
Yale Discovers a Fungus That Eats Plastic  - MRonney
http://www.pcworld.com/article/249216/yale_discovers_a_fungus_that_eats_plastic.html
======
simonsarris
As programmers we are always attuned to thinking about the edge cases and
endgames, so I wonder:

Would be possible that such a fungus proliferated into a sort of "termite for
plastic", feeding on plastic piping (in houses or cars maybe) and the like.

Of course house owners already deal with mold so I suppose this would just be
another one.

The article suggests introducing it into landfills to eat the plastic. Kudzu
was introduced to America to control soil erosion. The invasive vine now
spreads at a rate of 150,000 acres a year, so it certainly accomplished goal
A.

~~~
samstave
>The invasive vine now spreads at a rate 150,000 acres [per what]

150K acres [per year]? or per what metric.

~~~
sunsu
150,000 acres annually.

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turing
One interesting thing that this article fails to mention is that the fungus
was discovered by an undergraduate student. Jon Russell, the lead author of
the paper, graduated last spring, and he originally discovered the fungus in
Spring 2008. Yale offers a class that pays for students to spend Spring Break
in the Ecuadorian rainforest collecting samples. The class also includes a
stipend for students to continue their research projects during the summer
following the course.

~~~
gjuggler
One of my greatest regrets from undergrad days was having graduated a year too
early to enroll in this course. Scott Strobel was something of a visionary for
setting it up, and it seems to have paid off with at least one cool result --
not to mention, a handful of students who now know how it feels to find
something new.

I wish more professors would actively engage their students in "real" research
projects, i.e. beyond the usual cookie-cutter laboratory lessons or follow-a-
grad-student internships. Sure, it's more work for everyone involved, but
experiences like this are the best way to convert bright students into real
scientists, IMO.

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firemanx
This reminds me of the book Ringworld and the "Fall of Cities" - the
civilization had become dependent on a particular superconductor, and wired it
into everything. A microorganism that fed off of the superconductor came along
and spread like wildfire. The side-effect was that it essentially wiped out
the civilization because their entire energy infrastructure was built around
this stuff.

Hopefully these guys know what they are doing :)

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was thinking the same thing. Getting a colony of this stuff established in
the voids and nether regions of say a wide body jet would not be a very good
thing at all.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I imagine that jets are inspected often enough for something like this to be
caught. I imagine that a bigger problem would be an infection getting loose in
a manufacturing factory. How much of my laptop is edible?

~~~
ars
This fungus would still need water, so all they have to do is keep the jet
dry, which they do anyway.

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zellyn
I'm confused by the "exclusively subsists on polyurethane" and "scientists
recently found a fungus in the Amazonian rainforest"... TIL there's a bunch of
polyurethane in the Amazonian rainforest?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
That caught my eye, too. Rather than having evolved to eat polyurethane only,
and then waiting patiently for us to arrive with dinner, I took this to be an
awkward way of reiterating that the fungus is the only organism we know of
that can eat PU. Which does make me wonder a bit about what it normally eats -
resins?

~~~
JonnieCache
I read it as "capable of subsisting on polyurethane only" in the lab.

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gerggerg
Any one know what the by-products of the fungus' metabolism are?

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ajkessler
This seems like the most important question... Since the paper is paywalled,
and science reporting is terrible, can someone with access inform us just what
the hell the fungus turns the plastic into?

~~~
bcn
<http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/AEM.00521-11v1.pdf>

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jilebedev
There are two competing methods, as far as I see: use the bacteria themselves
to digest plastic, or use extract the enzyme responsible for plastic
dissolution and manufacture it the enzyme responsible for plastic dissolution.

1\. Bacteria:

    
    
      - Can they adapt to the climate and the ecology of their target environment? 
      - Can they adapt, in particular, to oceanic salt water to dissolve dumped plastic waste? 
      - Overpopulation: what are the consequences? Do natural predators of this bacteria exist? 
      - Underpopulation: can the bacteria be genetically modified to survive in landfills or oceans? Must they be isolated in a controlled environment with plastic?
    

2\. Manufacturing

    
    
      - If the enzyme/manufacturing process is controlled by a profit-seeking corporation, would this mean unequal pollution capabilities between the developed and developing worlds? I suspect more plastic waste is improperly disposed by developing countries - thus further exacerbating the problem. 
      - Must the bacteria manufacture the enzyme necessary, or can an enzyme be chemically manufactured? 
      - Does the enzyme have an optimal/useful operating temperature? The Amazon rainforest is not only a freshwater environment, but also a relatively warm climate. Our waste may be captured by cold ocean currents or be present in countries simply far too distant from the equator for this to be a feasible option.
    

