viruses

Microplastics and antibiotic resistance

April 14, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Microplastics are a real problem. They are pretty much everywhere. They are in our food, in the oceans, on mountains, up in the clouds, and most alarmingly, in our bodies. All of that is already bad news, but researchers at Boston University have found that microplastics may also be contributing to antibiotic resistance in dangerous bacteria.

The researchers observed that bacteria exposed to microplastics become resistant to multiple types of antibiotics commonly used to treat infections. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics for a number of reasons, including misuse and overprescribing of medications. However, a major factor influencing antibiotic resistance is the microenvironment – the immediate surroundings of a microbe – which is where bacteria and viruses replicate.

The Boston University study tested how the common bacterium E. coli reacted to being in a closed environment with microplastics. The plastics provide a surface that the bacteria can attach to and colonize. When attached to a surface, bacteria create a sticky substance called a biofilm that acts like a shield, protecting the bacteria and keeping them affixed securely. The tests showed that microplastics supercharged the biofilms so much that when antibiotics were introduced, they were unable to penetrate the shield.

Microplastics are everywhere, but they are especially prevalent in impoverished places where sanitation may be limited. Refugees, asylum seekers, and forcibly displaced populations are already at increased risk of contracting drug-resistant infections. The prevalence of microplastics adds another risk to the already difficult lives of these people.

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Microplastics Could Be Fueling Antibiotic Resistance, BU Study Finds

Photo, posted May 15, 2021, courtesy of Felton Davis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Environmental DNA | Earth Wise

August 5, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Marine protected areas are sections of the ocean where governments place limits on human activity. They are intended to provide long-term protection to important marine and coastal ecosystems. MPAs are important because they can protect depleted, threatened, rare, and endangered species and populations.

In January 2020, the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean created one of the world’s largest marine protected areas. The Palau National Marine Sanctuary covers 80% of the country’s economic zone and prohibits all extractive activity like fishing and mining over a 183,000 square mile area in order for the island nation to ensure its food security and grow its economy in the face of climate change.

The Marine Sanctuary is an ambitious enterprise. The question is how Palau can evaluate whether and how well it is working?

A team of scientists from Stanford University and Palau-based colleagues are making use of Environmental DNA – or eDNA – technology to monitor the large-scale marine protected area. eDNA is the cells, waste, viruses, and microorganisms that plants and animals leave behind. Samples of marine eDNA effectively provide a fingerprint of the organisms that have recently passed through the water in a given area. This gives scientists a way to assess an ecosystem’s biodiversity and keep track of the types of species inhabiting a specific area. Using eDNA, it is possible to keep track of all the organisms that live below the surface and learn about things we can’t even see.

The team has embarked on a program of periodic sampling of the waters off Palau and hope to be able to monitor the results of establishing the Marine Sanctuary.

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eDNA: Bringing biodiversity to the surface

Photo, posted June 12, 2013, courtesy of Gregory Smith via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Dangers Of Thawing Permafrost | Earth Wise

April 12, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The thawing of the permafrost in the Arctic is a major concern from the standpoint of the potential release of enormous amounts of carbon dioxide trapped in it. There are nearly 2,000 billion tons of carbon there, which is as much as humanity releases into the atmosphere in 50 years. But greenhouse gases are not the only danger posed by permafrost thawing. There are also microbes, unknown viruses, and chemicals that could be very dangerous.

More than 100 diverse microorganisms in Siberia’s deep permafrost have been found to be antibiotic resistant. The deep permafrost is one of the few environments on Earth that have not been exposed to modern antibiotics. As the permafrost thaws, its bacteria could mix with meltwater and create new antibiotic-resistant strains.

By-products of fossil fuels – introduced into permafrost environments since the beginning of the industrial revolution – are present. Metal deposits including arsenic, mercury, and nickel, have been mined for decades and have contaminated large areas.

Now-banned pollutants and chemicals – including DDT – came to the Arctic through the atmosphere and over time have become trapped in the permafrost.

There is now ongoing research further characterizing the microbes frozen in permafrost and providing more precise measurement of emissions hotspots in permafrost regions. Scientists are increasingly turning to integrated Earth observations from the ground, the air, and space.

There are models that predict the gradual release of emissions from permafrost over the next century. Other models say it could happen within just a few years. The worst-case scenario would be utterly catastrophic but none of the scenarios portend anything good.

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