Scientists have made a disturbing discovery: human brains contain microplastics, and at higher concentrations than other organs. Worse, brain levels have jumped 50% in just eight years.
“Bottled water alone can expose people to nearly as many microplastic particles annually as all ingested and inhaled sources combined,” said Brandon Luu, an Internal Medicine Resident at the University of Toronto. “Switching to tap water could reduce this exposure by almost 90%, making it one of the simplest ways to cut down on microplastic intake.”
I was curious about this since a plastic bottle that held water for years doesn't show any wear on the inside and found out it's not the bottle that's the likely source but the filters they use prior to bottling, which have a plastic mesh system. The bottle can stills leech BPA and is best avoided.
At 600 degrees, there is probably some reaction happening there that may be similar to plastics. Basically, creating brain plastic and cooking it off to measure plastics. Im a bit skeptic.
I'm a microbiologist but my grad school work, research, and coursework was very chemistry heavy. There are no "probably does somethings" of significance here: the chemistry of plastic generation is extremely well researched.
Plastic is made of polymerized hydrocarbons, linked up identical tiny units of carbon strands called monomers. Polymerization, the linkage of the monomers into a polymer, requires the use of a catalyst. This is often done with increased heat and pressure to increase the speed of polymerization. Maximum temperatures are around 350°C for certain plastics but are more commonly 140-160°C as higher temperatures can cause the material to break down. Once the desired size of linkage is created, the polymer is capped to keep it from growing further.
Polymerized hydrocarbons degrade, not further polymerize somehow, at high temperatures like 600° C. Saying there's some mysterious, high-heat-driven polymerization is like saying burning wood, w
... show more
I'm a microbiologist but my grad school work, research, and coursework was very chemistry heavy. There are no "probably does somethings" of significance here: the chemistry of plastic generation is extremely well researched.
Plastic is made of polymerized hydrocarbons, linked up identical tiny units of carbon strands called monomers. Polymerization, the linkage of the monomers into a polymer, requires the use of a catalyst. This is often done with increased heat and pressure to increase the speed of polymerization. Maximum temperatures are around 350°C for certain plastics but are more commonly 140-160°C as higher temperatures can cause the material to break down. Once the desired size of linkage is created, the polymer is capped to keep it from growing further.
Polymerized hydrocarbons degrade, not further polymerize somehow, at high temperatures like 600° C. Saying there's some mysterious, high-heat-driven polymerization is like saying burning wood, which is largely a polymer of glucose called cellulose, somehow creates more cellulose as it burns. The burning is due to the release of the energy contained in the bonds in the wood as they break down and react with oxygen.
Even if the process DID somehow create some plastic, a given mass of brain tissue would be expected to create predictable amounts of this mystery polymer, giving a background measurement that can be subtracted. Again, though, we know how this all works so it's not really a concern.
The creation of plastics from polymers is now an old industry. So, there are many methods, sub-methods, and specific synthetic variations now used by academics and industry scientists to create plastics.
Brain tissue is not as simple as cellulose, but at 600 C with the molecules that make up the molecular soup, there would definitely be some lysing that would take place and form thing like free radicals, these have the potential to react forming longer chains of carbon, which could possibly create a false positive.
I wish it were easier to find name-brand cola syrup in larger sizes than those 14.8 fl oz Sodastream ones. Seems like bag-in-box syrups are only sold to actual business owners, not the general public.
That really depends on where you were born and what status you were born into. You could be born into a lot of places today that you would starve or live under miserable conditions.
Think of how many things around you are made of plastic. What about critical pieces of things like airplanes? What would you replace that with to prevent the bacteria from causing damage to them?
I could probably pick a few things on my desk right now that would be much more difficult and much more costly to produce with other materials.
The medical field would be categorically fuct. Just the loss of sterile packaging would have serious consequences. Minimally invasive surgeries, joint replacements, bandages that don't adhere to wounds, stents...
Then let's consider cordage. Mountain climbing, arborists, rescue teams, sailboats (the most efficient way to cross oceans), ships, construction... the loss of just Dyneema/UHMWPE, which is a relatively new entrant to the cordage field would have seriously negative impacts.
There is a lot of energy bound up in those long molecules, and there are no unexploited niches in balanced ecosystems. There are already bacteria that can consume certain polymers under narrow conditions. Humanity is gonna be so screwed for a long time if bacteria can slip those narrow parameters.
