My Faith is in Science
When I take my shirt off,
My stomach is like the full moon
With a crater in the middle
Which is my belly button,
Really, I am not that fat
I just have a big imagination.
**
Some paleontologists suggest this theory
For what happened to the Neanderthals:
The reason we (homo sapiens) out survived
The sophisticated Neanderthal people
Is due to our imagination –
We could envision tomorrow,
Fantasize alternatives,
Think outside of the box,
While Neanderthals lived only in "today,"
Unable to picture the future.
**
Plastic does not disappear
From the environment,
It accumulates,
It gets rubbed down
Into smaller and smaller pieces
That go everywhere,
Tiny shrimp that live 7 miles deep
In the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean
Have plastic in their tiny tummies.
It is said, we eat a credit card sized amount
Of plastics ourselves, each week,
Hopefully, we eliminate the same amount,
But probably not.
A couple of years ago,
A Japanese scientist found,
In a garbage dump,
A bacterium that uses plastic for food!
This bacteria secretes an enzyme
That breaks apart the molecules of plastics
Into components that it
And unrelated bacteria can use
To fuel their bodies,
Or in other words,
This plastic-eating bacteria
Decomposes plastic,
Turning inaccessible matter
To organic use once more.
Researchers are hectically pursing methods
To produce the bacteria's enzyme
In quantities large enough
To reverse a plastic apocalypse.
**
The burning of coal for centuries
Has dispersed toxic mercury
Throughout the world –
Into the oceans, into fish
Into the soil, into plants
Into the animals, into us,
But mercury contamination
May have a solution.
Mycologists have discovered
A symbiotic fungi that lives
On the roots of plants,
It taps sugar from the roots
For energy
And in return detoxifies the soil
Of mercury!
While the process is slow –
It can take several crop rotations
To remove all the mercury
From an acre of land,
But even now actions are taking place –
The soil, plants, wildlife and we
Are moving towards
A healthier planet.
And this fungi can remove the mercury
From water, too.
Soon, I envision this fungi becoming
A part of waste water treatment facilities
Everywhere.
**
These and other breakthroughs are why,
There are some days,
I don't worry about our collective survival,
Science and the imagination –
Our ability to conceive of and then find
Other possibilities,
May save us all.
Carl Scott Harker ©2022
Sources:
The Neanderthal Theory is suggested in the book “Heroes” by Lee Child.
More information about the plastic eating bacteria can be found here: Plastic Eating Bacteria.
More about Fungi and mercury detoxification can be found here on DailyKos: A fungus growing naturally on roots is found to detoxify mercury in soil and water.
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My latest book of poetry is now available on Amazon, you can find great poems here: An Engineer of Words.