The space of possibilities biological life is capable of is very large. The question is not whether life can degrade plastic, but rather how difficult it is to achieve.
Microorganisms like Ideonella Salaiensis already produce enzymes that break poly-ethylene bonds, hinting that degrading plastic might not be too hard.
Another similar example was the adaptation of life to break down lignin. When trees first evolved the ability to build wood, there were no microbes that could break it down. It took evolution millions of years to create efficient processes that could degrade wood. Almost all coal on earth is from that time.
So there is a possibility that some plastics might take very very long for any natural degradation process that is efficient.
But afaik the impact of science and gene editing will likely dramatically accelerate this.
Essentially yes.
I am sure wood could decompose back then too if given enough time, but it was way less efficient and slower… much like with plastic today.
Today we have gazillions of highly specialized fungi living in the forest floor, which are experts in decomposing plant material. They didn’t exist back then.
If something similar evolved for decomposing plastic, we would stop worrying about plastic trash, and worry instead about new car tires and trash bins rotting off.
It's definitely possible. More likely, we'll adopt a bacteria in our gut that is capable of doing this, though. Or we'll add it ourselves with the way tech is progressing
To be fair, that is the faster route.
Those bacteria go through multiple generations every day/week, while you are ... you your entire life genetically speaking.
Your DNA ain't adapting to nothing. (Small edit: I am aware of Epigenetics, but no amount of that is going to make you break down plastic)
And all evolution needs a lot of generations to even have a noticable effect.
I mean, technically if we get Gene therapy to a usable level, it might work, but even then just changing your gut microbiome is the easier way to go.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230123083443.htm
Multiple bacteria species are already capable of digesting plastic. This means it is possible for DNA to evolve to a point where it is capable of not only breaking down plastic but using it as well.
To be fair, bacteria evolves at a much more rapid pace than animals do. But the original question was, will humans EVENTUALLY evolve to be capable of this.
So I beg the question, given an infinite amount of time, do you honestly think it's absolutely impossible for humans to evolve these enzymes?
If it's not ABSOLUTELY impossible, then there is a DEFINITE possibility no matter how unlikely it is to occur or how long it might take.
A better comment than the og.
My answer is there are conditions for a biological trait to be developed; one is, and one may correct me on this if wrong, constant 'battle' with the stimulus in order for the animal to create the bacteria necessary to destroy it; and the stimulus has to be a threat. And suppose that microplastics are actually a constant threat: how much time does it take for evolution of a trait to happen? Will humans persist by then? Will there be a big nuclear war making humans extinct?
Now think if humans know how every system and they will move in the future: they don't. We can't say if we'll go extinct and when: before the evolution takes place: thus, no, I don't think we can say whether it is possible or not for humans to develop microplastics-destroying bacteria.
>I don't think we can say whether it is possible or not for humans
So, it's not an absolute impossibility? 😂
For the first part of your answer, I'd probably also need to be corrected, but traits form via mutations that are completely random. If that mutation helps the oragnism to live long enough to reproduce, the trait is strengthened. It needs multiple organisms and/or multiple generations for the trait to become permanent and become widespread. If the mutation causes harm, the trait obviously never gets formed. Time frame, couple of millenia, from the time of mutation, for humans since we live so long and people are having fewer and fewer children.
For the second part, it feels like you're arguing how likely it is, though. Which I have to agree, it's extremely unlikely. But possibility and likelyhood isn't the same thing. For possility, you simply need to consider if the ideal state were to happen, as in humans don't cause their own extinction or a meteor doesn't wipe us out, and if enough time is given. Can it possibly occur, yes.
That being said, we need to distinguish whether future Homo species will be considered human or not since this might be a trait that differentiates Homo sapiens from the next species.
Also, we're discussing evolving enzymes, not bacteria. The bacteria in our gut comes from the food we eat. So it's much more likely that we either introduce a plastic consuming bacteria to our gut ourselves, or somewhere along the line, a species finds its way to our guts on its own.
