Luckily it was under warranty.
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To the tune of about ten million bucks IIRC, and the hero survived to collect! I can’t even get Sony to replace my headphones.
+1
Also recommend Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation, which though meant to be serious futurism, is more science fiction for the foreseeable future.
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I read Eon and loved his writing style so i’m looking forward to Blood Music. I’ll give Slant a look too thanks 
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Eon is far and away my favorite Bear novel. For those interested in biology, Darwin’s Radio is also quite good, though it’s a bit denser on exposition.
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Thinking back i also read Forge of God. Again fantastic writing and that story still haunts me today.
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I can’t find the original journal article on PNAS (and it’s not listed in Web of Science, either), which is odd. But this new improved mutant PETase is a version of the bateria’s original PETase which is structurally and mechanistically similar to cutinase, which hydrolyzes ester bonds.
So it does this.
Polyethylene terephthalate is the polymer you form when ethylene glycol is condenses with terephthalic acid, stringing them together in a long chain that alternates the two building blocks over and over:
n HOCH2CH2OH + n HO2CC6H4CO2H ==> -[-CH2CH2O2CC6H4CO2-]- + n H2O
This enzyme just adds the water back and cleaves the new C-O bonds in the polymer, reversing the reaction and regenerating the original molecules again.
-[-CH2CH2O2CC6H4CO2-]- + n H2O ==> n HOCH2CH2OH + n HO2CC6H4CO2H.
So that would actually let us perform true molecular-scale recycling of this plastic: unzip the polymer, recover the molecules we used to make the polymer in the first place, and use them to make something else.
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Everything eats organic molecules.
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I tore through FOG and then started Anvil of Stars, got about 50 pages in, and then set it aside for ten years. When I finally gave it another go, I discovered the second half was way better than the first, which was a serious slog. I can’t find it now, but Charlie Stross had something to say about AOS once that it was a groundbreaking Fermi paradox novel, but bogged down by the first half. Actually, FOG is a slow takeoff too, but at least Bear’s obligatory character building first half is well written in that one.
Kind of envious of anyone discovering one fo the “Killer Bees” (Bear, Brin and Benford) for the first time.
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Such as?
PET is a polyester. There’s no sensible degradation path that doesn’t just regenerate the diol and diacid, and that’s exactly what this enzyme does. Ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid are not especially toxic, they are both demonstrably less harmful that an ocean full of microplastic beads, and true molecular-level recycling such as this allows us to reuse the molecules used to make these plastics over and over and over, instead of using oil to make new molecules to make a plastic we just throw away.
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Nope. BPA is used as a plasticizer in polycarbonate plastics, but it’s not in PET. No reason to add it: the thermal and processing properties of PET mean an added plasticizer isn’t needed.
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My mistake. Thank you for the correction. Noted in my first comment.
Moreover, my understanding is that plastics have been shown to break down in the environment faster than and with less heat than expected, increasing ocean acidity and disrupting the pH balance. So if it’s going to happen anyway, controlled recycling pathways seem like a must.
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Looking at the summaries of the original episodes, half of them could be remade today.
Perhaps Amazon could spend a few million on a new series.
And yes, I remember the rats - I was too young to see it when it was first broadcast, so it must have been on video. Terrifying stuff - but then television of the 1970s were like that - when we didn’t have blackouts.
I’m curious about AoS but i found FoG so bleak that i’m not sure i want to revisit that world.
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Well, it answers some questions. I wouldn’t call the answers cheerful, but there’s a glimmer of hope in them.
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Yeah that’s what makes me curious. Although will it be hard for me to follow AoT after a gap of 5+ years?
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No, AOS stands on its own. I had to start the sequel over after ten years. It gives all the backstory you really need even if you never read FOG, though the premise sounds more absurd if you’ve never read FOG.
We should probably let the thread get back on topic. Gotta get back to work anyway. Cheers.
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Well you obviously know more about this than me. What exactly would the resultant residues be?
In your opinion is this a viable option that won’t lead to unintended consequences a la the snake/mongoose kerfuffle?
Title should say:
“Scientists accidentally engineer enzyme to eat plastic”
They probably didn’t teach it what is waste and what is not.
Yeah…the really ugly ones…
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Yes, and look how that’s turning out.
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