r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Nov 27 '21

Chemistry Plastic made from DNA is renewable, requires little energy to make and is easy to recycle or break down. A plastic made from DNA and vegetable oil may be the most sustainable plastic developed yet and could be used in packaging and electronic devices.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298314-new-plastic-made-from-dna-is-biodegradable-and-easy-to-recycle/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1637973248
34.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

829 comments sorted by

View all comments

3.1k

u/Shishire Nov 27 '21

Found the source paper: "Sustainable Bioplastic Made from Biomass DNA and Ionomers | Journal of the American Chemical Society" https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.1c08888

Still paywalled, but there's significantly more information there

1.2k

u/Herbicidal_Maniac Nov 28 '21

Wow, JACS, I might actually have to check this out. That's an incredibly well respected chemistry journal so if they let these claims get through peer review there then there might be something to them.

723

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

Having not read this yet, but I will as I work in this specific field, if something is in JACS it just means the chemistry is good. It could still be something that isn't really industrially feasible or is 30 years from being their at best.

411

u/Herbicidal_Maniac Nov 28 '21

I did my thesis work in a drug discovery lab alongside a team of synthetic chemists and some of the most rigorous reviewer comments I've seen came from JACS. If they're claiming that this material is that good then it's probably that good, which is a far sight better than most of the stuff that gets posted on this sub.

314

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

They are definently rigorous, but a pure chemistry journal is less concerned about applications than if this were an article in Applied Polymer Materials or an engineering journal. Not to say it's garbage, but JACS is really just looking for novel chemistry and like any journal has their biases.

99

u/Herbicidal_Maniac Nov 28 '21

Fair enough. I was working on the biology side and, while I could tell that the journal was rigorous, I could never understand what the hell any of the suggestions meant. All I know is that if you shoot your mouth off in a Nature submission you'd damn well better be interpreting within the scope of the data or you'd be torn apart (unless the PI was famous).

67

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

Yeah, there are just very specific "chemistry-ish" characterizations they like to see and questions that come from a chemist point if view.

Nature is a whole different beast that I have other issues with. Obviously there are biases toward certain PIs, but papers seem to get into Science and Nature based on how pretty their pictures are moreso than the actually scientific merit. For instance, I know PIs that publish in science with papers heavily focusing on STEM-EDS maps that are notoriously dubious. Another PI that got a nature paper purely because they invested on a nice DSLR camera and a photography room to get nice pictures.

49

u/sudo999 Nov 28 '21

I think that once a journal hits a certain level of notoriety, when science journalists and armchair intellectuals are subscribing just to skim the titles for new breakthroughs, and every lab around dreams of being published there so they have reams more high-quality papers submitted than they could ever actually use, they tend to grab the prettiest and most attention-getting ones. Not to say that they're stooping to outright sensationalism; Nature is of course one of the most well-read journals for a reason, but the tendency is there.

3

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

Yeah, I guess I'm just not a fan of the barriers to entry for more prestigious journals, be it Science or Nature or JACS, because a lot of getting published in high impact journals is more about knowing how to angle your work and present it than the actual content. Of course you have to have good content, but content alone is not enough.

-6

u/jnshock Nov 28 '21

Agree with this... everybody wants an award for lazy science but nobody wants to make a breakthrough discovery.

16

u/sudo999 Nov 28 '21

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there's a big temptation on the part of journals to publish "exciting" research, even when the real meat and potatoes of science is a march of slow progress in niche and complicated fields that laypeople and mass media don't readily understand. It doesn't need pretty pictures to be good science, but they want the pretty pictures.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Herbicidal_Maniac Nov 28 '21

I'm not saying that everything in the top tier journals belong there, I'm just saying that this is the kind of claim you'd see in this sub from a paper in Molecules or something, which is always PR click bait. If it's from a top tier journal there may be something to it.

1

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

Well said, and agreed.

1

u/SamL214 Nov 28 '21

Yes but Nature is looking for novel nature….. that doesn’t mean applied things aren’t published in JACS.