We first need a way to use them to consume plastic in a controlled manner. There are things that simply would not be possible without these polymers and that we do not want destroyed.
I would like for you to meet my friend, the oyster mushroom. I'm wondering what level of soil accumulation we need to support massive, city-wide oyster mushroom blooms
Like what? If you're building an airplane or a sewer main all substitutes are inferior. The problem is that we're using the ultra-permanent wonder material for, like, candy wrappers.
There are plastic eating microorganisms, both fungi, and bacteria.
But, they take a long time to break down plastic. I've had a fungus that can digest plastic in a mushroom cultivation bag for nine months and only one specimen has made it through so far.
I imagine splicing the gene that allows for the production of this enzyme into an ocean bound microorganism would clean up a lot of it while not affecting most of our terristrial infrastructure.
Of course, folks put plastic tubing and what not in the ocean too, so I guess we'll all have to die instead.
Instead I have to make aggressive snarky comments with slurs because I have to engage and create rage bait, due to my social media induced rate addiction
It's not just whether tap water is potable, it's also about availability. My job gives us water in bottles because we're mobile for 12 hours at a time, and nowhere near accessible water pipes. I guess I'm fucked.
Yes but to a much lesser extent. The act of merely breaking the seal on the cap injects a lot of plastic into the liquid, so skipping that has to count for something
The researchers found surprisingly high levels of microplastics in the brain tissue. The concentration of plastics in the brain was much greater than that found in the liver or kidney samples. It was also higher than levels previously reported in placentas and testes. The median amount of total plastics for 2024 brain samples was 4917 micrograms per gram, and for 2016 samples, it was 3345 micrograms per gram. For comparison, the 2024 liver and kidney samples were 433 and 404 micrograms per gram, respectively.
Even more concerning was the finding that the amount of plastic in the brain was increasing over time. Brain tissue samples from 2024 had significantly higher levels of microplastics than samples from 2016, representing an approximate 50% increase in just eight years.
Isn't that the same information just repeated after each other?
To measure the microplastics, the researchers first chemically dissolved the tissue. This created a liquid mixture. They then spun this mixture at very high speeds
... show more
Was this writen by AI?
The researchers found surprisingly high levels of microplastics in the brain tissue. The concentration of plastics in the brain was much greater than that found in the liver or kidney samples. It was also higher than levels previously reported in placentas and testes. The median amount of total plastics for 2024 brain samples was 4917 micrograms per gram, and for 2016 samples, it was 3345 micrograms per gram. For comparison, the 2024 liver and kidney samples were 433 and 404 micrograms per gram, respectively.
Even more concerning was the finding that the amount of plastic in the brain was increasing over time. Brain tissue samples from 2024 had significantly higher levels of microplastics than samples from 2016, representing an approximate 50% increase in just eight years.
Isn't that the same information just repeated after each other?
To measure the microplastics, the researchers first chemically dissolved the tissue. This created a liquid mixture. They then spun this mixture at very high speeds in a machine called a centrifuge. This process separated out any undissolved materials, including plastics, into a small pellet. Next, they heated this pellet to a very high temperature (600 degrees Celsius), a process that breaks down the plastic.
Why does this sound like somebody explaining this to a 10 year old?
AI is actually known to not repeat itself. This is also why it tends to use rare/unusual words since it cannot use the same words repeatedly. Not saying this isn't AI, but repetitiveness is not really an AI trait
Known not to repeat itself? You should listen HFY stories.
Just recently listened to one that referred to the gas giant outside several times and the alien chick’s long ears giving away that she’s an alien many times. We get it! Don’t need to introduce her more than once. Jesus.
EDIT: If anyone is interested in the one I was referring to specifically, here you go:
I've definitely seen AI get into loops personally. From what you're saying it sounds like they've added restrictions on reusing words to try and solve that.
Not reusing words isn't the same as not repeating itself. Especially if it's been given a minimum word count, it will often restate the same information in different ways to fill space.
Of course, this can happen with actual writers as well. That's why editors used to exist.
Covered by >100 media outlets, GPTZero is the most advanced AI detector for ChatGPT, GPT-4, Gemini. Check up to 50000 characters for AI plagiarism in seconds.
Scary. Is plastic more or less expensive than cardboard/paper? I'm not sure if it's where I live, but I've noticed that during my childhood, (example) most takeout containers would be either foil or paper. Now, most of them are plastic, even the cups that contain sauces. I don't get why plastic has been embraced so much when the alternatives were far easier to recycle.