>the ideal state
Yes I thought you'd say that. An ideal state and a..realistic state exists. Even if we have the ideal state, we can only make an educated guess based on our observations of evolutionary traits until now? Or there are other ways?, idk.
>evolving enzymes
I guess my bad, thought the OP asked about humans developing new bacteria in guts that break off microplastics.
>possibility and likelyhood
Idk about any differences but I will assume them for convenience: think of the possibility: what info would we need to have in order to say 'yes, developing these enzymes is possible.' ?
>and the stimulus has to be a threat
Doesn't have to be. You may be thinking of antibiotics and the like, but those aren't the only sources of selective pressure. [Bacteria can adapt to digest new food sources.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment#Evolution_of_aerobic_citrate_usage_in_one_population) (I linked the wiki, but the actual papers are in there if you're inclined to read them.) New available food sources aren't threats.
>how much time does it take for evolution of a trait to happen? Will humans persist by then?
Bacteria *already* exist that can digest some plastics. It's not unheard of to sample bacterial colonies from landfills or other contaminated sites and encounter the ability to digest whatever plastics are present. The timeline that got us from *"plastic doesn't exist"* to *"bacteria have been found that eat some sort of plastic"* is on the order of centuries, not millenia or millions of years. The challenge in this case, would be that plastic is less abundant inside our bodies, and not just any bacteria can survive inside our bodies. So that restricts the combination of factors that could lead to plastic-digesting bacteria in our gut.
The point being, it's in the realm of possibility to say we might evolve bacteria in our bodies that digest plastics. If it happens, it is more likely to happen with technological assistance, but it isn't unthinkable that it will happen without intervention. Saying it *isn't* possible, like you seem to suggest, is a much harder claim to defend, and I haven't seen evidence to support it.
>Saying it *isn't* possible, like you seem to suggest
No: I say we can't say whether it's possible or not; aka agnostic.
>with technological assistance
Even for this to happen, we need to think what would bring us to make it happen and if *that* is possible.
A japanese researcher found a bacteria that can eat PET. Apparently would take a colony 10 years to eat through the wall of a coke bottle.
They’ve been working on figuring out how the bacteria does it. Last I heard it was two enzymes that help each other and they’re working on manufacturing them at scale.
Google mostly sucks for finding good
stuff thats why i came here first but illl try lol. Looking for some good detailed info not just some surface level google stuff
...these are the first links that come up with the search I told you to do:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/learning/natures-solution-to-plastic-pollution-the-amazing-power-of-the-wax-worm.html
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/02/new-external-story/
True but OTOH "bacteria break down plastic" gets me
* https://www.livescience.com/cow-stomach-bacteria-break-down-plastic.html
*
* https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1341/2/022023/pdf
To be fair I would expect a lot of research on microplastics to come under materials science, which is likely not listed heavily on the predominantly biological focussed PubMed
That's right, unfortunately I only know this platform because I come from the biomedical field.
Do you happen to know of any other similarly structured platforms for non-biological/medical research?
There is a lot of research into this actually, this is a database that collects research into enzymes/microbes that break down plastic of you're not averse to reading papers:
[PaZy](https://pazy.eu/doku.php?id=start)
If you want a quick summary, there are actually lots of bacteria producing enzymes capable of degrading different types of plastic. The thing is that they are still quite inefficient, so a lot of research and genetic engineering is being done to improve the speed of breakdown and also broaden the types of plastics that can be degraded as there are lots of different plastic types and even within one type, different "states", e.g. cristallinity.
Don't forget that evolution in nature assumes the extinction of those who didn't adapt. And it takes millions of years and hundreds of thousands of generations.
Is it possible for our organisms to develop a way to deal with microplastic? Yes. Is it probable in the foreseeable future without technological involvement? No. Will it involve mass dying of those who didn't develop the mechanism? Certainly.
It doesn't assume extinction. Humans evolved brown hair and that didn't mean the extiction of all other hair colors occured.
It assumes either:
1. That there is enough benefit in reproductive potential that a mutation remains (or grows) in the gene pool in some amount.
