Today we celebrate the 2450th birthday of Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching. In 2016 the book inspired the use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) to genetically modify the “plastic-munching microbe,” Ideonella sakaiensis, isolating enzymes responsible for dissolving polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Now we depend on these scientifically engineered creatures to clean up our plastics pollution. They have replaced dogs and cats as Homo sapiens’s favorite companions, and along riverbanks and beaches owners lovingly harvest garbage to feed their new-style PETs.
