Check Your Soul

Donald Byrd, Black Byrd [Blue Note] 1973

Donald Byrd - trumpet, flugelhorn, electric trumpet, vocals

Allen Curtis Barnes - flute, oboe, saxophone

Roger Glenn - saxophone, flute

Fonce Mizell - trumpet, vocals

Larry Mizell - vocals

Kevin Toney - piano

Freddie Perren - piano, synthesizer, vocals

Dean Parks, David T. Walker, Barney Perry - guitar

Joe Sample - piano, electric piano

Chuck Rainey, Wilton Felder, Joe Hill - bass

Harvey Mason, Sr, Keith Killgo - drums

Plastic makes great food packaging. It’s waterproof and flexible. And best of all, it’s impervious to all known bacteria — until now. Researchers have found a bacterium in the debris fields around a recycling plant in Japan that can feed off a common type of plastic used in clothing, plastic bottles and food packaging.

The bacterium is a new species called Ideonella sakaiensis, named for the Japanese city Sakai where it was found growing on plastic debris made from a type of plastic called PET or polyethylene terephthalate. “It’s the most unique thing. This bacterium can degrade PET and then make their body from PET,” says Shosuke Yoshida, a microbiologist at Kyoto University and lead author on the study published in Science on Thursday.

A Plastic-Eating Bacterium Might Help Deal With Waste One Day