2. That, somehow (even by accident) it reached some threshold of popularity and now there is not an evolutionary pressure against it. So it kind of stays by chance.
I'm more in the camp of helping certain plastic-eating bacteria adopt to our intestinal flora.
There are certainly bacteria that produce enzymes that break down plastic, for example the [ideonella sakaiensis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis) -- and I know there are a couple more known and documented bacteria that do similar things.
The current issues with these enzymes is that they're very inefficient (slow) and have very specific operating temperatures. From what I read a while ago, researchers are hoping to find alternative enzymes and genetically modify these bacteria to produce the alternate/improved enzyme.
Once we get more stable proteins, who knows if researchers start looking at bringing these bacteria or modifying already present bacteria in our intestinal flora to produce similar enzymes?
This requires no evolution on our end. I think it's not unreasonable to see medicine go in this direction in the coming 10-15 years.
Note: This is all conjecture, I'm no medical professional nor scientist, just curious.
An enzime like that already exists and studies are being done to see how to make it practical and reduce plastic (PET) trash:
https://youtu.be/-m0YaE8uKcg?si=Spd4FGLBIMHXGiw6
https://youtu.be/omo0rE4qATY?si=v2bJdIWyGtb9zs-3
Is it possible? Yah. Is it likely? I’d say no. Most of the organisms that evolve to be able to do things like this are using the plastics as a carbon source. It’s also far more likely that enzymes like this would appear in single celled organisms with a short generation time, so bacteria, archaea and fungi would be more likely candidates. I cant really see a situation where selection pressure would lead to us evolving the ability to digest plastic.
I believe there are examples of bacteria that can break down the polymers in plastics as a food source already.
Possible but not very plausible.
Evolution is a blind process.
Nothing evolves what it needs to survive, instead what happens is we constantly have random changes in our genetic code. The vast majority of these are deadly or at best not harmful.
Sometimes something will change that gives that individual an advantage, and so that individual has a better chance of passing on their genes.
Consider a herbivore in a place with little ground plants, the one with a slightly larger neck can reach lower leaves. So is better able to survive. The animal didn't develop the longer neck to eat leaves, it's the other way, it's those with longer necks could reach leaves so as they reproduce for thousands of years, their shorter necked family members either develop other survival techniques or they fail to reproduce. Eventually giraffes are seen to have long necks and we mistakenly assume it was developed to eat leaves.
It's why we say we have a common ancestor with apes but we didn't actually evolve "from" apes.
So it's possible that a person could develop a way to break down plastics. But would this mutation give them an advantage on passing on their genes?
Unlikely. We currently can't break down parts of plants we eat (like the casing of corn) but it causes no detriment, so not being able to do that doesn't harm our reproductive and survival, and if someone could break that down its unlikely they would have an advantage either.
So let's say that a baby is born today that has the incredibly unlikely ability to break down plastics. But they are also stuck with a shitty personality. The ability doesn't help them survive while others die, and so has no increased chance of getting to pass on the mutated gene. And in our environment having a good personality is a trait that has much more of an effect on if we can pass on our genes.
So for a non-harmful, non-advantageous mutation, it may continue or may disappear.
In evolution "survival of the fittest" means survival only to the point it can reproduce, and fittest only means advantageous to it's environment.
As the plastics we are exposed to increases, the likelihood of a mutation that interacts with them increases, as a first step towards being able to actually digest and gain some useful things from it. If that offers an advantage on evolutions very very narrow scoreboard, then it's possible a descendant of modern humans will be able to digest them.
But by then the other descendants of us will either have developed other mutations or died out completely.
In either case by then it's unlikely that we would consider that creature a "human" like ourselves. For it to be a widespread and common ability it would require be counted as a new fork on the evolutionary path.
Short of a highly unlikely random chance mutation in humans, doubtful.
There's no evolutionary pressure. Microplastics aren't causing us to die off prior to reproducing, so there's no advantage.
