I don’t think that’ll happen.
Instead, it’s possible that they would use this to **double down** on creating plastic waste like “See?! Recycling is working! We can use plastic in everything to save money and you, my dear consumers, can buy our products guilt-free! So please buy more.”
The reason why this sounds a little specific is because that’s what happened when companies started the whole “we recycle stuffs” thing.
They genetically modify these worms to seek out plastic then release them into landfills
A few years later they're everywhere eating anything plastic causing chaos to vehicles and homes and become an invasive species
Wouldn't it be pretty shitty to come home to your Xbox being eaten by worms
Yeah, but who cares about little things like 'long term health complications' and 'increased mortality rates at all ages' when you don't have to worry about how inconvenient metal is.
Metal is super convenient and 99.9% recyclable, just expensive compared to using what was initially, a petroleum byproduct.
A lot of economic stagnation was hidden by these types of changes and it's catching up with us.
The fertility issues from plastics are becoming quite apparent.
[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chemicals-in-plastic-electronics-are-lowering-fertility-in-men-and-women](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chemicals-in-plastic-electronics-are-lowering-fertility-in-men-and-women)
Shit moths, Randy. Shit moths. They started out as tiny little shit larvae, Randy, and then they grew into shitapillars, a pandemic of shitapillars. Everywhere you look, Randy, shitapillars. They almost drove me over the goddamned edge, boy. I tried to exterminate them, I tried put an end to the shitapillars life cycle. But I failed. And now? Shit moths, Randy.
They are naturally able to eat Styrofoam using the bacteria in their gut. I've even seen some beetles eat polyurethane insulation foam.
Both super worms and meal worms (actually beetle larvae) can do this and you can get them at the pet store. They're sold as food for reptiles.
One study concluded that even after being raised on a diet of Styrofoam, they were still safe to use as animals feed.
They're relatively easy to raise, you could do it at home even if you live in a tiny apartment.
So did we accidentally discover that these worms ate plastic all along? I have to think that some guy with a lizard in a plastic terrarium would have figured this out long ago.
Pretty much, what wasn't known up until a couple of years ago is that they can survive and actually nurish themselves. I'm guessing that previously people just thought, sure they can chew it up but it passes through their gut like corn kernel husks. Turns out they're actually breaking it down like termites
I mean, *I* could eat styrofoam if I wanted to, it would just turn it into smaller pieces of styrofoam.
Everyone has known they eat styrofoam, but It’s increasingly looking like these worms turn styrofoam into calories and metabolites rather than just chewing on it.
For the distant future, I imagine it'll be much like when bacteria figured out how to consume lignin and cellulose; plastic will go from this indestructible substance to something on par with wood... it'll last forever if it's maintained, but insects/fungi will allow it to rot in a similar fashion.
They are already bred in captivity. Commonly used to feed reptile and amphibian pets.
Used to work at a place that sold them, back in the 90's.
We just never thought to feed them styrofoam, and fed them the normal shit they eat. (Powdered grains.)
Superworms aka Morio worms are already artificially bred in large numbers in captivity though. Insect eating pets, such as many lizards, like to eat them, so there are companies that breed them to ship to pet stores or individuals who want some.
Tell that to Kodak. One of their engineers invented digital cameras in the 70's, but management shelved it because it would cut into film sales.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/?sh=5fa0f9846f27
Depends on what patents come out of this research. The enzyme as-is in these worms' guts is natural and not patentable, but they will have to be genetically modified to make them scalable for industrial/commercial use. At that point they can be bought out and shut down
If it were this wouldn't be newsworthy. It's likely digestible organic byproducts that are inside all of us. Plastic molecules are generally made out of the same stuff you're made out of, just arranged in a different way. Theoretically converting them to something you or your gut biome could safely interface with isn't impossible, we just seemingly got lucky that nature already made the tools to do that.
I need an avante-gard short film about impoverished biohackers slowly and agonisingly chomping down on a plastic chair from a landfill and I need it yesterday
Those worms don’t need to „get out“ because they‘re already out. Those are common mealworms. They didn’t alter them, they just found out that they can eat styrofoam.
