It took a Canadian Teenager to figure it out

[AlphaMale]

And not an American Science Professor?

http://news.therecord.com/article/354044

Embarassing.
Canadian Teenage solves one of the biggest environmental-sanitation problems.

[iamlowsound]

Originally Posted by AlphaMale

And not an American Science Professor?

http://news.therecord.com/article/354044

Embarassing.
Canadian Teenage solves one of the biggest environmental-sanitation problems.

That is amazing. If that was put into wide use it could really solve a lot of problems. BTW, that school is a 30 minute drive from my house.

lowsound

[Slapp Addict]

Originally Posted by iamlowsound

BTW, that school is a 30 minute drive from my house.

lowsound

REALLY?! It's like 14 hours from mine! OMG!

[Fontaine]

Originally Posted by Slapp Addict

REALLY?! It's like 14 hours from mine! OMG!

its about 3 planes from mine! or a really long swim and a really long drive ZOMG

[IconBasser]

incredible. This kid should be given a nobel prize, no questions asked.


Think about how unprecedentedly large the buildup of synthetic waste has progressed, without any tangible way of reducing it.

This guy has just supplied an answer to a worldwide problem. Bravo sir, Bravo!

[DigMe]

Cool.

Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.

My dad almost died of Pseudomonas when he was fighting leukemia.

bc

[DigMe]

Originally Posted by IconBasser

incredible. This kid should be given a nobel prize, no questions asked.

It's very impressive but Nobel Prize? I don't think so.

bc

[AlphaMale]

Makes me think of this though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

[Nino Valenti]

Not to sound like an ass but what does an American Science Professor have to do with this? Are there no Science Professor in any other country other than the United States? What about Canadian Science Professors?

[Joe Gress]

Originally Posted by Nino Valenti

Not to sound like an ass but what does an American Science Professor have to do with this? Are there no Science Professor in any other country other than the United States? What about Canadian Science Professors?

+1 It's not just americas job to protect the world you know.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by AlphaMale

Makes me think of this though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

Why?

There is a big difference between bacterial life and drexlers apocolyptic nanomachines.


I think it is a good discovery, there will of course need to be much more testing done to see what possible side effects, contaminents there are etc. But not nobel prize winning stuff.

[fenderhutz]

Originally Posted by joeinsprings

+1 It's not just americas job to protect the world you know.

Nope just our job to destroy it for the highest (or lowest) bidder.

[Scarlet Fire]

Don't get too excited just yet. The experiment this kid ran only gave enough time for the easiest of the chemical bonds to be broken. Let's wait and see if this solution can go on and tackle the rest of it at a similar pace.

Very impressive, but still needs a little more investigation.

[peterbright]

Good for him.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

He's into music, a bassplayer perhaps?

Seriously though, there's a few points that they leave unmentioned.

First IIRC when the iron curtain fell there was a teeny weeny problem with the phenolic resin Trabant chassis, or about a million of them. That stuff decomposes even longer, IIRC again. The DDR scientists developed a bacteria that would use the phenolics as food, problem solved. Don't know whether it was the same happy bunch which developed the oil-eating bacteria that was supposed to be tested when the EXXON Waldez didn't quite make it. Thank what ever anyone believes in they didn't go ahead with the plan.

The second and the IMHO more important point is that if the plastics (or any other high energy potential materials for that matter) aren't recycled and/or converted back to the lower state + energy, all the energy used in the manufacturing process is lost.

Recycling and producing energy from the waste should IMHO have a higher priority than a quick fix.

Regards
Sam

[AlphaMale]

Originally Posted by Nino Valenti

Not to sound like an ass but what does an American Science Professor have to do with this? Are there no Science Professor in any other country other than the United States? What about Canadian Science Professors?

Yes you are exactly right. That's what I was implying. There is no science professor in any country outside of the United States.
Or maybe because I can't include every country so I just put America and hoped people wouldn't cry about it?
Guess I was wrong.

[AlphaMale]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

Why?

There is a big difference between bacterial life and drexlers apocolyptic nanomachines.


I think it is a good discovery, there will of course need to be much more testing done to see what possible side effects, contaminents there are etc. But not nobel prize winning stuff.

Didn't read it at all did you? The first section is about Living Grey Goo
"Thus a living goo could be a multicellular organism that obtains its raw materials to grow through ecophagy, and then grows through a process of exponential assembly such as cell division"

He's isolated a bacteria that can break down complex carbon molecules. And if someone wanted one that could self-replicate then you could have a potentially grey goo like situation?

Originally Posted by T-Bird

Hi.

He's into music, a bassplayer perhaps?

Seriously though, there's a few points that they leave unmentioned.

First IIRC when the iron curtain fell there was a teeny weeny problem with the phenolic resin Trabant chassis, or about a million of them. That stuff decomposes even longer, IIRC again. The DDR scientists developed a bacteria that would use the phenolics as food, problem solved. Don't know whether it was the same happy bunch which developed the oil-eating bacteria that was supposed to be tested when the EXXON Waldez didn't quite make it. Thank what ever anyone believes in they didn't go ahead with the plan.

The second and the IMHO more important point is that if the plastics (or any other high energy potential materials for that matter) aren't recycled and/or converted back to the lower state + energy, all the energy used in the manufacturing process is lost.

Recycling and producing energy from the waste should IMHO have a higher priority than a quick fix.

Regards
Sam

Originally Posted by article

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide -- each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.

[Bassic83]

He should be locked up. We can't have a non-American inventing and/or patenting ideas like that. That would be, well, un-American.

Understand, locking him up would only last until The Corporation found a way to make billions of dollars from his, er, their, idea. Then he would be set free, and demonized as a lunatic. That way, he would be unemployable, and nobody else could profit from his, er, their, ideas. People like him are dangerous. They need not integrate into society. They may promote individuals thinking, and that must be stopped at all costs.

[Joe Gress]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

Nope just our job to destroy it for the highest (or lowest) bidder.

[Mark Wilson]

Can we NOT make this about America?! Us Canadians don't have much. Give us this one. Just once.