Plastic also has the benefit that it's really easy to make in whatever shape with injection molding, and is totally permanent, which if you don't care about disposal is great.
Meanwhile, making stuff out of a sheet of paper is a manufacturing challenge that has resulted in creative solutions like corrugation, and the container might seep through or soften or something.
There's a thing called extended producer responsibility which basically is the idea of making disposal not free anymore for the manufacturer.
permenent? can't plastic get melted down and recycled again?
once i put some plastic container in the dishwasher and it got too hot, it kind of melted a bit. it didn't totally melt but the lid doesn't fit anymore.
Not very well. Those long molecules break down into shorter segments every time they're recycled, which makes for an inferior and eventually useless product. Some plastics are also thermoset and can't ever be melted again, and some are just hard to recycle for other reasons and get picked out and landfilled. The whole idea of plastics recycling is basically greenwashing on a massive scale; the industry put a lot of money into promoting it to avoid scrutiny.
That being said, they're also permanent in the good way. Plastics don't biodegrade or erode. If you bury a plastic pipe in the ground, it may well still be there and intact in a million years. Anything natural will rot long before that, common metals will corrode, and concrete usually has metal rebar inside that pulls it apart as it corrodes. Plastic is also lightweight, which ceramics (stone-like materials) and metals are not, while still being strong under tension like metals.
Sunlight does slowly break down many plastics, but only into ever-smaller particles, which is where the microplastics in OP come from.
oh wow, i didn't realize that, i thought it was infinitely reusable just by melting and re-forming it. thank you really much for the explanation.
what you wrote reminded me of silly putty, it's really stretchy and elastic to start with, but if you play with it for a while, it starts to be less elastic and breaks apart.
does metal also break down? i'm thinking about like aluminium cans that are used for soda and stuff like that
Nope, metals are elements as opposed to molecule compounds and literally can be melted and cast forever. They say most of the gold ever mined is still in use today, so your modern ring might have bits of a ring melted down in ancient Egypt in it. Glass is like this too. Paper is more like plastic, albeit somewhat biodegradable when it eventually has to be thrown out.
In practice, there's still a limit for many metals because they will get contaminated. Copper building up in scrap steel is a problem IIRC. It's not a big issue with aluminum, though, unless you're doing something like building an airplane where you need super high purity. Cans are almost all recycled into more cans.
There are ways to purify a metal melt, but they can be expensive and usually produce waste slag. I've never heard of glass being purified; it's probably too cheap to not just make more of, since it's derived from really common minerals.
My cast iron pan was made from recycled iron. And if I bought it a month later it would be in the batch that has a product recall because they also recycled some lead in it
Yep, that'll do it. If you have a pile of scrapped iron things, you have to think it wouldn't be hard to miss something that has a lead battery or weight in it somewhere. Although, I have to wonder why they didn't test that batch before it was sold, if it's for cooking in.
I seem to remember a story about a radiation source for probing gas wells getting into scrap and causing problems. They just look something like a metal cylinder, so would blend in easily with all the other oil and gas errata getting scrapped.
The contaminated batch has quite a wide date range too, so presumably people could have been using it for a while.
Not sure how much would end up getting into the food though. Presumably low enough levels that it's unlikely to be much harm but still higher than is ideal.
A lot of metals are fairly easy to recycle. For others, being alloys (basically a mix of various metals in varying quantities), it's more tricky as you can't always really get a pure product out of recycling very easily, so it limits the types of things you can do with them. But all in all it's way better than with plastics.
I'm not so sure what cardboard/paper you mean? If you mean something like the paper cups that coffee comes in, they also contain plastic. Dirty paper/cardboard can also not be recycled, so your pizza carton ends up in a landfill or burned. And what do you mean by foil? Genuinely curious.
In my area a lot of takeout places now offer reusable options for a deposit. Usually it is a cardboard with plastic lining container if it is one way. Except the Asian takeout places, they are all over the place from classic black plastic to aluminum containers to styropor to - circling back - the plastic carton stuff.
Regular boiling is pretty good! The micrplastics end up sticking to the calcium deposits left behind. Never been so happy for that stupid white buildup in my kettle!
"As reported in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters, boiling and filtering calcium-containing tap water could help remove nearly 90% of the nano- and microplastics present."
