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Scientists just created an enzyme that rapidly breaks down plastic pollution

Scientists just created an enzyme that rapidly breaks down plastic pollution

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Last year, we shared the sad impact that plastic pollution has had on some of our planet's most beautiful places. With recycling not turning out to be the savior it was made out to be, solutions to our growing plastic problem can seem distant and complex.

We have seen some glimmers of hope from both human innovation and nature itself, however. In 2016, a bacteria that evolved with the ability to break down plastic was discovered in a Japanese waste site. Two years later, scientists managed to engineer the mutant plastic-eating enzyme they called PETase—named for polyethylene terephthalate, the most common plastic found in bottles and food packaging—in a lab.

Here's an explainer of how those enzymes work:

Ending Plastic Pollution with Designer Bacteriayoutu.be

Now researchers have revealed another game-changer in the plastic-eater—asuper-enzyme that can break down plastic six times faster than PETase alone.

The super-enzyme is a bit of a frankenzyme, created by linking different enzymes together. "When we linked the enzymes, rather unexpectedly, we got a dramatic increase in activity," Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, told The Guardian. "This is a trajectory towards trying to make faster enzymes that are more industrially relevant. But it's also one of those stories about learning from nature, and then bringing it into the lab."

This new research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Combining enzymes could be the key to making various kinds of plastics and combined materials fully recyclable. "There's huge potential," said McGeehan. "We've got several hundred in the lab that we're currently sticking together."

For example, combining the plastic-eating enzymes with existing enzymes that break down natural fibers could allow fabrics made of mixed materials to be recycled, McGeehan told The Guardian. "Mixed fabrics [of polyester and cotton] are really tricky to recycle. We've been speaking to some of the big fashion companies that produce these textiles, because they're really struggling at the moment."

This newest research isn't the first to improve upon the plastic-eating bacteria discovery. In April, a French chemistry company called Carbios shared their own mutant enzyme that can degrade 90% of plastic bottles within 10 hours. However, that enzyme, which originally discovered in a pile of composting leaves, requires heating above 70 degrees Celsius (nearly 160 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas this new super-enzyme works at room temperature.

Not that it's a cutthroat competition. We are talking about helping out the entire planet and saving life as we know it, after all. McGeehan suggested that the researchers work together with the private sector to get the enzymes working out in the real world. "If we can make better, faster enzymes by linking them together and provide them to companies like Carbios, and work in partnership, we could start doing this within the next year or two," McGeehan told The Guardian.

McGeehan did emphasize to CNN that the super-enzyme is "still way too slow" to be commercially viable at this point, but it is a huge step in the process. "We were actually quite surprised it worked so well," he told CNN.

Here's to science coming up with solutions to the problems human scientific advances have created, and here's to learning to live in better balance with nature in the process.

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The 'world's slowest experiment,' going for nearly 100 years, is still endlessly fascinating

It takes nearly a decade for one drop of this liquid to fall.

upload.wikimedia.org

John Mainstone was the custodian of the Pitch Drop Experiment for 52 years.

Because we use water all the time, most of us have an intuitive sense of how long it takes a drop of water to form and fall. More viscous liquids, like oil or shampoo or honey, drop more slowly depending on how thick they are, which can vary depending on concentration, temperature and more. If you've ever tried pouring molasses, you know why it's used as a metaphor for something moving very slowly, but we can easily see a drop of any of those liquids form and fall in a matter of seconds.

But what about the most viscous substance in the world? How long does it take to form a falling drop? A few minutes? An hour? A day?

How about somewhere between 7 and 13 years?

pitch drop experiment, tar pitch, solid or liquid, physics, world's longest experiment Pitch moves so slowly it can't be seen to be moving with the naked eye until it prepares to drop. Battery for size reference.John Mainstone/University of Queensland

The Pitch Drop Experiment began in 1927 with a scientist who had a hunch. Thomas Parnell, a physicist at the University of Queensland in Australia, believed that tar pitch, which appears to be a solid and shatters like glass when hit with a hammer at room temperature, is actually a liquid. So he set up an experiment that would become the longest-running—and the world's slowest—experiment on Earth to test his hypothesis.

