this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
305 points (95.0% liked)

memes

22494 readers
3120 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 12 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

This kind of thing always have a long trail of "almosts" before a breakthrough makes it viable outside of the lab. Every attempt makes us closer to it.

[–] hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 3 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

I once saw a comment saying that a bacteria that consumes plastic could be apocalyptic if it got out of the lab and spread everywhere

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, aren't most of these "scientists find microbe that eats plastic" stories just them finding something in the wild that already has such an adaptation, rather than engineering something new? The idea that a plastic eating organism makes plastic nonviable to use anymore is a bit like saying that we can't make stuff out of wood, paper, natural fibers like cotton or wool, etc, because those things will degrade given the right circumstances and time.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 hours ago

Nah some are engineered too, as a possible way to recycle none-recyclables

The issue is usually they are woefully inefficient

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 1 points 7 hours ago

Not really apocalyptic per-se. The nightmare scenario would be that plastic would start bio-degrading similar to wood products and become far less viable as a material for long-term use containers. Yeah, it would require a massive shift in how we store things, esp. highly reactive chemicals, but it'd hardly be apocalyptic.

[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The apocalypse of trash turning into cookies.

[–] Klear@piefed.world 7 points 13 hours ago

Cookie Clicker was right!

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 hours ago

Not particularly, it really would only affect capitalist pigdogs, everyone else would be fine