Humankind are a fascinating species. Their ability to adapt to nearly any environment on Earth is a testament to the advanced problem-solving skills humans possess. Unfortunately, humans create settlements and exhaust resources to depletion.
The ingenuity humans possess has never been able to outpace the destruction it creates from simply inhabiting an area. Now, the planet is saturated with waste and can only handle little more stress to its already delicate temperament.
While the problem of waste is quite severe, group of researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have created an ingenious solution to take a bite out of the problem. They found a way for Earth to eat it’s way out of the mess people created – with plastic-eating bacteria.
These are not too unlike the gargantuan rock-consuming slugs of Omicron Persei 8. With the exception of size and diet, the Omicron slugs and Earth bacteria share similar biological qualities.
The scientists are using genetic engineering to accelerate the rate of the digestion for the bacteria in order to create a viable solution to the plastic waste problem on Earth. The gallery below contains a conceptual illustration of the bacteria, as well as the alien slugs. I certainly couldn’t bring them up and not show you what they look like, right?
Cosmic Ruckus 