Parnell poured molten pitch it into a funnel shaped container, then let it settle and cool for three years. That was just to get the experiment set up so it could begin. Then he opened a hole at the bottom of the funnel to see how long it would take for the pitch to ooze through it, form a droplet, and drop from its source.

It took eight years for the first drop to fall. Nine years for the second. Those were the only two drops Parnell was alive for before he passed away in 1948.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In total, there have been nine pitch drops in the University of Queensland experiment. The first seven drops fell between 7 and 9 years apart, but when air conditioning was added to the building after the seventh drop, the amount of time between drops increased significantly. The drops in 2000 and 2014 happened approximately 13 years after the preceding one. (The funnel is set up as a demonstration with no special environmental controls, so the seasons and conditions of the building can easily affect the flow of the pitch.)

The next drop is anticipated to fall sometime in the 2020s.

pitch drop experiment, tar pitch, solid or liquid, physics, world's longest experiment The first seven drops fell around 8 years apart. Then the building got air conditioning and the intervals changed to around 13 years.RicHard-59

Though Parnell proved his hypothesis well before the first drop even fell, the experiment continued to help scientists study and measure the viscosity of tar pitch. The thickest liquid substance in the world, pitch is estimated to be 2 million times more viscous than honey and 20 billion times the viscosity of water. No wonder it takes so ridiculously long to drop.

One of the most interesting parts of the Pitch Drop Experiment is that in the no one has ever actually witnessed one of the drops falling at the Queensland site. The drops, ironically, happen rather quickly when they do finally happen, and every time there was some odd circumstance that kept anyone from seeing them take place.

The Queensland pitch drop funnel is no longer the only one in existence, however. In 2013, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, managed to capture its own pitch drop on camera. You can see how it looks as if nothing is happening right up until the final seconds when it falls.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Today, however, with the internet and modern technology, it's likely that many people will be able to witness the next drop when it happens. The University of Queensland has set up a livestream of the Pitch Drop Experiment, which you can access here, though watching the pitch move more slowly than the naked eye can detect is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

But one day, within a matter of seconds, it will drop, hopefully with some amount of predictability as to the approximate day at least. How many people are going to be watching a livestream for years, waiting for it to happen?

PoorJohn Mainstone was the custodian of the experiment for 52 years, from 1961 to 2013. Sadly, he never got to witness any of the five drops that took place during his tenure. Neither did Parnell himself with the two that took place while he was alive.

John Mainstone, pitch drop experiment, university of queensland, physics John Mainstone, the second custodian of the Pitch Drop Experiment, with the funnel in 1990.John Mainstone, University of Queensland

Sometimes science is looks like an explosive chemical reaction and sometimes it's a long game of waiting and observing at the speed of nature. And when it comes to pitch dripping through a funnel, the speed of nature is about as slow as it gets.

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Watch this insanely accurate recreation of legendary 'Dirty Dancing' routine

Best birthday ever? We think so.

Photo credit: Canva | Flickr

Woman recreates famous dance from 'Dirty Dancing' for birthday.

You'd likely be hard pressed to find a woman born in the early 80s that hasn't memorized nearly every line from the iconic movie Dirty Dancing. Many spent hours in front of a mirror practicing every dance Baby had to learn so they could don their flowy dress to give their spins the perfect amount of realism. An entire generation is transported when those famous words, "now, I've had the time of my life...," croon over a speaker no matter where they are.

A woman from Portugal decided she was going to become Baby for her 40th birthday party and she was not messing around. The woman, Raquel, uploaded the video to her social media page Miolo Mole e Bitoca.

Raquel stands in what appears to be a dance hall decorated to look like the infamous last dance that closes out "Dirty Dancing." She's in a pink dress that looks nearly identical to Baby's and that familiar tune starts to play. The camera pans to her partner dressed like Johnny Castle in all black, and yes, they did the dance step by step.

@miolomoleebitoca Meus 40 anos tema Dirty Dancing #dirtydancing #dirtydancingchallenge #patrickswayze ♬ Dirty Dancing: (I've Had) The Time Of My Life - Dynamite

A large screen was set up right behind them playing the dance scene behind the pair as the nailed the dance. Now, they didn't disclose if they practiced the lift in a lake to stay completely true to the movie, but they nailed it nonetheless. Commenters on the internet are absolutely delighted with the recreation of the famous dance.