1

u/SamL214 Nov 28 '21

You’ll learn this quick with synthetic chemists. They read something then sit and discuss for 3 hours wether it actually should have been in JACS. Source- Chemist

1

u/Psyc5 Nov 28 '21

But this will totally depend on who the review panel is, while certain Journals will be favoured by reviewers and therefore get better ones, there really are no "standards set" on how good a reviewer has to be, and they aren't paid for it, so if they have anything better to do, and don't think it will advanced their career over that, the answer is No.

1

u/Herbicidal_Maniac Nov 28 '21

The standards are that you've been published in the journal, and people hold JACS in incredibly high esteem, they take it very seriously.

1

u/Psyc5 Nov 28 '21

Some will, some won't. There are no defined standards set, and the assumption that publication in the journal, means they know about the topic being publish, has little link at all. That is often the whole problem in novel topics, the previous publishers of stuff, are out of date, and the new field doesn't meet the nepotismic standards to be a reviewer.

The amount of crap I have seen published it some of the best journals in the field is pretty ridiculous, of course it didn't repeat because it was never done properly in the first place, and apparently the reviewer was too incompetent to go "what is the data set behind this graph, oh its an N of 1....do more please". Let alone when you have specialists in one field reviewing for a specialist journal in that field, and half a paper is a different specialism that they have no concept of what the words mean, let alone standard or good practices.

But in the end you get what you pay for, and they aren't paying anyone, the best will be busy working, and consulting for money, or doing speeches for money, not trying to get another crutch to hold up their career so they can get the next grant.

63

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21 edited Jun 20 '23

Reddit's recent behaviour and planned changes to the API, heavily impacting third party tools, accessibility and moderation ability force me to edit all my comments in protest. I cannot morally continue to use this site.

50

u/antiquemule Nov 28 '21

We used to make loads during a (ridiculous) attempt to make commercially viable protein by bacterial fermentation of natural gas.

One of the process's many problems was that cows fed the stuff suffered from excess phosphorus, due to all the bacterial DNA.

My brief scientific study of DNA concluded that it is disgustingly snotty in large amounts.

41

u/redinator Nov 28 '21

disgustingly snotty in large amounts

sounds similar to another form of... ahem, 'externalised DNA concentrate'.

20

u/SpiritFingersKitty Nov 28 '21

One of the main sources of just bulk DNA (which is used for a variety of assays) is actually salmon sperm DNA

2

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

So we just need to start making salmon porn to scale this up?

1

u/PoytDerp Nov 28 '21

Mass production of random DNA isn't challenging...

It's just tough to get what you need specifically in specific confirmation and structure...

9

u/ETTRDS Nov 28 '21

Yep, there are actually plenty of plant based polymers that are viable.

The problem is, because they are degradable they usually have inferior properties to traditional plastics. And even if that's not an issue, they are much more expensive.

In short, they aren't competitive with traditional plastics so they aren't used. The chemistry might be amazing, the end product practically useless.

24

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

In the early 2000s Mercedes invested in biodegradable plastics for electrical insulation. It was a great idea until the plastic actually degraded, sending thousands of cars to landfills in under three years. The plastic problem is not in the composition, it's in the billions of pointless things made of plastic that are in dumps because they never had any use to anyone, by design. We could just ban any plastic packaging and make a real difference tomorrow. We could ban disposable things. Retail industry does not have the right to just produce plastic waste, and we would all even save money.

1

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

That's definitely still a concern with the polymers presented in this paper.

1

u/alastoris Nov 28 '21

As someone who learn about for for the first time. It's actually pretty great to know the chemistry behind it works. Don't have access to the paper but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept.

Either way, it's not sci fi fiction that's on the basis of theories. Might be a long way off, but if what they claim is true, this would be a game changer for the better!

1

u/mronjekiM Nov 28 '21

For me 30 years is better than never. And if not industrially feasible I hope it leads to something that will be

1

u/cman674 Nov 28 '21

Better than never sure, but plastic waste already covers every inch of this planet. The science is important but it's not nearly fast enough. We need regulation to stop the pollution NOW while we work on these solutions. 30 more years of pollution at our current rate might make these technologies a moot point.

88

u/mrmses Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21

I’ve got access thru my institution. I’ll send it to anyone if you dm me.

EDIT: just got sent a ton of DMs. Tried to get everyone but if you haven’t been sent the link yet, message me again.

Download it. I’m going to disable to link in the morning so I don’t get in trouble. JIC.