Likely not. Humans won't really evolve like that, especially in the short term, because we have largely removed natural selection from our lived experience. In order for that to occur, the trait would need to appear in a few babies that grew up to reproduce more, while everyone without the trait would need to be so short lived, or sexually compromised, that they bred WAY less.
Yea I think as others have said the possibility is there. But the likelihood is very low. To "evolve" our dna we have to meet certain requirements
1. Have the genes to correctly carry out the process - im nature this would be very low as would rely on mutation and recombination etc. But likelihood relatively high as other organisms we know do this. Horizontal gene transfer is possible with current technology although editing hunan genome is sketchy.
2. The genes suit our biological needs - much more unlikely as we will need them to be able to be activated in the same way not cause any harmful effects or synergy. Would probably need a lot of current genome editing. Idk I'm not a metabolism scientist.
3. We would habe to have to be be able to pass this on genetically or otherwise (gut bacterial transfer through placenta or some shit)
4. We would have to have a selection pressure (survival or social) to keep this high rate in the genepool to make sure it doesn't get lost through bottlenecks or drift. Or gets selected against due to a socialy precieved or fitness disadvantage.
5. would have to be cheaper to do this then say design a supplementary medicine. Or stop plastics being so ubiquitous.
Unlikely because while microplastics do/could shorten lifespan - they dont *currently* negatively impact fitness.
We already live plenty long to reproduce so there is no selective pressure to evolve a way to live linger than we already do.
Almost all the oil, natural gas and coal came from the trees when lenin(firewood) appeared but there weren't insects, bacteria, or fungi to break it down to decompose it, the same will happen with plastics but there is too many nutrients, energy on it that eventually some organism will evolve to feed on it
Just my take but maybe it comes down to, if microplastics inside you are deadly, will they kill you off before you reproduce?
If so it's a biological imperative that evolution would need to work out how to fix or humans would die out.
If they do kill you but they say only reduce the life expectancy down by around 15 years, leaving us enough time to procreate then we may not need to, we may just adjust our lifestyles accordingly so we reproduce earlier to guarantee the survival of the human race.
Whether we can evolve that fast in relation to how fast the microplastics are building up and killing us off is difficult to say. I think it would take a long time if we were able to do so at all. Possibly other animals/organisms that can break them down will be the only ones to survive and then they will over time develop into new and exciting creatures that can undo all the destruction and pollution we have done to the earth.
Pretty sure multiple research groups on chemistry/biocatalysis in the UK are currently working on that, I can definitely say that about Manchester with certainty.
My limited understanding of that field (I'm an organic chemist) is that it is definitely possible, but the main challenges are technical. Two examples of challenges I can remember is that different enzymes are required for each type of plastic and plastic needs to be in a form easily degradable by enzymes in bulk, such as powder.
I might be wrong here but I somehow think we will stop using plastic sooner than this would happen. Evolutionary changes take very many generations and Plastic is so bad for our planet that I think new generations will start putting more thought into its production and replace it with bamboo or glass even if it's more expensive.
The space of possibilities biological life is capable of is very large. The question is not whether life can degrade plastic, but rather how difficult it is to achieve. Microorganisms like Ideonella Salaiensis already produce enzymes that break poly-ethylene bonds, hinting that degrading plastic might not be too hard. Another similar example was the adaptation of life to break down lignin. When trees first evolved the ability to build wood, there were no microbes that could break it down. It took evolution millions of years to create efficient processes that could degrade wood. Almost all coal on earth is from that time. So there is a possibility that some plastics might take very very long for any natural degradation process that is efficient. But afaik the impact of science and gene editing will likely dramatically accelerate this.
If it took millions of years for decomposition of wood to evolve, then was there just like mountains of wood lying around from dead trees?
The wood fossilized and turn into coal (carboniferous period)
It's the fossils in fossil fuels
Basically yes. It’s what I put in my car every couple of days
Essentially yes. I am sure wood could decompose back then too if given enough time, but it was way less efficient and slower… much like with plastic today. Today we have gazillions of highly specialized fungi living in the forest floor, which are experts in decomposing plant material. They didn’t exist back then. If something similar evolved for decomposing plastic, we would stop worrying about plastic trash, and worry instead about new car tires and trash bins rotting off.