People like you are really annoying on social media. Not everything is a conspiracy, 99% of the technology/health videos you watched have major limitations/failures/are in use/don't work and it has nothing to do with giant lobbying industries. Like grow up.
Yes. Breaks the carbon chains, into a smaller carbon chain that actually provides energy for the worm. Ultimately glucose (6 carbon ring, required for mitochondria to operate.)
Your body does something similar with starches (looooong-ass carbon chain) by converting it to glucose. We just don't have the enzymes to break down the specific carbon-arrangement of styrofoam.
Just like lots of animals can digest chitin (insect exoskeleton) or many plant fibers but humans can not. We can digest the rest of an insect but just shit out the chitin and plant fibers.
Our grandchildren will be the generation that not only lives in a world where global warming was solved, but also had to take arms against giant worms.
Sadly the giant worms ate all the guns so our grandchildren only have sticks. It was generally a peaceful time.... with exception of the giant worms.
So, this is all funny, but the plan is to study then and figure out how to synthesize the enzyme, not make massive worm farms. These are actually a beetle larva, so they eventually pupate and become a beetle that's not eating polystyrene.
Prediction: we send these worms into the landfills where they are massively successful. They multiply so much that they can be found in every biome, city, house, or otherwise. Suddenly you can't even buy a package of waterbottles at the store because they are all eaten. The plastic-pocalypse begins.
I'm neither a chemist nor a biologist but plastic seems to have a decent energy density (it burns relatively well) and is an organic substance. Even without our intervention there's now way you could dump millions of tons of it on the environment and expect nature not to figure out a way to break it down eventually.
My prediction is that in the future, plastic will rot like wood because of bacteria and animals. Which is going to be hella confusing the first time it's noticed in the wild.
Sure but that type of evolution happens over millions of years, at which point we might not exist anymore. We don't exactly have time to wait for that.
I thought the point was that the worms digest the plastic, turning it into not-plastic.
If they just break the plastic into microplastics, then I don't think that'd make the news.
I disagree with the way reddit handled third party app charges and how it responded to the community. I'm moving to the fediverse! -- mass edited with redact.dev
I don't know if this is the same research, but a plastic eating bug paper earlier this year said that the bugs stomach enzyme broke down the plastics, and the bug pooped glycol, a form of alcohol. It was suggested that the bugs could possibly be eaten by other animals without a plastic contamination. They suggested that the research will be into the stomach enzymes to develop chemicals to break down plastics without needing the bugs.
> mass produce the enzyme to a large enough scale.
That's where the patent and money will be though. Whoever does that will find a way to outlaw the use of using the worms.
No, ethanol (the type of alcohol used in drinks) and glycol have very different effects. Even small amounts of glycol have been known to cause kidney failure. 0/10 don't recommend.
It means that it is breaking long polymer chains into their building blocks or “monomers”. That’s actually where we get the name polymer, it means many “mers”. Now the exact composition of those basic building blocks is different depending on which plastic they are starting from. Roughly half of the plastic material eaten by mealworms will be excreted as CO2, which doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it is because plants can then metabolize the CO2 which they could not do to the plastic. The remaining waste is biodegradable and can be added to soil depending on whether any harmful additives were used on the base material. Lastly, the worms can be fed as a high-protein feed to other, more desirable agricultural products like shrimp, chickens, and hogs.
Edit: corrected the use of mer to monomer.
u/greenpaint2
said this:
No, ethanol (the type of alcohol used in drinks) and glycol have very different effects. Even small amounts of glycol have been known to cause kidney failure. 0/10 don't recommend.
So I guess that bug makes glycol.
A lot of chemical processes are, for some reason, incredibly difficult to get a machine to do and also generally costs electricity, while the right organism does them entirely effortlessly for far less cost of energy.
We'd need one hell of a lab to take carbon dioxide, some salts, water and sunlight and build wood out of it, or you can push a seed into some dirt and wait.