3\. Process consequences

    
    
      -What are the products of plastic dissolution by this bacteria? 
      -If the process is performed inefficiently/incompletely due to some environmental factors (water salinity, pH, temperature), are there any harmful byproducts? 
      -If the process produces simple chemicals - do these harm other organisms in the environment surrounding the bacteria? 
      -Would the accumulation of the products (CO2 gas for example) further global warming or pollution?
    

This article leaves me yearning for more details.

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jsilence
I always thought that some day in the future we would start digging up the
dumped plastic for turning it back into oil or fuel.

There is another fungus which is capable of turning cellulose from wood into
diesel. A fungus which could digest plastic into fuel would be great.
<http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2008/2008-11-04-02.asp>

Of course this fungus should not be injected into the dump sites. Better dig
up the plastic and have it converted into fuel in a chemical plant.

~~~
fr3ak
Yeah. A lot of plastics are 100 percent recyclable. Eventually you just mine
the landfill if it is worthwhile. No? Destroying the plastic seems a waste.

Possible selection and confirmation bias as I design plastic products.

~~~
durkie
A ton of them are recyclable in their pure state, but I get the impression
that a lot of seemingly mundane plastic products these days are actually
surprisingly complicated mixes/composite materials: I know something simple
like a potato chip bag is at least a 3-layer composite structure, and you've
got inks from the label, metal from the barrier layer, polypropylene from the
film, and polyethylene from the adhesive layer.

On top of that, the polypropylene film itself is likely a multilayer structure
of different copolymers and crystallinities, and it all turns a crappy little
thing like a chip bag in to something damn hard to recycle.

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javanscala
Wasn't this already done? [http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-
innovations/blogs/boy...](http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-
innovations/blogs/boy-discovers-microbe-that-eats-plastic)

~~~
rflrob
Reading the paper (paywalled, unfortunately), it seems that the big
breakthrough was not that a microbe can degrade polyurethane (there's almost a
dozen other citations), but that this one can do it both aerobically and
anaerobically. That means that you can introduce it to a dump, and it will
work in both the deep and surface layers.

[1]<http://aem.asm.org/content/77/17/6076.abstract>

~~~
semenko
Yep --

The discovery here is an endophytic (living in a plant) fungus that can grow
anaerobically, using polyurethane as its sole carbon source.

The authors suggest fungi that digest polyurethane have been known for
decades. ("""Enzymatic degradation of PUR has been demonstrated by both fungi
(4, 5, 6, 19) and bacteria (14, 17, 23).""")

They cite one reference from 1968, which itself implies polyurethane-degrading
fungi had been known long before then:

"Fungal susceptibility of polyurethanes." Darby, R.T, and A.T. Kaplan. 1968.
Appl. Microbiol. 16:900–905. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16349806>

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samstave
I'd love to see if it could be waterborn.

It would be great to have something eating all the plastic in the oceans other
than the fish. And we really REALLY need to start doing something about the
trash gyres in the seas.

~~~
artmageddon
I'm definitely for cleaning up the gyres, but how do we know that this is
something that can be controlled? It's not just plastic that's floating
around, either. I'll note that this is a tremendous discovery and I hope we
can see it through..

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lutusp
I had hoped to craft a joke about a scientist's iPad disintegrating halfway
through his presentation, but that topic has been covered. So instead I'll
object to "Yale discovers ...". Really? Yale did it? Imagine a world in which
that's the rule -- imagine a headline in 1905 saying "Swiss patent office
discovers new theory about the universe."

~~~
robryan
Seems reasonable enough to me. It would be different if the ex student had
completed their studies at Yale and went on to research something different
independent of Yale. Here though it sounds like they were funding it and that
it was a continuation of research being done while a student.

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joshuahedlund
This could be great news for the 3D printer industry.

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mkmk
This is the full paper, as linked from reddit:
[http://view.samurajdata.se/psview.php?id=f1de9924&page=1...](http://view.samurajdata.se/psview.php?id=f1de9924&page=1&size=full)

The pageturn navigation is in the upper left hand corner.

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brador
How would they have identified this fungus for it's properties in the Amazon
rainforest? Do they just leave a piece of plastic near a tree and come back to
see if anything's growing on it?

~~~
rflrob
Scanning through the abstract[1], it seems pretty likely to me that they did
the actual screening in a lab, and it's merely that the fungus was originally
from the rainforest. In fact, one of the 21 authors on the paper is from a
Peruvian university, and he's likely the one who's group originally isolated
the fungus.

[1] <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21764951>

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sharmajai
This reminds me of a YouTube video, I saw within the last ten days here, where
a stand-up comedian talks about, how the planet does not need saving, it will
find out ways to save itself. I can't find it now though.

Scientists cannot find a way to degrade plastic does not necessarily mean
plastic is not bio-degradable.

I have found time and time again, that stand-up comedians are the ones who
make the most serious points.

EDIT: Found it - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw>