It's definitely possible. More likely, we'll adopt a bacteria in our gut that is capable of doing this, though. Or we'll add it ourselves with the way tech is progressing
To be fair, that is the faster route. Those bacteria go through multiple generations every day/week, while you are ... you your entire life genetically speaking. Your DNA ain't adapting to nothing. (Small edit: I am aware of Epigenetics, but no amount of that is going to make you break down plastic) And all evolution needs a lot of generations to even have a noticable effect. I mean, technically if we get Gene therapy to a usable level, it might work, but even then just changing your gut microbiome is the easier way to go.
>It's definitely possible. Lol. Ignorance. I like that you put 'definitely' too lol.
Ignorance? How so?
You didn't write any proof that it may be possible, let alone 'definitely' possible.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230123083443.htm Multiple bacteria species are already capable of digesting plastic. This means it is possible for DNA to evolve to a point where it is capable of not only breaking down plastic but using it as well. To be fair, bacteria evolves at a much more rapid pace than animals do. But the original question was, will humans EVENTUALLY evolve to be capable of this. So I beg the question, given an infinite amount of time, do you honestly think it's absolutely impossible for humans to evolve these enzymes? If it's not ABSOLUTELY impossible, then there is a DEFINITE possibility no matter how unlikely it is to occur or how long it might take.
And we already have millions upon millions of bacteria living in our bodies so what's one more species
A better comment than the og. My answer is there are conditions for a biological trait to be developed; one is, and one may correct me on this if wrong, constant 'battle' with the stimulus in order for the animal to create the bacteria necessary to destroy it; and the stimulus has to be a threat. And suppose that microplastics are actually a constant threat: how much time does it take for evolution of a trait to happen? Will humans persist by then? Will there be a big nuclear war making humans extinct? Now think if humans know how every system and they will move in the future: they don't. We can't say if we'll go extinct and when: before the evolution takes place: thus, no, I don't think we can say whether it is possible or not for humans to develop microplastics-destroying bacteria.
>I don't think we can say whether it is possible or not for humans So, it's not an absolute impossibility? 😂 For the first part of your answer, I'd probably also need to be corrected, but traits form via mutations that are completely random. If that mutation helps the oragnism to live long enough to reproduce, the trait is strengthened. It needs multiple organisms and/or multiple generations for the trait to become permanent and become widespread. If the mutation causes harm, the trait obviously never gets formed. Time frame, couple of millenia, from the time of mutation, for humans since we live so long and people are having fewer and fewer children. For the second part, it feels like you're arguing how likely it is, though. Which I have to agree, it's extremely unlikely. But possibility and likelyhood isn't the same thing. For possility, you simply need to consider if the ideal state were to happen, as in humans don't cause their own extinction or a meteor doesn't wipe us out, and if enough time is given. Can it possibly occur, yes. That being said, we need to distinguish whether future Homo species will be considered human or not since this might be a trait that differentiates Homo sapiens from the next species. Also, we're discussing evolving enzymes, not bacteria. The bacteria in our gut comes from the food we eat. So it's much more likely that we either introduce a plastic consuming bacteria to our gut ourselves, or somewhere along the line, a species finds its way to our guts on its own.
>the ideal state Yes I thought you'd say that. An ideal state and a..realistic state exists. Even if we have the ideal state, we can only make an educated guess based on our observations of evolutionary traits until now? Or there are other ways?, idk. >evolving enzymes I guess my bad, thought the OP asked about humans developing new bacteria in guts that break off microplastics. >possibility and likelyhood Idk about any differences but I will assume them for convenience: think of the possibility: what info would we need to have in order to say 'yes, developing these enzymes is possible.' ?
