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My Faith is in Science [1]

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Date: 2022-11-26  

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,

Thus turning inorganic material organic.

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.

__________________________________________

My latest book of poetry is now available on Amazon, you can find great poems here: An Engineer of Words.

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