Scientists issue dire warning: Microplastic accumulation in human brains escalating
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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 is generally cheaper; for a while there was a misguided push against using paper/cardboard because sAvE tHe TrEeS
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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:
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Honestly, I'm not saying that you're lying but that's very hard to accept as truth. Would you have a good source for learning about all this?
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
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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
Thanks that's very useful and good to know.
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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.
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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.
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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
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.
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I am longing for plastic-eating bacteria to be released into the wild. There are other materials we can use.
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.
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So is it possible the blood-brain barrier is designed to trap nanoparticles? They do exist in nature.
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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.
i dunno if it was injection molded though
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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."
https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2024/february/want-fewer-microplastics-in-your-tap-water.html#:~:text=As reported in ACS'%20Environmental,the%20nano%2D%20and%20microplastics%20present.
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.
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You have to remember that plastic containers aren't washed before they are filled with product. That's often where much of the micro/nano plastics come from.
Do you have a source on that? I find it hard to believe we put water into unsanitized bottles.
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PVC fell out of use in the 2000s, most buildings use PEX now; but I don't know how that compares.
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.
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On the contrary, who didn't?
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
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Do you have a source on that? I find it hard to believe we put water into unsanitized bottles.
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.
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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
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.
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On the contrary, who didn't?
Were the Nazi rumors about them widespread back then?
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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
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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.
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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
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.