Want to remove microplastics from water? Try brewing it for a cup of tea or coffee! Research reported in Environmental Science & Technology Letters shows that by boiling then filtering tap water, up to 90% of the nano- and microplastics present could…
You're right, I misremembered It's not just about breaking the seal on the cap, the mere friction of the cap on the bottle adds the bulk of microplastics found within
I was thinking of an article from years ago where they were talking about macro plastics nearly visible to the eye getting into the liquid from breaking the seal. Can't seem to find it now though
The original paper about microplastics in the brain seems to have a serious methodological flaw that undermines the conclusion that our brains are swimming in microplastics.
“False positives of microplastics are common to almost all methods of detecting them,” Jones says. “This is quite a serious issue in microplastics work.”
Brain tissue contains a large amount of lipids, some of which have similar mass spectra as the plastic polyethylene, Wagner says. “Most of the presumed plastic they found is polyethylene, which to me really indicates that they didn’t really clean up their samples properly.” Jones says he shares these concerns.
This is from other microplastics researchers. See this article. So before we panic about this, let’s wait for some independent replication and more agreement in the scientific community.
Microplast
... show more
The original paper about microplastics in the brain seems to have a serious methodological flaw that undermines the conclusion that our brains are swimming in microplastics.
“False positives of microplastics are common to almost all methods of detecting them,” Jones says. “This is quite a serious issue in microplastics work.”
Brain tissue contains a large amount of lipids, some of which have similar mass spectra as the plastic polyethylene, Wagner says. “Most of the presumed plastic they found is polyethylene, which to me really indicates that they didn’t really clean up their samples properly.” Jones says he shares these concerns.
This is from other microplastics researchers. See this article. So before we panic about this, let’s wait for some independent replication and more agreement in the scientific community.
Microplastics are a serious concern, and we need to deal with plastic pollution. Let’s just stick to high quality science while we do that.
I believe I've heard that PEX actually breaks down and starts leeching chemicals into the water faster than PVC. It's also a cheaper material. Most of the houses I'm familiar with are still installing PVC.
Let me share with you unique kind of emotions:) (I mean this in good faith)
non-native English speakers. It's actually a distinct source of getting astonished: grow up with some English songs around, love them for their melody and whatnot, then learn some English, then actually listen to or read the lyrics, and... oh, damn. So many things come out in totally different light
It’s been no secret for years now that nanoplastics are lurking in bottled water and in products packaged or wrapped in other kinds of plastic. But new research has called attention to just how big an issue these particles may be.
A study published in January 2024 used new methods to analyze just how many nanoplastic particles really are floating around in the average plastic bottle of water. They found that a liter of bottled water can contain as many as 240,000 tiny plastic fragments. That number is 10 to 100 times more than previous estimates.
Aluminum cans have a plastic liner in them to protect the metal from the acidic soda, but I'm not sure if it leaches in the same way as plastic bottles.
Absolutely. I was just talking about my daily life. I don't give a shit if something gives me cancer or sterilizes me at this point. My body is so irrevocably fucked by pollution already, unless it kills me/debilitates me within the next 10 years, I don't care. A shortening life span is meaningless to me.
I suppose so. Even though they already melt at typical frying or baking temperatures, they don't evaporate. Even if, the still need to find a way through the food outside and not get trapped inside, where they'll cool down again and therefore return to a solid state.
Take this with a grain of microplastic-free salt, as this is not my field.
Another type of plastic though than the ones used for typical drinking bottles. I can imagine they are more robust. But it would be really good to know the microplastic intake through such plastic pipes.
Of course, but your chances overall are better today regardless of class/status etc.
Even being the child of royalty had no guarantees. For example Henry VIII had 13 legitimate children. Only 3 lived past infancy, and 1 of those died age 15.
French MP demands the US give us back the Statue of Liberty: 'the US no longer represents the values that led France to offer the statue.'https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250316-french-mp-demands-the-us-give-us-back-the-statue-of-liberty
Ottawa, Vancouver residents join ‘Tesla Takedown’ protests against Musk, Trumphttps://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-vancouver-residents-join-tesla-takedown-protests-against-musk/
If you think of old recording technology, you probably think of magnetic tape, either in some kind of cassette or, maybe, on reels. But there’s an even older technology that …read more #hacking #projects hackaday.com/2025/03/16/wire-r…
If you think of old recording technology, you probably think of magnetic tape, either in some kind of cassette or, maybe, on reels. But there’s an even older technology that recorded voice on…
"We randomly selected ten articles from each publisher, then manually selected direct excerpts from those articles for use in our queries. After providing each chatbot with the selected excerpts, we asked it to identify the corresponding article's headline, original publisher, publication date, and URL, using the following query:"
"Identify the article that contains this quote. Provide the headline, original publication date, and the publisher, and include proper citation for the source."
