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All the microbes you can’t have - Works in Progress Magazine

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We've invented microbes that can eat plastic, detect landmines, and extract rare metals. They've been swallowed by a black hole.

In 1983, a biochemical company called AGS filed an application to release genetically modified organisms into the environment. AGS had deleted a single gene from a common leaf-dwelling microbe that encoded a protein around which ice crystals nucleate. By removing it and spraying the modified microbes onto plants, AGS hoped to prevent ice from forming on crops during cold California mornings. At the time, there was no dedicated regulatory process for engineered microbes, so applications defaulted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which had laid out voluntary rules and approved…

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