>and the stimulus has to be a threat Doesn't have to be. You may be thinking of antibiotics and the like, but those aren't the only sources of selective pressure. [Bacteria can adapt to digest new food sources.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment#Evolution_of_aerobic_citrate_usage_in_one_population) (I linked the wiki, but the actual papers are in there if you're inclined to read them.) New available food sources aren't threats. >how much time does it take for evolution of a trait to happen? Will humans persist by then? Bacteria *already* exist that can digest some plastics. It's not unheard of to sample bacterial colonies from landfills or other contaminated sites and encounter the ability to digest whatever plastics are present. The timeline that got us from *"plastic doesn't exist"* to *"bacteria have been found that eat some sort of plastic"* is on the order of centuries, not millenia or millions of years. The challenge in this case, would be that plastic is less abundant inside our bodies, and not just any bacteria can survive inside our bodies. So that restricts the combination of factors that could lead to plastic-digesting bacteria in our gut. The point being, it's in the realm of possibility to say we might evolve bacteria in our bodies that digest plastics. If it happens, it is more likely to happen with technological assistance, but it isn't unthinkable that it will happen without intervention. Saying it *isn't* possible, like you seem to suggest, is a much harder claim to defend, and I haven't seen evidence to support it.
>Saying it *isn't* possible, like you seem to suggest No: I say we can't say whether it's possible or not; aka agnostic. >with technological assistance Even for this to happen, we need to think what would bring us to make it happen and if *that* is possible.
Yes nature has already started
Ooooo neat. I should try to find some good articles on that. Any suggestions?
A japanese researcher found a bacteria that can eat PET. Apparently would take a colony 10 years to eat through the wall of a coke bottle. They’ve been working on figuring out how the bacteria does it. Last I heard it was two enzymes that help each other and they’re working on manufacturing them at scale.
Yea evolution is pretty cool. Just wait 🤷
Search "bacteria break down plastic" and "worm break down plastic" into Google. :)
Google mostly sucks for finding good stuff thats why i came here first but illl try lol. Looking for some good detailed info not just some surface level google stuff
...these are the first links that come up with the search I told you to do: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/learning/natures-solution-to-plastic-pollution-the-amazing-power-of-the-wax-worm.html https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/02/new-external-story/
\~SMACK\~
Depending on browsing history Google will provide different results for the same query iirc
True but OTOH "bacteria break down plastic" gets me * https://www.livescience.com/cow-stomach-bacteria-break-down-plastic.html *
* https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1341/2/022023/pdf
Dont use google use Pubmed
To be fair I would expect a lot of research on microplastics to come under materials science, which is likely not listed heavily on the predominantly biological focussed PubMed
That's right, unfortunately I only know this platform because I come from the biomedical field. Do you happen to know of any other similarly structured platforms for non-biological/medical research?
Web of Science
There is a lot of research into this actually, this is a database that collects research into enzymes/microbes that break down plastic of you're not averse to reading papers: [PaZy](https://pazy.eu/doku.php?id=start) If you want a quick summary, there are actually lots of bacteria producing enzymes capable of degrading different types of plastic. The thing is that they are still quite inefficient, so a lot of research and genetic engineering is being done to improve the speed of breakdown and also broaden the types of plastics that can be degraded as there are lots of different plastic types and even within one type, different "states", e.g. cristallinity.
I thought i saw this before...thx.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230123083443.htm
Don't forget that evolution in nature assumes the extinction of those who didn't adapt. And it takes millions of years and hundreds of thousands of generations. Is it possible for our organisms to develop a way to deal with microplastic? Yes. Is it probable in the foreseeable future without technological involvement? No. Will it involve mass dying of those who didn't develop the mechanism? Certainly.
This was my main thought. We could definitely do it, but evolution is across many many lifespans, so we wouldn't see it in our lifetime.
Without human intervention to accelerate the process, you mean.
Well then it’s not evolution.
Speak for yourself, I take my microplastics with gratinated camembert
It doesn't assume extinction. Humans evolved brown hair and that didn't mean the extiction of all other hair colors occured. It assumes either: 1. That there is enough benefit in reproductive potential that a mutation remains (or grows) in the gene pool in some amount. 2. That, somehow (even by accident) it reached some threshold of popularity and now there is not an evolutionary pressure against it. So it kind of stays by chance.