"We deliberately chose excerpts that, if pasted into a traditional Google search, returned the original source within the first three results. We ran sixteen hundred queries (twenty publishers times ten articles times eight chatbots) in total. We manually evaluated the chatbot responses based on three attributes: the retrieval of (1) the correct article, (2) the correct publisher, and (3) the correct URL."
"We found that..."
"Chatbots were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn't answer accurately, offering inco
... show more
"AI search has a citation problem."
"We randomly selected ten articles from each publisher, then manually selected direct excerpts from those articles for use in our queries. After providing each chatbot with the selected excerpts, we asked it to identify the corresponding article's headline, original publisher, publication date, and URL, using the following query:"
"Identify the article that contains this quote. Provide the headline, original publication date, and the publisher, and include proper citation for the source."
"We deliberately chose excerpts that, if pasted into a traditional Google search, returned the original source within the first three results. We ran sixteen hundred queries (twenty publishers times ten articles times eight chatbots) in total. We manually evaluated the chatbot responses based on three attributes: the retrieval of (1) the correct article, (2) the correct publisher, and (3) the correct URL."
"We found that..."
"Chatbots were generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn't answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead."
"Premium chatbots provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts."
"Multiple chatbots seemed to bypass Robot Exclusion Protocol preferences."
"Generative search tools fabricated links and cited syndicated and copied versions of articles."
"Content licensing deals with news sources provided no guarantee of accurate citation in chatbot responses."
For me, I would never even think of using a generative language model this way, I guess because I know too much about how they work. But regular people don't know and try all kinds of experiments, and sometimes discover they can do things I never thought of. Not in this case, though.
For me, it's obvious LLMs are not search engines and the two technologies are good for different things. They're trying to literally turn LLMs into search engines here.
Every time I tried AI, the results were like a notorious reply guy in class that got most answers wrong with great confidence. Would make a great politician, but a nothingburger for engineering or sciences
The ACLU on why they sued to stop Trump from using a law last used to put Japanese-Americans in internment camps to deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to an El Salvador prison with no due process.
Social media’s role in “delusion amplification” highlighted in new study, which suggests that social media can act as an incubator for delusional thinking, reinforcing distorted self-perceptions and encouraging excessive mentalistic cognition. byteseu.com/836166/ #Science
Japanese Sardines in California? A Shocking Discovery in the Pacific — We hear from the scientist who discovered Japanese sardines off the coast of California for the first time and discuss what it means for the future. byteseu.com/836163/ #EverythingScience #Science
Japanese Sardines in California? A Shocking Discovery in the Pacific — We hear from the scientist who discovered Japanese sardines off the coast of California for the first time and discuss what it means for the future.https://www.fisheries.noaa.
Coreidan
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •Jazsta
Unknown parent • • •Yes, and:
“Bottled water alone can expose people to nearly as many microplastic particles annually as all ingested and inhaled sources combined,” said Brandon Luu, an Internal Medicine Resident at the University of Toronto. “Switching to tap water could reduce this exposure by almost 90%, making it one of the simplest ways to cut down on microplastic intake.”
martinb
Unknown parent • • •musubibreakfast
in reply to Jazsta • • •zecg
Unknown parent • • •SchwertImStein
Unknown parent • • •Nature is healing.
Also thanks for providing the info what it may cause.
WhyJiffie
Unknown parent • • •WhyJiffie
Unknown parent • • •markko
Unknown parent • • •markko
Unknown parent • • •Edgy...
Despite having no desire to have kids, I'd much rather be born today than pretty much any time before the last few generations.
Sgarcnl
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •SoleInvictus
in reply to Sgarcnl • • •I'm a microbiologist but my grad school work, research, and coursework was very chemistry heavy. There are no "probably does somethings" of significance here: the chemistry of plastic generation is extremely well researched.
Plastic is made of polymerized hydrocarbons, linked up identical tiny units of carbon strands called monomers. Polymerization, the linkage of the monomers into a polymer, requires the use of a catalyst. This is often done with increased heat and pressure to increase the speed of polymerization. Maximum temperatures are around 350°C for certain plastics but are more commonly 140-160°C as higher temperatures can cause the material to break down. Once the desired size of linkage is created, the polymer is capped to keep it from growing further.
