Hot take: I wasted 3 hours trying to prove that stupid plastic-eating bacteria post was fake, and the source was a real lab in Japan

Christopher Wells · 2026-11-13T04:00:05.793554+00:00

Saw that post about a bacteria that eats plastic bottles in like 12 hours, and my gut said no way. So I start digging. The article quoted a study from 2016, and I figured it was one of those half made up things. I'm on my laptop in the living room for what I think is 10 minutes. Two hours later I'm reading a real paper from a university in Kyoto, and the bacteria is real. It's just slow as hell at room temp, and the headline left that part out. I felt so dumb. I spent a whole evening trying to debunk something that only needed a 5 second read of the methods section. Has anyone else gone down a rabbit hole on a hype post and come out the other side feeling like the post was half right? I need closure here.

Vivisector

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Hot take: I wasted 3 hours trying to prove that stupid plastic-eating bacteria post was fake, and the source was a real lab in Japan | After the Hype - Vivisector