"Now y'all did that. Man y'all put a smile on my face. Dirty Dancing is my all time favorite movie," someone says.

"I've never smiled like a Cheshire cat as much as I just did watching that! Proper cheese but I loved it," one person writes.

dirty dancing, dirty dancing choreography, dirty dancing scene, dance, best movie dance, dance competition Who wouldn't want to recreate this?media2.giphy.com

"Not me bawling my eyes out and smiling so big, this is everything! One of my all time favorite movies and you can tell you's had so much fun and share so much love for one another," another commenter cries.

There was also a lot of praise for Raquel's dance partner.

"If my next husband doesn't perform dirty dancing lie this with me thenI don't want him. This was amazing," one person gushed.

Another said, "the fact that your man would do that for you is amazing. He seemed so happy making you happy."

Such a lovely sentiment. find yourself a partner who makes life a dance, and doesn't let anybody put you in a corner!

And by the way, if you're looking to do your own recreation of this iconic dance, here's a fun tutorial:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

This article originally appeared last year. It has since been updated.

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Dad and daughter relationships perfectly explained in 10 paintings

The bond between dads and daughters is amazing.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

It's hard to truly describe the amazing bond between dads and their daughters.

Being a dad is an amazing job no matter the gender of the tiny humans we're raising. But there's something unique about the bond between fathers and daughters. Most dads know what it's like to struggle with braiding hair, but we also know that bonding time provides immense value to our daughters. In fact, studies have shown that women with actively involved fathers are more confident and more successful in school and business.

You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? I'll just let these images sum up the daddy-daughter bond.

A 37-year-old Ukrainian artist affectionately known as Soosh, recently created some ridiculously heartwarming illustrations of the bond between a dad and his daughter, and put them on her Instagram feed. Sadly, her father wasn't involved in her life when she was a kid. But she wants to be sure her 9-year-old son doesn't follow in those footsteps.

"Part of the education for my kiddo who I want to grow up to be a good man is to understand what it's like to be one," Soosh told Upworthy.

There are so many different ways that fathers demonstrate their love for their little girls, and Soosh pretty much nails all of them.

Get ready to run the full gamut of the feels.

1. Dads can do it all. Including hair.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork A father does his daughter's hairAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

2. They also make pretty great game opponents.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, chess A father plays chess with his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

3. And the Hula-Hoop skills? Legendary.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, hula hoop A dad hula hoops with his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

4. Dads know there's always time for a tea party regardless of the mountain of work in front of them.

A dad talks to his daughter while working at his deskAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

5. And their puppeteer skills totally belong on Broadway.

A dad performs a puppet show for his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

6. Dads help us see the world from different views.

A dad walks with his daughter on his backAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

7. So much so that we never want them to leave.

a dad carries a suitcase that his daughter holds ontoAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

8. They can make us feel protected, valued, and loved.

A dad holds his sleeping daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

9. Especially when there are monsters hiding in places they shouldn't.

A superhero dad looks over his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

10. Seeing the daddy-daughter bond as art perfectly shows how beautiful fatherhood can be.

A dad takes the small corner of the bed with his dauthterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

This article originally appeared nine years ago.

We're Airbnb Superhosts and we think cleaning fees and check-out chores are bunk, too

There's no good reason for this.

Photo credit: Canva

People are right to complain about being charged a cleaning fee and being asked to do chores.

In 2016, My husband and I started renting out the basement apartment of our house as a short-term rental on Airbnb. We live in a college town and figured we'd get some guests during football game weekends and graduations. We didn't realize at the time how many people come to our town to visit their college kids or check out the school, so we were pleasantly surprised by how regularly we were booked.

In 2019, we moved into the house next door and now rent out both floors of the old house as separate units. We love being Airbnb hosts and have had a very successful run of it, with almost 1,000 5-star reviews, Superhost status, and lots of repeat guests.

airbnb, vrbo, short term rental, checkout chores, cleaning fees, airbnb host Being regular guests haas helped make us good Airbnb hosts.Photo credit: Canva

Part of the secret of our success? We don't charge a cleaning fee or make guests do check-out chores.