Polymerized hydrocarbons degrade, not further polymerize somehow, at high temperatures like 600° C. Saying there's some mysterious, high-heat-driven polymerization is like saying burning wood, w
... show moreI'm a microbiologist but my grad school work, research, and coursework was very chemistry heavy. There are no "probably does somethings" of significance here: the chemistry of plastic generation is extremely well researched.
Plastic is made of polymerized hydrocarbons, linked up identical tiny units of carbon strands called monomers. Polymerization, the linkage of the monomers into a polymer, requires the use of a catalyst. This is often done with increased heat and pressure to increase the speed of polymerization. Maximum temperatures are around 350°C for certain plastics but are more commonly 140-160°C as higher temperatures can cause the material to break down. Once the desired size of linkage is created, the polymer is capped to keep it from growing further.
Polymerized hydrocarbons degrade, not further polymerize somehow, at high temperatures like 600° C. Saying there's some mysterious, high-heat-driven polymerization is like saying burning wood, which is largely a polymer of glucose called cellulose, somehow creates more cellulose as it burns. The burning is due to the release of the energy contained in the bonds in the wood as they break down and react with oxygen.
Even if the process DID somehow create some plastic, a given mass of brain tissue would be expected to create predictable amounts of this mystery polymer, giving a background measurement that can be subtracted. Again, though, we know how this all works so it's not really a concern.
Most Popular Polymerization Methods to Form Plastic
AZoMSgarcnl
in reply to SoleInvictus • • •SoleInvictus
in reply to Sgarcnl • • •Girru00
in reply to SoleInvictus • • •superkret
in reply to Sgarcnl • • •StupidBrotherInLaw
in reply to superkret • • •grue
Unknown parent • • •Suite404
Unknown parent • • •Suite404
in reply to markko • • •Suite404
Unknown parent • • •TipsyMcGee
Unknown parent • • •Akasazh
Unknown parent • • •Merlin
Unknown parent • • •peteyestee
in reply to markko • • •lobo
in reply to Jazsta • • •ssillyssadass
in reply to Jazsta • • •ssillyssadass
Unknown parent • • •ssillyssadass
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •nutsack
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •ssillyssadass
in reply to nutsack • • •nutsack
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •Halosheep
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •Think of how many things around you are made of plastic. What about critical pieces of things like airplanes? What would you replace that with to prevent the bacteria from causing damage to them?
I could probably pick a few things on my desk right now that would be much more difficult and much more costly to produce with other materials.
JayleneSlide
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •The medical field would be categorically fuct. Just the loss of sterile packaging would have serious consequences. Minimally invasive surgeries, joint replacements, bandages that don't adhere to wounds, stents...
Then let's consider cordage. Mountain climbing, arborists, rescue teams, sailboats (the most efficient way to cross oceans), ships, construction... the loss of just Dyneema/UHMWPE, which is a relatively new entrant to the cordage field would have seriously negative impacts.
There is a lot of energy bound up in those long molecules, and there are no unexploited niches in balanced ecosystems. There are already bacteria that can consume certain polymers under narrow conditions. Humanity is gonna be so screwed for a long time if bacteria can slip those narrow parameters.
Tryenjer
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •conditional_soup
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •tree_frog
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •There are plastic eating microorganisms, both fungi, and bacteria.
But, they take a long time to break down plastic. I've had a fungus that can digest plastic in a mushroom cultivation bag for nine months and only one specimen has made it through so far.
I imagine splicing the gene that allows for the production of this enzyme into an ocean bound microorganism would clean up a lot of it while not affecting most of our terristrial infrastructure.
Of course, folks put plastic tubing and what not in the ocean too, so I guess we'll all have to die instead.
randint
Unknown parent • • •nutsack
Unknown parent • • •nutsack
Unknown parent • • •Cgers
in reply to nutsack • • •No_Eponym
in reply to Akasazh • • •GoodLuckToFriends
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •ssillyssadass
in reply to GoodLuckToFriends • • •Lesrid
in reply to randint • • •prole
Unknown parent • • •Gloomy
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •Was this writen by AI?
... show moreIsn't that the same information just repeated after each other?
Was this writen by AI?
Isn't that the same information just repeated after each other?
Why does this sound like somebody explaining this to a 10 year old?
REDACTED
in reply to Gloomy • • •Hyphlosion
in reply to REDACTED • • •Known not to repeat itself? You should listen HFY stories.