~~~
hxcloud99
Was it George Carlin, by any chance?

~~~
sharmajai
Yes indeed it was him.

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sireat
This topic was rather fully explored in a 1971 book: Mutant 59: The plastic
eaters by <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Pedler> and Gerry Davis (both
affiliated with Dr. Who)

As a kid that book seemed captivating(scenes of disintegrating airplane,
sewage exploding etc.), upon rereading it some years later the plotting and
characters seem hackneyed.

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antics
Do you know why we have oil and coal?

When all those carbon-based life forms died all those years ago, there was
nothing to break them down. So they persisted, and the result is oil and coal.

I've often wondered whether a similar thing would happen to all this plastic
lying around. I suppose it's still sort of a toss-up, but now I'm at least
sort of convinced that it's vaguely possible.

~~~
masklinn
> When all those carbon-based life forms died all those years ago, there was
> nothing to break them down.

There was nothing to break them down not because such a thing did not exist
but because they were protected from those organisms: they were buried under
anoxic conditions (complete lack of oxygen) or beneath acidic waters,
shielding the organic matter from that which would normally degrade it by
feeding on it.

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goodweeds
There was an article about something similar on Slashdot a decade ago about
CD/DVD-eating fungi.

[http://science.slashdot.org/story/01/06/18/1317218/cd-
eating...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/01/06/18/1317218/cd-eating-
fungus-among-us)

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VMG
Landfills are not the problem.

The plastic waste that _isn't_ on landfills is.

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hansy
What is the byproduct after consumption of polyurethane?

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dhruvbird
This is actually huge!! However, I wonder if uncontrolled growth would lead to
something even more terrible.

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EREFUNDO
So if life started 6,000 years ago when there were no plastic, does this mean
that this fungus was a recent creation?

~~~
EREFUNDO
Whoever voted negative on this comment does not fully understand my point. I
am pointing out how ridiculous it is to believe that all life started 6,000
years ago and all species were already made exactly as they are. The fact that
this particular fungus is surviving by eating plastic simply states that
evolution happened and is still happening. Or maybe he did fully understand
but just got offended by my mockery of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic version of
how the universe, the world, and life began.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Or maybe they understood you and thought that your hate mongering vitriol
doesn't belong here. No one brought up evolution or creationism here but you.

~~~
EREFUNDO
Hate? is telling the truth hate? Religion is an idea. Like any other idea it
should be subjected to scrutiny and criticism. Unfortunately in our culture
criticizing religion is considered wrong. I did not even criticize any
religion in particular but criticized a specific idea, an idea contradicted by
scientific evidence. Religion should not be untouchable when its teaching
contradict science. No Hate mongering or vitriol here. Implying that the
doctrine of special creation is flat wrong is not hate mongering, it is simply
telling the truth.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Except no one brought the subject up. You're blurting out your off-topic
opinion/problems/disagreements just because you felt like it.

~~~
EREFUNDO
It is not off subject. This is very strong evidence for speciation. The
discovery of such fungus has wide implications, from industrial applications
to proving the theory that life adapts and continue to evolve. It is related
because the very existence of this life form proves a scientific theory.

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jentulman
is it edible too? Two birds with one stone(effect plastic garden ornament)

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kenrik
Now that's great news! I would be interested in the environmental impact of
this fungus though. It would not be a good thing if the fungus turns out to
cause more damage than the plastic itself.

One of the most important things we learned from early 20th century
conservationist movement was that to "preserve" something the best thing you
can do is leave it alone. Every time they tried to correct something in a
ecosystem something else would break. They messed up a lot of Stuff in
yellowstone until they learned to just let it be.

~~~
DilipJ
this fungus could end up contributing to global warming, by taking the carbon
that is trapped as plastic on the ground and releasing it eventually into the
atmosphere.

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Craiggybear
Sooooo Andromeda Strain.

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drstrangevibes
the last paragraph is the most depressing part, just as weve found a
sustainable ecological solution to problem of plastic, we learn that someone
has commoditized it into a chemical solution, which no doubt has the
accompanying legal patent absurdities,few if any positive environmental
interactions and actually endangers a very special species due to corporate
anti competative behaviour. Irony anyone?

~~~
chc
What on earth are you talking about? How does isolating the enzyme hurt the
environment (more than the creature itself would) or endanger the species?

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drstrangevibes
the environment is a holistic function of living symbiotic relationships.
Isolating an enzyme and spraying it on a field is about as environmentally
friendly as covering a field in pus and saying its ok because it comes from
nature.

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eropple
As opposed to covering a field with fecal matter?

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drstrangevibes
yes because shit happens to be something that would occur naturally in that
environment, whereas isolating some of the things that are in shit and
spraying it on a field (chemical fertilizers) actually do harm in the long
run.

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renownedmedia
Andromeda Strain!

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_pius
Having Andromeda Strain flashbacks.