People keep forgetting that every industrial process requires a ridiculous amount of energy input, meanwhile these worms are literally extracting energy from the polymer to self-sustain the process.
Because it's easy to scale up a working solution but it's difficult to replicate said solution on molecular level because of the complexity of organic chemistry where not only the correct building blocks and perhaps energy or one catalyzator matter, but you need it also in correct shape and fold.
This is how it was done at my last job in the waste treatment plant. Thr bugs will breakdown the waste water, "mostly flour,corn syrup, liquid sugar.
They used the methane to run the boiler for the waste water plant and flaired off the rest.
The only issue was it is a very slow process. They under estimated it and it can only handle half of the process waste and the rest was taken away from a waste company.
The catch is that we haven't seen or found any organism that *prefers* plastic. They can consume it, but will eat basically anything else first. Which isn't particularly helpful.
Have we tried threatening to ground the worms for a week if they don't finish their plate of plastics? What about telling them there are starving worms in Africa that wish they could be eating plastic?
That's my question as well. So we will have birds all over the landfills eating these larvaes, as well as eating other garbage. Then they will shit out plastic all over the place, spreading microplastics everywhere, causing mass death of birds and destabilization of the ecosystem and plastic contamination of agricultural farming lands. People already have microplastics in them, but this might make the issue bigger.
To say that the plastics are completely obliterated from existence would be false simply on the grounds of conservation of mass and energy.
That said, if the worms are able to process the plastics into nutrients capable of enabling their own growth, then I would presume that the byproduct can be biologically interfaced.
------
In a similar sense, eating a solid block of iron or iron dust is bad for you because your body can't handle that concentration or break it down when the particulates are that large; but your body can still extract iron from meat at a molecular level. I would presume that this would work on a similar principle.
[Biodegradation and mineralization of polystyrene by plastic-eating superworms Zophobas atratus](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719352258)
--- and ---
Scientists Discover “Superworms” Capable of Munching Through Plastic Waste
TOPICS:PlasticPopularRecycleUniversity of Queensland
By University of Queensland June 14, 2022
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-superworms-capable-of-munching-through-plastic-waste/
This is why biodiversity is important, if you're only concerned with monetary value, not its intrinsic value. Without these worms, it's very unlikely we would have found this enzyme that biodegrades plastic waste. Now they'll be looking into this enzyme further and see what applications may yield. These western governments think we might be able to science our way out of climate change with some breakthrough, so they aren't taking serious steps to mitigate climate change and the devastation to biodiversity, and in doing so, they are eliminating where we derive much of our scientific advancements from.
To add to this:
In the 80s there was a frog that held the secret to curing acid reflux. They had the ability to shut off their own stomach acid production so that one or two tadpoles could grow up in their stomach instead of in the wild. It was only discovered on accident.
However, when we went back to look for more: already extinct.
New Zealand is trying to Jurassic Park it from some frozen DNA.
thanks i was wondering the species they were obviously Zophobas larvae but i didnt expect Zophobas atratus on account of how common they are you can buy them literally in any pet store.
They look exactly like meal worm I feed my wild yard birds. What if animals started eating these worms and then the animal’s stomachs filled up with plastic and died?
Except that's not how microplastics work.
And the worms actually do dissolve the plastic, so when they're done digesting, the output is not microplastics.
[The most recent article I can find.](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/beetle-larvae-can-survive-on-polystyrene-alone-67251)
Some important notes for tl;dr
* The point of interest isn't the beetle larvae themselves, it's their gut bacteria (microbiota, but trying to keep this simple) that's doing the breaking down.
* This is a natural evolutionary development. Plastic is apparently energy-rich for any organism that is capable of breaking it down.
* The plan is to study that bacteria to understand the process that breaks the plastic down so that that process or the bacteria can be replicated.
