NATURALLY EVOLVED to eat the stuff. In half a century.

But eVeRy MuTaTiOn TaKeS mIlLiOnS oF yEaRs... sigh.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I imagine in 100 years we will be basically swimming in a sea of human-engineered enzymes.

Cool to see some development on this front though, there's a whole texas-sized garbage patch in the pacific that is mostly plastic. If humans could develop techniques to easily break down the plastic that'd be great.

I think I remember reading wax worms can eat certain types of thin plastic, like grocery bags. And they excrete antifreeze (glycol) as waste.

[–]Drewski[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

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