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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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&...