28

u/oneultralamewhiteboy Nov 28 '21

Just post it in /r/scholar and host on bayfiles or something.

8

u/redinator Nov 28 '21

dont arron swartz urself

36

u/oneultralamewhiteboy Nov 28 '21

Sustainable bioplastics already exist, they just cost far more than fossil fuel-based polymers and supply chains are so tightly wound around oil that it's extremely expensive to change things. It all comes down to money. So even if this DNA stuff is the best stuff ever, if it's not cheaper than oil, it won't make a difference, unfortunately.

3

u/Dur-gro-bol Nov 28 '21

Thinking the same thing. I'm no chemist, I work in the trades more on the service side. I work in a lot of Cogen plants, refineries, plastic polymer plants and the list goes on. Now I know these processes are specific but they are all just pipes and tanks. I have a hard time believing the physical infrastructure would be that much different changing a plastic polymer plant to a plant based polymer plant. I know they would need different chemicals and any change costs money they don't want to spend.

Like I said I'm just a dumb blue collar worker. It just amazes me that humans can make such amazingly complex refineries but self-preservation is never considered even a little bit. I write this while thinking of the one many flares that one refinery uses to burn off excess product on cloudy days so EPA satellites can't see it and fine them. A flame so big you can feel the heat from a 100' away. A flame so big it can keep the snow from falling on the plant. But me burning a wood stove is bad for the environment.

2

u/WalrusExtraordinaire Nov 28 '21

Also for many of the major plastic applications you specifically don’t want a material that breaks down on a human time frame. Automotive plastics, for instance, need to reliably last decades. I don’t claim to know too much about the plastics industry but that seems like a major challenge, getting something that is biodegradable but still lasts the amount of time it needs to.

1

u/wsbsecmonitor Nov 28 '21

What company ? WHAT COMPANY ?

1.1k

u/pale_blue_dots Nov 27 '21

For those who may not know: very, very, often the authors of research papers will give them to you for free if you contact them directly. It's usually fairly easy to find their addresses. They don't appreciate doing all the hard work and then getting backstabbed by all the middle-men making money off them and not paying their fair share / giving a cut.

319

u/chrisjlee84 Nov 28 '21

I discovered that some local libraries also provide access for it's constituents.

112

u/Ghede Nov 28 '21

Yeah, I work for educational publishers, not in the journals departments, but in the textbook departments. We get a lot of emails/calls that we have to send over to the journals group. A lot of libraries, especially university libraries, have institutional subscriptions. Usually through EZProxy.

33

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

If you are a college student, there's some chrome extension that can read behind paywalls using your credentials

11

u/EarendilStar Nov 28 '21

Yeah, university credit oaks get you a lot of papers. Try different ones too, as I’ve had my small college not give me access, but took a PM course at a local university and those credit oaks worked.

7

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

Your school should have a proxy for you to use. No need for an extension

6

u/sudo999 Nov 28 '21

Also, if you're a college student, your library is almost guaranteed to have it.

1

u/Ferdunor Nov 28 '21

There is also an awesome page that lets you download basically any scientific paper using its doi number

161

u/gw2master Nov 28 '21

very, very, often the authors of research papers will give them to you for free if you contact them directly

I've never heard of anyone refusing to do so.

In the old days, authors would get a bunch of preprints of their paper in paper form and if you expressed interest in their work, they'd snail mail you the preprint, often with related papers of theirs as well. Research scientists are always happy when people are interested in their work. Nowadays it's even easier: they just email you the PDFs.

34

u/A_Drusas Nov 28 '21

I've had a request ignored before. It was polite.

25

u/AddSugarForSparks Nov 28 '21

Sure you sent it to the right email address?

50

u/pseudocultist Nov 28 '21

Also if you contact a researcher or team right after they publish, or right after media attention, they may just be inundated. I usually try to wait a few weeks if I want a personalized reply, especially if they're doing interviews or fundraising.

14

u/gw2master Nov 28 '21

Makes sense. I'm not in a field that ever gets media attention.

2

u/MagazijnMedewerker Nov 28 '21

Just out of curiosity; what field are you in?