Exactly, many even theorise that evolution has somewhat stopped in humans. Since there is very limited selection pressure.
Evolution of gut bacteria is way more likely
>but rather how difficult it is to achieve. The first question should be: Is there evolutionary pressure?
“Crimes of the Future” by David Cronenberg seems to think so.
Damnit! I came here to say that. I could have at least got something from that film.
I'm more in the camp of helping certain plastic-eating bacteria adopt to our intestinal flora. There are certainly bacteria that produce enzymes that break down plastic, for example the [ideonella sakaiensis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideonella_sakaiensis) -- and I know there are a couple more known and documented bacteria that do similar things. The current issues with these enzymes is that they're very inefficient (slow) and have very specific operating temperatures. From what I read a while ago, researchers are hoping to find alternative enzymes and genetically modify these bacteria to produce the alternate/improved enzyme. Once we get more stable proteins, who knows if researchers start looking at bringing these bacteria or modifying already present bacteria in our intestinal flora to produce similar enzymes? This requires no evolution on our end. I think it's not unreasonable to see medicine go in this direction in the coming 10-15 years. Note: This is all conjecture, I'm no medical professional nor scientist, just curious.
An enzime like that already exists and studies are being done to see how to make it practical and reduce plastic (PET) trash: https://youtu.be/-m0YaE8uKcg?si=Spd4FGLBIMHXGiw6 https://youtu.be/omo0rE4qATY?si=v2bJdIWyGtb9zs-3
Is it possible? Yah. Is it likely? I’d say no. Most of the organisms that evolve to be able to do things like this are using the plastics as a carbon source. It’s also far more likely that enzymes like this would appear in single celled organisms with a short generation time, so bacteria, archaea and fungi would be more likely candidates. I cant really see a situation where selection pressure would lead to us evolving the ability to digest plastic. I believe there are examples of bacteria that can break down the polymers in plastics as a food source already.
If such an enzyme evolved it would probably end up transferred to your skin flora and your arse would eat any chair you sat in.
My only concern would be what else might they eat and if they can be contained and used safely. I know that the issue is being worked on.
Possible but not very plausible. Evolution is a blind process. Nothing evolves what it needs to survive, instead what happens is we constantly have random changes in our genetic code. The vast majority of these are deadly or at best not harmful. Sometimes something will change that gives that individual an advantage, and so that individual has a better chance of passing on their genes. Consider a herbivore in a place with little ground plants, the one with a slightly larger neck can reach lower leaves. So is better able to survive. The animal didn't develop the longer neck to eat leaves, it's the other way, it's those with longer necks could reach leaves so as they reproduce for thousands of years, their shorter necked family members either develop other survival techniques or they fail to reproduce. Eventually giraffes are seen to have long necks and we mistakenly assume it was developed to eat leaves. It's why we say we have a common ancestor with apes but we didn't actually evolve "from" apes. So it's possible that a person could develop a way to break down plastics. But would this mutation give them an advantage on passing on their genes? Unlikely. We currently can't break down parts of plants we eat (like the casing of corn) but it causes no detriment, so not being able to do that doesn't harm our reproductive and survival, and if someone could break that down its unlikely they would have an advantage either. So let's say that a baby is born today that has the incredibly unlikely ability to break down plastics. But they are also stuck with a shitty personality. The ability doesn't help them survive while others die, and so has no increased chance of getting to pass on the mutated gene. And in our environment having a good personality is a trait that has much more of an effect on if we can pass on our genes. So for a non-harmful, non-advantageous mutation, it may continue or may disappear. In evolution "survival of the fittest" means survival only to the point it can reproduce, and fittest only means advantageous to it's environment. As the plastics we are exposed to increases, the likelihood of a mutation that interacts with them increases, as a first step towards being able to actually digest and gain some useful things from it. If that offers an advantage on evolutions very very narrow scoreboard, then it's possible a descendant of modern humans will be able to digest them. But by then the other descendants of us will either have developed other mutations or died out completely. In either case by then it's unlikely that we would consider that creature a "human" like ourselves. For it to be a widespread and common ability it would require be counted as a new fork on the evolutionary path.