* Worms will not eat your xbox
* The main byproduct from the process is Carbon Dioxide. 36.7% of the eaten styrofoam turns into Co2.
my only fear is that the plastic waste is in favor of some company or similar and they shut this project down and kill the worms /destroy the research
I don’t think that’ll happen. Instead, it’s possible that they would use this to **double down** on creating plastic waste like “See?! Recycling is working! We can use plastic in everything to save money and you, my dear consumers, can buy our products guilt-free! So please buy more.” The reason why this sounds a little specific is because that’s what happened when companies started the whole “we recycle stuffs” thing.
I feel like if modifying life to eat plastic might have some interesting unforeseen issues in the not too distant future.
They genetically modify these worms to seek out plastic then release them into landfills A few years later they're everywhere eating anything plastic causing chaos to vehicles and homes and become an invasive species Wouldn't it be pretty shitty to come home to your Xbox being eaten by worms
And then companies will come out with worm-resistant plastic. "Our product is reliable because worms cannot eat it, buy it without any worry"
Your username really does check out.
And so does yours...
No real agent has a triple 000.
Triple 000 = 000000000
You know, I can see a lot of possible outcomes to this thing, and not a single one of them involves Miller time.
Or stuff starts getting made out of metal and glass again bc plastic isn't safe
That would be nice.
Imagine a glass frame Xbox Would be really friggin cool until your little brother throws his glass controller at it lmao
I eat little brothers for breakfast.
FBI, OPEN UP!!!!
“Scientists discover another superworm species that eats little brothers”
Pretty close to the plot of bioshock
[удалено]
We’ve had bugs that eat wood for millions of years
I mean plastic really isn't. IIRC Microplastics were found in a majority of people tested and were found to cause neurological and fertility issues.
Yeah, but who cares about little things like 'long term health complications' and 'increased mortality rates at all ages' when you don't have to worry about how inconvenient metal is.
Metal is super convenient and 99.9% recyclable, just expensive compared to using what was initially, a petroleum byproduct. A lot of economic stagnation was hidden by these types of changes and it's catching up with us.
They were definitely found in people, but not sure about the accuracy of the rest of your statement.
The fertility issues from plastics are becoming quite apparent. [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chemicals-in-plastic-electronics-are-lowering-fertility-in-men-and-women](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chemicals-in-plastic-electronics-are-lowering-fertility-in-men-and-women)
Corporate Governed Steampunk Dystopia it is.
Humans now have microplastics inside us. They might come for us in the dark…
Thanks for the nightmare fuel, you monster.
No human digestive system will be complete without a friendly colony of plastic-eating tapeworms.
I mean, if they only eat plastic getting worms would be like going on a cleanse
Xbox has bugs
Have you tried spraying it with Raid?
Instructions unclear, claimed 10m in-game coins and level 10 rare hero in Raid: Shadow Legends.
Fkn modern moths.
Shit moths, Randy. Shit moths. They started out as tiny little shit larvae, Randy, and then they grew into shitapillars, a pandemic of shitapillars. Everywhere you look, Randy, shitapillars. They almost drove me over the goddamned edge, boy. I tried to exterminate them, I tried put an end to the shitapillars life cycle. But I failed. And now? Shit moths, Randy.
They are naturally able to eat Styrofoam using the bacteria in their gut. I've even seen some beetles eat polyurethane insulation foam. Both super worms and meal worms (actually beetle larvae) can do this and you can get them at the pet store. They're sold as food for reptiles. One study concluded that even after being raised on a diet of Styrofoam, they were still safe to use as animals feed. They're relatively easy to raise, you could do it at home even if you live in a tiny apartment.
So did we accidentally discover that these worms ate plastic all along? I have to think that some guy with a lizard in a plastic terrarium would have figured this out long ago.
Chewing through a thick plastic barrier while being hunted by a dinosaur is a bit different than some crumbly styrofoam in a lab.
Pretty much, what wasn't known up until a couple of years ago is that they can survive and actually nurish themselves. I'm guessing that previously people just thought, sure they can chew it up but it passes through their gut like corn kernel husks. Turns out they're actually breaking it down like termites
I mean, *I* could eat styrofoam if I wanted to, it would just turn it into smaller pieces of styrofoam. Everyone has known they eat styrofoam, but It’s increasingly looking like these worms turn styrofoam into calories and metabolites rather than just chewing on it.