In fact, we find both things rather loathsome.

What makes us good hosts is that we've been Airbnb guests for years. As a family of five that travels a lot, we've found far more value in short-term rentals than in hotels over the years. We love having a kitchen, living room, and bedrooms and feeling like we have a "home" while traveling. We even spent a nomadic year staying at short-term rentals for a month at a time.

When you've experienced dozens of Airbnbs as a guest, you learn what guests appreciate and what they don't. You see what's annoying and unnecessary and what's to be expected in comparison to a hotel. We started taking mental notes long before we started our own rental about what we would want to do and not do if we ever had one and have implemented those things now that we do.

Chasing Tom And Jerry GIF by MaxGiphy

As guests, we know the pain of the cleaning fee, so we don't charge one.

It helps that my husband has a flexible schedule and grew up helping with his parents' janitorial service, so most of the time he cleans the apartments himself. We could charge a cleaning fee for his time and labor, but even if we were paying for outside cleaners, we still wouldn't put a separate fee onto guest bookings. It makes far more sense to us to just wrap the cleaning fee into the price.

From a host's perspective, the one-night stay is where the cleaning fee question hits the hardest. Whether someone stays one night or 10 nights, the cleaning cost is the same. But spreading the cost over 10 nights is a very different beast than adding it to one night, especially from a guest's perspective. On the host side, if we had to pay cleaners without passing that fee onto guests, we've barely make anything on one-night stays. But on the guest side, a $100 a night stay suddenly jumping to $150 or more because a cleaning fee was added is painful, and often a dealbreaker. You can see the conundrum.

— (@)

The way we see it, and as other Airbnb hosts have found, wrapping cleaning costs into the base price comes out in the wash over time, as long as you have some longer-term stays mixed in with the one-nighters. And it's a much better experience for the guest not to get hit with sticker shock on the "final cost" screen, which is already eye-popping when the platform's service fees and local taxes are added on.

(I will say, this may only ring true for smaller units. If you're renting a huge home, cleaning costs are going to be higher just because it takes longer to clean. But I still don't think the full cost should be passed onto guests as a separate fee.)

airbnb, vrbo, short term rental, checkout chores, cleaning fee Asking guests to stip the sheets saves almost no time and costs a lot in goodwill.Photo credit: Canva

There's no reason at all to ask guests to do check-out chores

As for check-out chores—asking guests to do things like start laundry, sweep the floor, take out the trash, etc.—those have never made sense to us. Hosts should have enough switch-out linens that laundry doesn't have to be started prior to checking out, and none of those chores save enough time for the cleaning people to make it worth asking guests to do it. I can see taking out trash if there wasn't going to be another guest for a while, but usually you'd want to clean right away after a stay anyway just in case it does get booked last minute.

The only thing we ask guests to do is to start the dishwasher if they have dirty dishes (as a guest, that seems like a logical and reasonable request), lock the door, and have a safe trip home. Don't need to pull the sheets. Don't need to take out any garbage or recycling. Those things don't take that long, but that's just as much a reason not to ask guests to do it. Annoying your guests by asking them to do something extra—especially if they're already paying a cleaning fee—isn't worth the tiny bit of time it might save the cleaning people.

airbnb, vrbo, short term rental, checkout chores, cleaning fee Most guests are try to leave the place as they found it, standard cleaning routine aside. Photo credit: Canva

This approach works very well, because 95% of guests leave the space neat and tidy anyway.

In almost 10 years, I can count on one hand how many problems we've had with guests leaving a significant mess. That's been a pleasant surprise, but I think part of the reason is that guests are simply reciprocating the respect and consideration we show them by not making them pay extra fees or do chores on their way out. We're going to have to clean it anyway, so putting work on them is unnecessarily burdensome, even if it's something that doesn't take long. People recognize that.

To be fair, it probably helps that we aren't some big real estate tycoon buying up a bunch of apartments and turning them into short-term rentals run by impersonal management companies. People's complaints about how short-term rentals impact local housing economies are legitimate. Our situation is more aligned with the original "sharing economy" model, renting out our home to guests who come through town. And in a small college town with a large university, there often aren't enough hotel rooms during busy weekends anyway, so it's been a bit of a win-win all around.