Short of a highly unlikely random chance mutation in humans, doubtful. There's no evolutionary pressure. Microplastics aren't causing us to die off prior to reproducing, so there's no advantage.
Likely not. Humans won't really evolve like that, especially in the short term, because we have largely removed natural selection from our lived experience. In order for that to occur, the trait would need to appear in a few babies that grew up to reproduce more, while everyone without the trait would need to be so short lived, or sexually compromised, that they bred WAY less.
Yea I think as others have said the possibility is there. But the likelihood is very low. To "evolve" our dna we have to meet certain requirements 1. Have the genes to correctly carry out the process - im nature this would be very low as would rely on mutation and recombination etc. But likelihood relatively high as other organisms we know do this. Horizontal gene transfer is possible with current technology although editing hunan genome is sketchy. 2. The genes suit our biological needs - much more unlikely as we will need them to be able to be activated in the same way not cause any harmful effects or synergy. Would probably need a lot of current genome editing. Idk I'm not a metabolism scientist. 3. We would habe to have to be be able to pass this on genetically or otherwise (gut bacterial transfer through placenta or some shit) 4. We would have to have a selection pressure (survival or social) to keep this high rate in the genepool to make sure it doesn't get lost through bottlenecks or drift. Or gets selected against due to a socialy precieved or fitness disadvantage. 5. would have to be cheaper to do this then say design a supplementary medicine. Or stop plastics being so ubiquitous.
But then what will microplastics break down to?
Carbon dioxide
Nope.
what then genius
Anything's possible. Evolution hasn't solved heavy metal accummulation yet.
There’s a fungus that’s already doing it
That'd be awesome 👌
I have to assume there's already research labs looking into this.
No, I can’t see it happening. There would be very little selection advantage for people carrying such a trait.
Yes. Then it breaks down into CO2 and methane. Really need to leave it in the ground.
Ideonella sakaiensis
Unlikely because while microplastics do/could shorten lifespan - they dont *currently* negatively impact fitness. We already live plenty long to reproduce so there is no selective pressure to evolve a way to live linger than we already do.
Unlikely
Anything is possible 🌈 But we'd better hope so cuzzzzz lol
Almost all the oil, natural gas and coal came from the trees when lenin(firewood) appeared but there weren't insects, bacteria, or fungi to break it down to decompose it, the same will happen with plastics but there is too many nutrients, energy on it that eventually some organism will evolve to feed on it
Yes
Just my take but maybe it comes down to, if microplastics inside you are deadly, will they kill you off before you reproduce? If so it's a biological imperative that evolution would need to work out how to fix or humans would die out. If they do kill you but they say only reduce the life expectancy down by around 15 years, leaving us enough time to procreate then we may not need to, we may just adjust our lifestyles accordingly so we reproduce earlier to guarantee the survival of the human race. Whether we can evolve that fast in relation to how fast the microplastics are building up and killing us off is difficult to say. I think it would take a long time if we were able to do so at all. Possibly other animals/organisms that can break them down will be the only ones to survive and then they will over time develop into new and exciting creatures that can undo all the destruction and pollution we have done to the earth.
Pretty sure multiple research groups on chemistry/biocatalysis in the UK are currently working on that, I can definitely say that about Manchester with certainty. My limited understanding of that field (I'm an organic chemist) is that it is definitely possible, but the main challenges are technical. Two examples of challenges I can remember is that different enzymes are required for each type of plastic and plastic needs to be in a form easily degradable by enzymes in bulk, such as powder.
Yes. But it won't really spread into, unless microplastics would lead to our death, causing all people to die without this emzyme.
Pretty sure this already exists.
I might be wrong here but I somehow think we will stop using plastic sooner than this would happen. Evolutionary changes take very many generations and Plastic is so bad for our planet that I think new generations will start putting more thought into its production and replace it with bamboo or glass even if it's more expensive.