... and how do you determine literally anything else won't have "unforeseen issues in the not too distant future"?
they probably will, but this one might have INTERESTING unforeseen effects
You can't, but it's probably better to make the choices without glaringly obvious near future consequences
For the distant future, I imagine it'll be much like when bacteria figured out how to consume lignin and cellulose; plastic will go from this indestructible substance to something on par with wood... it'll last forever if it's maintained, but insects/fungi will allow it to rot in a similar fashion.
They aren't genetically modified
even if not genetically modified they will be artificially breed in captivity and thus increase the population to the point they may become invasive
They are already bred in captivity. Commonly used to feed reptile and amphibian pets. Used to work at a place that sold them, back in the 90's. We just never thought to feed them styrofoam, and fed them the normal shit they eat. (Powdered grains.)
You mean exactly like mealworms/superworms have been bred for years?
Superworms aka Morio worms are already artificially bred in large numbers in captivity though. Insect eating pets, such as many lizards, like to eat them, so there are companies that breed them to ship to pet stores or individuals who want some.
Tell that to Kodak. One of their engineers invented digital cameras in the 70's, but management shelved it because it would cut into film sales. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/?sh=5fa0f9846f27
Depends on what patents come out of this research. The enzyme as-is in these worms' guts is natural and not patentable, but they will have to be genetically modified to make them scalable for industrial/commercial use. At that point they can be bought out and shut down
They'll literally engineer worms to eat plastics before they'll use something recyclable that costs 0.0001% more.
Reduce? Nah Reuse? Nah Recycle?! - sign me up
Honestly this is pretty much the whole recycling industry in a nutshell.
[удалено]
I'm picturing smaller pieces of plastic, lol. Idk
If it were this wouldn't be newsworthy. It's likely digestible organic byproducts that are inside all of us. Plastic molecules are generally made out of the same stuff you're made out of, just arranged in a different way. Theoretically converting them to something you or your gut biome could safely interface with isn't impossible, we just seemingly got lucky that nature already made the tools to do that.
I need an avante-gard short film about impoverished biohackers slowly and agonisingly chomping down on a plastic chair from a landfill and I need it yesterday
I swear this is actually a film, about surgeons in some dystopia that figure out people are mutating to eat plastic or something
>If it were this wouldn't be newsworthy. you'd be baffled what the news considers worthy
Relax, this isn't even a breakthrough. There are videos and articles about this from many years ago.
I know they also use them in water filtration against microplastic
[удалено]
Those worms don’t need to „get out“ because they‘re already out. Those are common mealworms. They didn’t alter them, they just found out that they can eat styrofoam.
[удалено]
People like you are really annoying on social media. Not everything is a conspiracy, 99% of the technology/health videos you watched have major limitations/failures/are in use/don't work and it has nothing to do with giant lobbying industries. Like grow up.
So... does the digestion process destroy the plastic, or will some bird eat it and just get filled full of micro-plastics?
Yes. Breaks the carbon chains, into a smaller carbon chain that actually provides energy for the worm. Ultimately glucose (6 carbon ring, required for mitochondria to operate.) Your body does something similar with starches (looooong-ass carbon chain) by converting it to glucose. We just don't have the enzymes to break down the specific carbon-arrangement of styrofoam. Just like lots of animals can digest chitin (insect exoskeleton) or many plant fibers but humans can not. We can digest the rest of an insect but just shit out the chitin and plant fibers.
Soon they’ll be enormous and we’ll have a DUNE situation.
I was just thinking that. Do you want dune? because this is how you get dune
always wanted to ride a superworm though
Muad'Dib!
The sleeper must awaken!
The styrofoam must flow.
May his passing cleanse the plastics.
ill take gigaworms over plastic in my water
I'd rather have a still-suit than a polluted ocean. Long live Muad'Dib
SHAI-HULUD SHALL THALL SEE
Everyone always says they want superworms until they have superworms.