I think us being in close proximity, having personal communication with our guests (but also leaving them their privacy), and not charging or asking anything extra of them makes them want to be respectful guests. From our perspective, both as guests and hosts, cleaning fees and check-out chores simply aren't worth their cost.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Single guy asks married men their biggest marriage regrets and they delivered

"We tend to take our spouse for granted once we get married. Continue to invest your time in her."

Photo credit: Canva

Man asks married men their biggest marriage regret, they deliver.

Marriage is a big step in a relationship. It's something that people think about from the time they can grasp the concept of relationships. When you factor that in with the high divorce rate, it makes sense that people want to ensure they're getting it right before taking the leap.

Typically, people ask their close inner circle for relationship advice. Leaning on people like their parents, siblings or friends who have been married to fill in the gaps of knowledge. However, with the world becoming smaller than ever due to social media, it takes little effort to gather collective knowledge from thousands of people within your target audience.

Surprisingly, people are pretty forthcoming to strangers on the internet looking for support and help. One man who goes by the name King Boiza decided to ask his internet advisors, "Married men, what is your greatest regret about marriage? Advise the single boys. It could be about anything." The married men didn't hesitate to answer the call in the most genuinely wholesome way.

divorce, marriage, biggest marriage regret, reasons for divorce, married couple, married man, marriage A happily married couple.via Canva/Photos

Gleaning collective wisdom from those more experienced than you is a common practice, but being able to do it in such a significant way is relatively new. Different life experiences lead to different perspectives that can be invaluable to someone still learning.

The advice provided ranged from warnings to what could be seen as universal truths about marriage.

"Your wife becomes the words you speak upon her, I regret not speaking life and good upon her," one man shares.

"In times of trouble, remember...It's not you against her but the both of you, against the problem...," someone writes.

"Listen when she speaks from the heart, once she feels unheard, she will be closed off for a long time if not forever," another advises.

"Not all women age gracefully with all their good looks and physique. Marry her for more reasons beyond her body and beauty. Seek a FOREVER," one commenter says.

"The grass is NEVER greener on the other side. NEVER," a man wrote.

"Don’t let the family you come from destroy the family you create," a commenter added.

"Be the partner you're looking for!" a man wrote.

"The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together," a married man wrote.

"Remember that you are not married to your idea of your wife but to who your wife is. Love her for who is she is not who you want her to be," one man commented.

"No regrets, just advice I’ve adhered to for 15+years of marriage. Lead by example. Create the emotional space for her that you want mirrored. Set boundaries and always keep your word above all else!" a commenter wrote.

"Sometimes all you have to do is listen to her," a man wrote.

divorce, marriage, biggest marriage regret, reasons for divorce, wedding, pastor, reverend, marriage vows A couple getting married.via Canva/Photos

Forbes reports that 43% of first marriages end in divorce with the number significantly increasing with each subsequent marriage. Finding out the regrets, struggles and triumphs of other marriages may help others feel more prepared to commit to marriage with a bit of a roadmap laid in front of them.

It's clear from the comments under the post that marriage takes work and while some of the men admittedly misstepped, they seem eager to share with others so they avoid the same mistakes.

"My biggest regret in marriage was to cheat, and I'm telling you...my wife was never the same...so my advice is never cheat, never ever," one guy confesses.

divorce, marriage, biggest marriage regret, reasons for divorce, marriage advice, single men, marriage questions Kingboiza asks men about marriage.www.tiktok.com

"We tend to take our spouse for granted once we get married. Continue to invest your time in her. You won't regret it and she'll know that you really see her," one man shares.

But it wasn't only men who dropped by the comment section. Women stopped to share their appreciation for the wisdom being left for all to see.

"After reading this comment section, my faith in the institution of marriage is restored. Relationships are not perfect, but we gotta try with people who want to try," one woman writes.

"I don't know why I'm crying...I guess I never knew men like these existed...Your wives must be blessed," another woman shares.

If you need a dose of healthy masculinity and wholesome advice for lasting partnerships, look no further than that comment section. They're saving some future couple from heartache by simply showing up to answer a stranger's question on the internet.

This article originally appeared last year.

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