It might not be too long before animals evolve a rudimentary mechanism to filter microplastics

Comments

• vipaal@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Or incorporate it. Basically what George Carlin said. Evolution will witness a new paradigm of life plus plastic and will keep evolving as if nothing matters.

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  • BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It took 60m years for fungi to evolve to break down lignin (trees) and the eventual oxidation of the lignin decay products has caused the most rapid climate shift we have ever seen

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    • INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That next 60 will breeze by as well

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    • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What kind of climate shift are you referring to? Like when fungi produce organic acids and aromatic compounds etc, how is that related to shifting the climate in any way?

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    • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Are you referring to fossil fuels? A recent video from Howtown is messing with me.

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• kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think chances are higher we all die, the microplastics get embedded in a layer of rock worldwide, and nature moves on without us. Evolution is way too slow to keep up with maade horrors.

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• new_guy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Maybe?

  Evolution takes a long time and unless we are dealing with microbes and fungi, generations are counted in years or decades.

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• daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Is 60 million years not too long?

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  • palmtrees2309@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    On the grand scale of time it isn’t

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• Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I wholly expect that some time from now humans will gather to talk about the moral implications of letting creatures that depend on microplastics go extinct due to our efforts to remove plastics from the environment or if we should be producing plastics to keep them alive.

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  • onslaught545@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Bold of you to assume we’ll still be around at that point.

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    • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’d argue we’re like roaches. Most of us may die, but we’ll survive.

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• possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  …only a few million years

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• Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  …or go extinct.

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• TimeChild@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future takes a look at the idea

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