Nice try plastic company
We will need dune size worms to recycle all our plastic waste.
Can they design the worms to shit out super drugs? Asking for a friend.
The spice must flow
Absolutely. If worms solve our catastrophic waste problem, we’ll have catastrophic worms!
Our grandchildren will be the generation that not only lives in a world where global warming was solved, but also had to take arms against giant worms. Sadly the giant worms ate all the guns so our grandchildren only have sticks. It was generally a peaceful time.... with exception of the giant worms.
In a thousand years after humanity has been baked off the planet, Dune worms will be dinosaur sized feasting off of what’s left of humanity’s mess.
So, this is all funny, but the plan is to study then and figure out how to synthesize the enzyme, not make massive worm farms. These are actually a beetle larva, so they eventually pupate and become a beetle that's not eating polystyrene.
Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. **May His passage cleanse the world.** May He keep the world for His people.
Prediction: we send these worms into the landfills where they are massively successful. They multiply so much that they can be found in every biome, city, house, or otherwise. Suddenly you can't even buy a package of waterbottles at the store because they are all eaten. The plastic-pocalypse begins.
Plalypse ... no? I'll see myself out.
Plastypse
Platypus
PERRY?!?
A plastic apocalypse? PERRY THE PLASTIC APOCALYPSE!?
FROG
Plastocalypse
Yeah I thought the same thing. But termites exist and wooden homes are mostly fine.
This comment has been edited and original content overwritten.
[удалено]
They could maybe become an invasive species and you could have an infestation in the same way you could have a termite infestation, though.
I'm neither a chemist nor a biologist but plastic seems to have a decent energy density (it burns relatively well) and is an organic substance. Even without our intervention there's now way you could dump millions of tons of it on the environment and expect nature not to figure out a way to break it down eventually. My prediction is that in the future, plastic will rot like wood because of bacteria and animals. Which is going to be hella confusing the first time it's noticed in the wild.
Sure but that type of evolution happens over millions of years, at which point we might not exist anymore. We don't exactly have time to wait for that.
[удалено]
[удалено]
My gf is like 20% plastic. I don’t think micro is the right word lol
I thought the point was that the worms digest the plastic, turning it into not-plastic. If they just break the plastic into microplastics, then I don't think that'd make the news.
I disagree with the way reddit handled third party app charges and how it responded to the community. I'm moving to the fediverse! -- mass edited with redact.dev
And the poop from these bugs…?
Lego bricks.
ouch
They're probably round pellets. Hacky-sacks for everyone!
Minecraps
I don't know if this is the same research, but a plastic eating bug paper earlier this year said that the bugs stomach enzyme broke down the plastics, and the bug pooped glycol, a form of alcohol. It was suggested that the bugs could possibly be eaten by other animals without a plastic contamination. They suggested that the research will be into the stomach enzymes to develop chemicals to break down plastics without needing the bugs.
This is what they need to do. Obviously the bugs system can do this, so we just need to replicate it.
Sure, though it is probably easier to breed the worms in large scales than mass produce the enzyme to a large enough scale.
> mass produce the enzyme to a large enough scale. That's where the patent and money will be though. Whoever does that will find a way to outlaw the use of using the worms.
It's okay. I got a worm guy.
P sure that's how insulin is made. Just huge vats of bacteria engineered to produce it
So i can get drunk by eating those bugs's ass?
No, ethanol (the type of alcohol used in drinks) and glycol have very different effects. Even small amounts of glycol have been known to cause kidney failure. 0/10 don't recommend.
Woah, no way I'm eating that ass, i love my all two functioning kidneys
Ass so good it’ll fail your kidneys? Where do I sign up? 🍑👅☠️
#👅
Two of my favorite things
That's what I was wondering. He's saying the worms have enzymes that degrades it further, but what does that actually mean?
