The story about this kid keeps making the rounds, I guess it must be a slow news summer, no shark attacks. This is great for a teen and highschool project, but it's not quite as great as the article makes it out to be. And yes, it is old news: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
Indeed. To quote the more detailed original newspaper article linked from Wired: http://news.therecord.com/article/354044
" A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first."
It's doubtful a high school student and teacher know where to look. They should have asked someone in, only remotely related, research for a quick search to dig up these kinds of papers.
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The process he went through is so obvious that someone must have done this already [1], right? Right?
If this really is a new discovery, what would astound me is how easily everyone else must have given up.
[1] Not that it would take anything away from this guy, who did it at 16 with limited resources and probably without regard to existing research.
The story about this kid keeps making the rounds, I guess it must be a slow news summer, no shark attacks. This is great for a teen and highschool project, but it's not quite as great as the article makes it out to be. And yes, it is old news: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
The boy's achievement was decomposing polyethylene. I'm not entirely sure how Nylon-eating bacteria are relevant.
Indeed. To quote the more detailed original newspaper article linked from Wired: http://news.therecord.com/article/354044 " A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first."
They must not have looked very hard: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=23...
It's worth noting that this paper refers to polyethylene glycol, which is not the stuff plastic bags are made from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_glycol
It's doubtful a high school student and teacher know where to look. They should have asked someone in, only remotely related, research for a quick search to dig up these kinds of papers.
The above link is the top search result from a search for bacteria and polyethylene: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=bacteria+polyethylene&...
Indeed. It is called anaerobic digestion. For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion