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[sneakey pete]

I find it interesting to note the reaction to this, in context that we had the Port Arthur Massacre less than 20 years ago, though i suppose it could be partly due to the location.

You'd think this is the first time we've had one

[Yannanth]

.

[Jimmy]

My state is making me vote again this month. Damn them for ruining a perfectly good Saturday.

[Edmus]

Oh snap!
*Gets popcorn*
This is gunna be good.

[sneakey pete]

I found this one more interesting

[Osmosis Jones]

I found this one more interesting

Semi-religious belief? Seriously? Fuck that guy.

[Reelya]

I read about a couple of areas clogged with plastic out in the pacific, enough so that it's a hazard to shipping, animals and tourism. One of them is apparently twice the size of Texas. In other words we have chucked so much junk into the ocean in the last century that it's now forming it's own small continent.

[Helgoland]

Is that a real possibility? I guess the junk could settle atop coral reefs and slowly compactify, forming some interesting new carbon-based minerals...

[Descan]

If you were to go into the patch, you don't see anything like hills of garbage or anything. But if you were to strain a sample of water, you'd see small, bleached, decaying flecks of plastic as it disintegrates in the sun and water. But it doesn't degrade chemically, just into smaller and smaller pieces, which then get eaten.

[scriver]

And then clogs up the digestive system of those animals. And then the animals that eat them. And then the animals that est them. And so on until everyone is plastic. It's fantastic. You van brush my hair, and dre- wait, no. I got distracted.

[Darvi]

And so on until everyone is plastic. It's fantastic. You van brush my hair, and dre- wait, no. I got distracted.

Scriver confirmed for man of taste. Bad taste, but taste nonetheless.

[Reudh]

If you were to go into the patch, you don't see anything like hills of garbage or anything. But if you were to strain a sample of water, you'd see small, bleached, decaying flecks of plastic as it disintegrates in the sun and water. But it doesn't degrade chemically, just into smaller and smaller pieces, which then get eaten.

I vaguely remember hearing about a bacteria that could consume low quantities of plastic safely. Don't have anything to back it up though, sadly.

[Reelya]

The are more than one type of plastic-eating bacteria. This is the marine one:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/plastic-eating-microbes-help-marine-debris-sink-140619.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria

The nylon-eating bacteria is interesting because the enzyme it uses to eat the nylon is from a specific mutation we can track - an existing gene for another function got duplicated in a copying error, but there was a frameshift by 1 DNA base which means the actual amino acids it codes for got scrambled. the new protein just happened to be able to turn nylon into something edible by pure chance. The bacteria were an existing strain that just happened to be living in a waste water pond at a nylon factory.

[Reelya]

In this case it also shows how the same mutation can beneficial in the right circumstances but harmful to competitive survival otherwise.

This same nylonase mutation must have happened countless times before. But secreting nylonase enzyme is only beneficial if you are a bacteria living in a pond full of nylon particles. If you live anywhere else, it's detrimental since you're expending energy making a chemical which isn't helping, so non-mutated bacteria out breed you. Making the nylonase itself is probably benign to the orgamism, but it's harmful in a competitive sense.

[Twi]

Oh hey, just finished marathoning thread cuz I like reading things.

thoughts:

That Abbot guy may or may not be full evil. Clive Palmer is some sort of magnificent bastard, and Scott Ludlam is amazing.

Also Australia has a Sex Party and that is amazing.