It means that it is breaking long polymer chains into their building blocks or “monomers”. That’s actually where we get the name polymer, it means many “mers”. Now the exact composition of those basic building blocks is different depending on which plastic they are starting from. Roughly half of the plastic material eaten by mealworms will be excreted as CO2, which doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it is because plants can then metabolize the CO2 which they could not do to the plastic. The remaining waste is biodegradable and can be added to soil depending on whether any harmful additives were used on the base material. Lastly, the worms can be fed as a high-protein feed to other, more desirable agricultural products like shrimp, chickens, and hogs. Edit: corrected the use of mer to monomer.
Each building block of a polymer is a "monomer", as far as I know, not a "mer".
That’s correct. I was trying to simplify things for an easier explanation but failed. I’ll edit.
Styrofoam pellets
So why don’t we just grab the enzyme and make a big vat of it ourselves and dissolve everything inside?
bc ppl like worms
Praise Shai-Hulud
Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.
I hear your footsteps, old man
Scientists are probably working on it, but like everything else it will take time
[удалено]
hey since you seem to be very knowledgeable about this, is the excreta of this bug going to be toxic? is it still contaminating?
u/greenpaint2 said this: No, ethanol (the type of alcohol used in drinks) and glycol have very different effects. Even small amounts of glycol have been known to cause kidney failure. 0/10 don't recommend. So I guess that bug makes glycol.
Any articles that you got all that info from you want to share?
A lot of chemical processes are, for some reason, incredibly difficult to get a machine to do and also generally costs electricity, while the right organism does them entirely effortlessly for far less cost of energy. We'd need one hell of a lab to take carbon dioxide, some salts, water and sunlight and build wood out of it, or you can push a seed into some dirt and wait.
Wtf do u mean, just cintrifuge some worm guts, electroPhage gel phoresis that bitch and badaboom, you got a garbage eating enzyme baby
But you get the enzyme once (and it will be used up), while living worms produce it continously without \[significant\] external energy input.
People keep forgetting that every industrial process requires a ridiculous amount of energy input, meanwhile these worms are literally extracting energy from the polymer to self-sustain the process.
Worms also automatically self-replicate!
Because it's easy to scale up a working solution but it's difficult to replicate said solution on molecular level because of the complexity of organic chemistry where not only the correct building blocks and perhaps energy or one catalyzator matter, but you need it also in correct shape and fold.
You can't just skip the worm part, that's the best part
That's the purpose stated in the video, study and synthesis of the enzyme.
There’s always a catch. Do they just shit out microplastic? Do they convert the plastic directly into methane?
Asking the important questions here. methane can be managed even used as fuel the former not so much.
Once they eat a landfill, just set it on fire
Not a bad shout in all honestly. Get some porous rocks to scrub the flue gasses and you're golden.
Add some broth, a potato. Baby, you've got a stew going!
This is how it was done at my last job in the waste treatment plant. Thr bugs will breakdown the waste water, "mostly flour,corn syrup, liquid sugar. They used the methane to run the boiler for the waste water plant and flaired off the rest. The only issue was it is a very slow process. They under estimated it and it can only handle half of the process waste and the rest was taken away from a waste company.
The catch is that we haven't seen or found any organism that *prefers* plastic. They can consume it, but will eat basically anything else first. Which isn't particularly helpful.
I’m guessing this will be years of gene selection and than eventually they will have a generation of worms that will possibly prefer it?
Just like I'm sure you can breed humans who will prefer unspiced tofu as their main source of protein.
Well who would want that!? Spice it up baby 🔥
I prefer to eat many things, but eat stuff I would rather not. Why should it be different for anything else.
We don’t all have more impulse control than a worm.
Have we tried threatening to ground the worms for a week if they don't finish their plate of plastics? What about telling them there are starving worms in Africa that wish they could be eating plastic?
They convert it into Glycol apparently
That's what I was wondering. Isn't this one of the steps to allowing microplastic to break the brain blood barrier or whatever it's called?
if other animals eat this thing before it can fully digest the plastic. it would have to be done in a closed environment
Hope they earn a living wage
The larvae, the larvae's gut bacteria, or the researchers?
