DID THIS KID FIX THE OCEAN?

By TERRY HAND

For over half a century, Hollywood has colluded with the Department of Education to convince impressionable 12-year-olds that high school is a four-year-long pussy bonanza, full of weekendly keggers and sex-bracelet parties and barely solicited blowjobs in the narrow strip of woods between the parking lot and soccer field for those bold enough to reach out and grab the ring. This lie has kept attendance levels at a satisfactory level, but for those of us able to see the early- to mid-teens for the period of sexual fallowness it really is, the greatest thing that high school offers is the opportunity to totally nerd out on whatever you want for four years completely unconstrained by the demands of the working world. Either that or a chance to goof off and see a lot of bands. Up to you.

Daniel Burd chose the nerd route, and now takes his place in the pantheon of teenage sex-martyrs alongside Temple Grandin and Ray Kurzweil. Over the past two years of his youth, Daniel cultivated piles of dirt, yeast, and torn up bits of plastic bags in order to isolate the specific bacteria responsible for eating polyethylene. Once he figured that part out (it was sphingomonas) he bred the germs until he had a strain strong enough to eat through an entire plastic bag in six weeks. This may not seem so cool or out-there to you or myself, but it could very well be the first step toward stopping the growth of synthetic-based catastrophes like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Or the excess of CO2 produced by Daniel’s super-bacteria could eat a hole in the sky and give us all cancer in the next five years. Either way, we pray to the god of teendom that someday this gets him laid.