The Creatures That Thrive in the Pacific Garbage Patch

Based on this video it seems clear to me that it’s much better to prevent further pollution. River cleanup and preventing more plastics from getting in to nature is essential.

Before there were plastics, people would have glass bottles given to them and they would be refilled by the company for later reuse. Many of the plastic items today are from single-use items. If we gradually transition and find alternatives to plastic single use items, I think it can go a long way in reducing garbage in waterways leading to the oceans.

This video is the definition of "Life, uh, finds a way." Still best to not overpollute.

Between this, ocean farming, iron fertilization, fuel/plastics from algae, seabed mining, methane clathrate, nuclear power barges, cybertecture (seacrete/biorock) and seasteading, there is a nice oceanpunk scifi book to be written.

I've also heard of fungus that lives on the remains of chernobyl the sheer persistence of life is amazing

The irony of that bacteria being mass reproduced is the potential takeover of that specific bacteria; an outbreak of it might be a hinderance to somethings people need plastic for. It might also out grow its trait of eating/digesting plastic and become something else instead.

I just want to tell you that you are an incredible inspiration. You are among the first people that come to my mind when I think of why I'm going into biology starting this year. You showed me what a deep appreciation of nature is and how theres awesome things to be found even in the outwardly most mundane or boring animals and plants. Your content is amongst the best on the entire platform, I love your narration style and formatting and I can always relax and just enjoy the experience when opening one of your videos. Please never stop.

This reminds me alot of the game "RainWorld", ancient civilization went extinct and now plants and animals evolved to their trash and abandoned mechanical environment. Very cool concept.

It's really incredible how life finds ways to adapt, no matter how adverse we may think their environment is.

Petition to collectively call these creatures the Garbage Patch Kids

Here's the thing though: 1) The plastic wasn't there in the first place, we dragged it in there and it is still very much a threat to so many organisms including ourselves. 2) Microplastics are the main problem, them and their ability to accumulate in tissues. And while it's encouraging that /some/ life is adapting, we can't just rely on that. We /still/ need to move on from plastic because of the many animals that won't adapt, and those who have adapted? Well they were already adapted to a similar lifestyle and had a similar lifestyle. These animals were always there, they didn't just suddenly appear with the plastic. Evolution and adaptation takes time -- this didn't just happen the moment plastic appeared and our waste hasn't been around that long, being that we haven't been around that long and the industrial era didn't kick off that long ago. The optimism is nice, but let's not try to minimize the issue of plastic pollution.

I did not believe the blue sea dragon was a real animal until now.

If all else fails, hopefully evolution amongst the garbage patch denizens leads to a species that can consume and mitigate the patches one day.

Life...uh...finds a way

It is interesting that we tend to focus on animals like sea turtles who are eating plastic instead of jellyfish (which is indeed a bad thing), but not the jellyfish themselves. I agree with Dr. Helm’s assessment.

do you think these creatures can eventually support a complex ecosystem, with larger animals?

Found a blue sea dragon washed up on the beach one day. As small as it is, its colors were absolutely mesmerizing. I took it back into the water, and watched it get taken away by the tide. Only recently did I discover that they sting, though my encounter was without such an experience. Yes, it was still alive when I put it back in the water.

Prof. Helm's enthusiasm for the topic of her study is practically palpable. Excellent choice of participant, Stephanie! And, of course, congratulations on yet another marvelous video with the moral "it's not that simple"... 😀

I just do not understand why we’re treating making garbage and then cleaning a fraction of a fraction of it up as the solution. Yet even bringing up the idea of “what if we stopped companies from making everything plastic and disposable?” invites accusations of being against modern progress and economic efficiency. But are company’s profits really worth all.. THIS? Would it really kill us to use paper bags instead of plastic?

Hi, rather than CO2, the gas bladder of Portuguese man o’ war uses carbon monoxide instead. Kind of a result of CO2 being much soluble in water, a property some chemistry demos use to make a color-changing fountain.