Just recently listened to one that referred to the gas giant outside several times and the alien chick’s long ears giving away that she’s an alien many times. We get it! Don’t need to introduce her more than once. Jesus.
EDIT: If anyone is interested in the one I was referring to specifically, here you go:
youtu.be/aBH2YdCkhwU
CanadaPlus
in reply to REDACTED • • •REDACTED
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •i.redd.it/9incn595pnvc1.jpeg
This is a fine example of AI not being allowed to commonly re-use words, so it tends to use somewhat less common words
JcbAzPx
in reply to REDACTED • • •Not reusing words isn't the same as not repeating itself. Especially if it's been given a minimum word count, it will often restate the same information in different ways to fill space.
Of course, this can happen with actual writers as well. That's why editors used to exist.
merdaverse
in reply to Gloomy • • •Yes, it is. Probably a few phrases written by a human and then a summary of the article with AI.
gptzero.me/
AI Detector - the Original AI Checker for ChatGPT & More
GPTZeroBlumpkinhead
in reply to Gloomy • • •krystaal
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •GrumpyDuckling
in reply to krystaal • • •Revan343
in reply to krystaal • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to krystaal • • •Plastic also has the benefit that it's really easy to make in whatever shape with injection molding, and is totally permanent, which if you don't care about disposal is great.
Meanwhile, making stuff out of a sheet of paper is a manufacturing challenge that has resulted in creative solutions like corrugation, and the container might seep through or soften or something.
There's a thing called extended producer responsibility which basically is the idea of making disposal not free anymore for the manufacturer.
bearboiblake
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •permenent? can't plastic get melted down and recycled again?
once i put some plastic container in the dishwasher and it got too hot, it kind of melted a bit. it didn't totally melt but the lid doesn't fit anymore.
i dunno if it was injection molded though
CanadaPlus
in reply to bearboiblake • • •Not very well. Those long molecules break down into shorter segments every time they're recycled, which makes for an inferior and eventually useless product. Some plastics are also thermoset and can't ever be melted again, and some are just hard to recycle for other reasons and get picked out and landfilled. The whole idea of plastics recycling is basically greenwashing on a massive scale; the industry put a lot of money into promoting it to avoid scrutiny.
That being said, they're also permanent in the good way. Plastics don't biodegrade or erode. If you bury a plastic pipe in the ground, it may well still be there and intact in a million years. Anything natural will rot long before that, common metals will corrode, and concrete usually has metal rebar inside that pulls it apart as it corrodes. Plastic is also lightweight, which ceramics (stone-like materials) and metals are not, while still being strong under tension like metals.
Sunlight does slowly break down many plastics, but only into ever-smaller particles, which is where the microplastics in OP come from.
bearboiblake
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •oh wow, i didn't realize that, i thought it was infinitely reusable just by melting and re-forming it. thank you really much for the explanation.
what you wrote reminded me of silly putty, it's really stretchy and elastic to start with, but if you play with it for a while, it starts to be less elastic and breaks apart.
does metal also break down? i'm thinking about like aluminium cans that are used for soda and stuff like that
CanadaPlus
in reply to bearboiblake • • •Nope, metals are elements as opposed to molecule compounds and literally can be melted and cast forever. They say most of the gold ever mined is still in use today, so your modern ring might have bits of a ring melted down in ancient Egypt in it. Glass is like this too. Paper is more like plastic, albeit somewhat biodegradable when it eventually has to be thrown out.
In practice, there's still a limit for many metals because they will get contaminated. Copper building up in scrap steel is a problem IIRC. It's not a big issue with aluminum, though, unless you're doing something like building an airplane where you need super high purity. Cans are almost all recycled into more cans.
There are ways to purify a metal melt, but they can be expensive and usually produce waste slag. I've never heard of glass being purified; it's probably too cheap to not just make more of, since it's derived from really common minerals.
bearboiblake
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to bearboiblake • • •bearboiblake
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •Korhaka
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to Korhaka • • •Yep, that'll do it. If you have a pile of scrapped iron things, you have to think it wouldn't be hard to miss something that has a lead battery or weight in it somewhere. Although, I have to wonder why they didn't test that batch before it was sold, if it's for cooking in.
I seem to remember a story about a radiation source for probing gas wells getting into scrap and causing problems. They just look something like a metal cylinder, so would blend in easily with all the other oil and gas errata getting scrapped.
Korhaka
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •The contaminated batch has quite a wide date range too, so presumably people could have been using it for a while.