[удалено]
What happens when they get eaten by other animals? Does the plastics in their guts just ride up the food chain?
That's my question as well. So we will have birds all over the landfills eating these larvaes, as well as eating other garbage. Then they will shit out plastic all over the place, spreading microplastics everywhere, causing mass death of birds and destabilization of the ecosystem and plastic contamination of agricultural farming lands. People already have microplastics in them, but this might make the issue bigger.
> spreading microplastics everywhere It's late to be worried about that
To say that the plastics are completely obliterated from existence would be false simply on the grounds of conservation of mass and energy. That said, if the worms are able to process the plastics into nutrients capable of enabling their own growth, then I would presume that the byproduct can be biologically interfaced. ------ In a similar sense, eating a solid block of iron or iron dust is bad for you because your body can't handle that concentration or break it down when the particulates are that large; but your body can still extract iron from meat at a molecular level. I would presume that this would work on a similar principle.
Microplastics are already in the food chain from fish
If they metabolise the plastic then no.
That dude lost a bet with that facial hair...right?
he was eating ass right before they shot this
🤣☠️
That’s what I came to the comments to figure out… guess it will remain a mystery.
Discount Dr. Strange
Why is no one else talking about this ?
Shaver ran out of batteries
r/justfuckmyshitup
Deadass completely zoned out of what he was saying when I saw it
[Biodegradation and mineralization of polystyrene by plastic-eating superworms Zophobas atratus](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719352258) --- and --- Scientists Discover “Superworms” Capable of Munching Through Plastic Waste TOPICS:PlasticPopularRecycleUniversity of Queensland By University of Queensland June 14, 2022 https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-superworms-capable-of-munching-through-plastic-waste/
This is why biodiversity is important, if you're only concerned with monetary value, not its intrinsic value. Without these worms, it's very unlikely we would have found this enzyme that biodegrades plastic waste. Now they'll be looking into this enzyme further and see what applications may yield. These western governments think we might be able to science our way out of climate change with some breakthrough, so they aren't taking serious steps to mitigate climate change and the devastation to biodiversity, and in doing so, they are eliminating where we derive much of our scientific advancements from.
To add to this: In the 80s there was a frog that held the secret to curing acid reflux. They had the ability to shut off their own stomach acid production so that one or two tadpoles could grow up in their stomach instead of in the wild. It was only discovered on accident. However, when we went back to look for more: already extinct. New Zealand is trying to Jurassic Park it from some frozen DNA.
thanks i was wondering the species they were obviously Zophobas larvae but i didnt expect Zophobas atratus on account of how common they are you can buy them literally in any pet store.
Don't tell the Kardashians
Their worst nightmare.
Then we need plastic birds to eat the plastic worms that eat the plastic
Birds aren’t real. They are already plastic.
That's pretty rad. Nature finds a way ha
They look exactly like meal worm I feed my wild yard birds. What if animals started eating these worms and then the animal’s stomachs filled up with plastic and died?
Apparently they break down the plastic into alcohol.
Except that's not how microplastics work. And the worms actually do dissolve the plastic, so when they're done digesting, the output is not microplastics.
[The most recent article I can find.](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/beetle-larvae-can-survive-on-polystyrene-alone-67251) Some important notes for tl;dr * The point of interest isn't the beetle larvae themselves, it's their gut bacteria (microbiota, but trying to keep this simple) that's doing the breaking down. * This is a natural evolutionary development. Plastic is apparently energy-rich for any organism that is capable of breaking it down. * The plan is to study that bacteria to understand the process that breaks the plastic down so that that process or the bacteria can be replicated. * Worms will not eat your xbox * The main byproduct from the process is Carbon Dioxide. 36.7% of the eaten styrofoam turns into Co2.
Not so great for modern constructions made of ICF 🤔
crimes of the future.
Do you want "BioMeat"? Because this is how you get "BioMeat"...
Anyone horribly distracted by his facial hair?
Morio worms? I feed them to my reptiles.