Come back Mutant 59, all is forgiven

[Anonymouse]

To explain:

Some of you may remember Doomwatch. Leaving aside the frequently dodgy acting and dialogue, one episode dealt with a mutant virus which could eat plastic...you can imagine the chaos that would ensue in today's society.

In fact the show's creators turned it into a novel, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater, in which an obscure scientist sets out to create a plastic-eating bacterium, succeeds, and has a fatal stroke - which results in the bacteria escaping down a plughole as he drops a test tube into the sink. Initially the bacteria can't find the plastic-like material Dr. Anslie created as a growth medium, and so they mostly starve and die out. But some of them form spores.

Two years later a biodegradable plastic, Degron, is invented, and Degron-containing water splashes over the spores. Unfortunately Degron just happens to be exactly what Mutant 59 needs...and it begins spreading. Worse, it learns how to eat other kinds of plastic...

So far, just plausible science fiction. However, in 2016 this happened. In other words, it happened naturally. I suppose it was inevitable in the end, but if scientists are actually going to use these bacteria, can they control them? If so, how?

I've been worrying about this possibility ever since I read the novel. Science fact catching up with science fiction again...

You have reminded me about this scare scenario from 2003..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...-grey-goo.html

Fears by the Prince of Wales that armies of microscopic robots could turn the face of the planet into an uninhabitable wasteland have prompted the nation's top scientists and engineers to launch an inquiry.

Add to that the GM foods worry, gene mapping leading to gene manipulation concerns I think matters have gone beyond us having any controls.

[Taf]

Don't forget there are already bacteria (including Alcanivorax) that eat crude oil. I haven't heard of any oil wells being totally digested though.