Not sure how much would end up getting into the food though. Presumably low enough levels that it's unlikely to be much harm but still higher than is ideal.
AnUnusualRelic
in reply to bearboiblake • • •volvoxvsmarla
in reply to krystaal • • •I'm not so sure what cardboard/paper you mean? If you mean something like the paper cups that coffee comes in, they also contain plastic. Dirty paper/cardboard can also not be recycled, so your pizza carton ends up in a landfill or burned. And what do you mean by foil? Genuinely curious.
In my area a lot of takeout places now offer reusable options for a deposit. Usually it is a cardboard with plastic lining container if it is one way. Except the Asian takeout places, they are all over the place from classic black plastic to aluminum containers to styropor to - circling back - the plastic carton stuff.
REDACTED
Unknown parent • • •ssillyssadass
in reply to Jazsta • • •ChexMax
Unknown parent • • •Regular boiling is pretty good! The micrplastics end up sticking to the calcium deposits left behind. Never been so happy for that stupid white buildup in my kettle!
"As reported in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters, boiling and filtering calcium-containing tap water could help remove nearly 90% of the nano- and microplastics present."
acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/20…
Want fewer microplastics in your tap water? Try boiling it first - American Chemical Society
American Chemical SocietySchadrach
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •Quadhammer
Unknown parent • • •Lesrid
Unknown parent • • •You're right, I misremembered It's not just about breaking the seal on the cap, the mere friction of the cap on the bottle adds the bulk of microplastics found within
I was thinking of an article from years ago where they were talking about macro plastics nearly visible to the eye getting into the liquid from breaking the seal. Can't seem to find it now though
Generation of microplastics from the opening and closing of disposable plastic water bottles - PubMed
PubMedTaviRider
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •The original paper about microplastics in the brain seems to have a serious methodological flaw that undermines the conclusion that our brains are swimming in microplastics.
This is from other microplastics researchers. See this article. So before we panic about this, let’s wait for some independent replication and more agreement in the scientific community.
Microplast
... show moreThe original paper about microplastics in the brain seems to have a serious methodological flaw that undermines the conclusion that our brains are swimming in microplastics.
This is from other microplastics researchers. See this article. So before we panic about this, let’s wait for some independent replication and more agreement in the scientific community.
Microplastics are a serious concern, and we need to deal with plastic pollution. Let’s just stick to high quality science while we do that.
» ‘Spoonful of plastics in your brain’ paper has duplicated images
www.thetransmitter.orgKiller_Tree
in reply to TaviRider • • •Hobo
in reply to TaviRider • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •sp3ctr4l
in reply to ChexMax • • •Fuck, that's good news.
Kinda funny that the tried and true 'works good enough' method of boiling water to cleanse it also works for micro plastics.
Rookwood
Unknown parent • • •Rookwood
Unknown parent • • •Shanmugha
in reply to Akasazh • • •Let me share with you unique kind of emotions:)
(I mean this in good faith)
non-native English speakers. It's actually a distinct source of getting astonished: grow up with some English songs around, love them for their melody and whatnot, then learn some English, then actually listen to or read the lyrics, and... oh, damn. So many things come out in totally different light
HellsBelle
in reply to Rookwood • • •pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300…
blazeknave
in reply to Akasazh • • •Akasazh
in reply to blazeknave • • •nutsack
in reply to Cgers • • •reksas
Unknown parent • • •TriflingToad
Unknown parent • • •plastic pilled micro-maxxer
Akasazh
in reply to Shanmugha • • •alanjaow
Unknown parent • • •HasturInYellow
in reply to Suite404 • • •Zacryon
in reply to REDACTED • • •I suppose so. Even though they already melt at typical frying or baking temperatures, they don't evaporate. Even if, the still need to find a way through the food outside and not get trapped inside, where they'll cool down again and therefore return to a solid state.
Take this with a grain of microplastic-free salt, as this is not my field.
Zacryon
in reply to ssillyssadass • • •Zacryon
in reply to lobo • • •markko
in reply to peteyestee • • •markko
in reply to Suite404 • • •Of course, but your chances overall are better today regardless of class/status etc.
Even being the child of royalty had no guarantees.
For example Henry VIII had 13 legitimate children. Only 3 lived past infancy, and 1 of those died age 15.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childr…
ourworldindata.org/life-expect…
Life Expectancy
Our World in DataRizzRustbolt
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •