Refuse Rescuers: discovering critters who chomp up trash

Hmmm...did we learn nothing from "The Andromeda Strain" ? PREMIUM CONTENT subscriber access

Been reading about newly discovered microbes and worms that use plastic as a nutritional resource. Touted as the solution to pollution!!

But wait a second… remember The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton’s first blockbuster sci fi thriller, out in 1969? Did we learn our lessons? Or have we forgotten?

I read The Andromeda Strain while in High School, studying chemistry and physics. I read it all in one sitting, enthralled with all the physiologic twists and turns and loving that the hero was a scientist. It cemented my career trajectory into research and medicine. [And science writing too … thank you Michael Crichton. And btw… Happy Birthday!]

For those few who do not actually know the plot:

A military satellite returns to earth in northern Arizona. A team sent to recover the satellite breaks radio contact mysteriously. Because an infection is suspected, a team of scientists is sent to investigate, they find everybody in a small town is dead except for two survivors—an old man, and a screaming infant. These two, and the satellite, are taken to an underground laboratory where an organism called the ‘Andromeda Strain’ is isolated, and threatens to kill all of mankind.

spoiler alert: Scientists then figure out that the organism’s pH optimum is very narrow, and the two survivors were too alkalotic (baby) and acidotic (old man COPDer). However the strain escapes and mutates, now eating the PLASTIC INFRASTRUCTURE around the windows and doors. But it no longer kills humans. It returns to the atmosphere and is thought to be gone, but then an orbiting space ship suddenly disintegrates …

https://www.michaelcrichton.com/the-andromeda-strain/

When the book was published, lots of people thought it was true. It was pretty interesting. When Bob Wise set out to make the movie, his researchers assumed that everything was true, too, so they went out and found all the things the book talked about — the underground laboratory, the computer programs, the biometrics security. After a while I stopped telling people that I had made it all up, because it turned out that it was based on true things. But I didn’t know that when I was writing the book. -