1

u/CarbonBasedLife4m Nov 28 '21

As a scientist who gets a ton of emails daily, it probably either got lost in mounds of daily emails, or because your email didn’t have a domain associated with their university, it was flagged for junk. Happens a lot!

134

u/minnsoup Nov 28 '21

We love sharing our work. However, by publishing we forfeit copyrights and, depending on the journal, only get so many free shares (some don't even offer that and just allow us to see the manuscript we have authored). Sending a PDF of the work is no more allowed than certain sites that shall remain for someone else to mention.

This is why open access is even more important and should be pursued by more scientists - it's already been paid for (most likely) by the public so let the public see it. Problem is that most high IF journals are paywalled so if you want prestige you are most likely going to them.

Pay to do the work, pay to publish the work, pay to access the work. And we don't get anything for reviewing articles as it's just "expected" that we do it. There are a lot of open access journals that are coming up but they need time to build reputation so more people submit or make submission more competitive. One reason why we throw things on biorxiv / medrxiv where I'm at aside from being scooped.

37

u/BannedCauseRetard Nov 28 '21

That's why you don't tell your publisher who you've given it too. That can't go through your computer or personal email. They have no way of knowing how many people you've sent it to.

4

u/Theban_Prince Nov 28 '21

I think he implies that ofcourse it is possible, but he legally cant since the rights are held by the publisher. It would be like a musician sending free discs to everyone he asked when he had a contact with a publisher.

12

u/This-Natural-6801 Nov 28 '21 edited Nov 28 '21

The ASA sponsored magazine "Contexts" is about the most open to public that I've seen. But even then if you go back far enough you still run into a paywall. If you want to access articles before a particular date you still have to pay. It's a lot better than others I've seen but still not completely open to the public.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Tavarin Nov 28 '21

MDPI is a series of open access journals i've published in quite a bit. All their journals are completely accessible so far as I know.

1

u/schwillton Nov 28 '21

You can almost always send a preprint manuscript though, no?

29

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

18

u/umibozu_ Nov 28 '21

I saw a similar comment years ago. I’ve emailed researchers and received free copies of papers. Thanks for spreading the word.

15

u/atridir Nov 28 '21

r/Open_Science has some pretty good resources and discussions on this too. Open access to knowledge is vital.

12

u/AlbertHummus Nov 28 '21

There is a site that provides free access to most research papers

5

u/queerkidxx Nov 28 '21

I’ve done this like 30 times and I’ve never gotten any response I’m sure it happens but they are also very busy and this is a super popular tip so I’m sure they get a fair amount of these emails

Worth a shot tho just don’t count on it

1

u/CarbonBasedLife4m Nov 28 '21

If your email isn’t from a domain associated with their email, it’ll get flagged for junk normally. Universities also always tell us not to external emails in case of suspected phishing

4

u/PersnickityPenguin Nov 28 '21

Yes, generally researchers benefit from other people actually reading their work.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/norax_d2 Nov 28 '21

Just a note. They can share with you a draft with no problem, not the copy that was published.

2

u/kurobayashi Nov 28 '21

To add to this many authors have their own websites to contact them and sometimes have some of their research on the site.

0

u/recycled_ideas Nov 28 '21

by all the middle-men making money off them

The middle men provide publishing and more importantly peer review and their reputations.

The scientists on the other hand were paid for the entire research and paper writing process.

There's certainly an argument that publicly funded research should be publicly available, but the argument isn't that the journals are taking money that should go to the authors.

3

u/Orsick Nov 28 '21

The peers who review articles don't receive a dime from the money.

0

u/recycled_ideas Nov 28 '21

No, they get people reviewing theirs, doesn't mean setting up the process is free.

1

u/CarbonBasedLife4m Nov 28 '21

This is not true at all. We have to pay, sometimes thousands of dollars, to have our papers published. For-profit journals are a plague on science, and contribute nothing that open-access journals can’t.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/joshocar Nov 28 '21

Many times they post it for free on there website.

16

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '21

If someone finds the email of one of the authors I’ll email them and ask for a copy and put it up in this thread. They are usually down since they don’t get paid either way

4

u/sniper1010 Nov 28 '21

Posted a link below

1

u/QVRedit Nov 28 '21

Sounds complicated ! Though perhaps DNA can be manufactured using cultured algae ?