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What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
51–60 of 341 posts
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a story on HN today about a plastic-eating enzyme: >Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing post-consumer waste plastic at low…
> Maybe one of the human gut bacteria could be modified to also produce this enzyme? Fantastic, now I can not only eat the food, but also the packaging! Can we get one for cellulose too? Then we can eat pizza while it's still in the box.
And for keratin, so nail biting becomes a type of recycling.
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#53The numerous spiders you swallow in your sleep will take care of that.
Then you have to swallow a bird to catch the spider and I’ve heard it doesn’t end well.
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much evolution pressure you must exert onto a living thing for it to start consuming something as complex as plastic. And how many generations past time they are not in the lab anymore they figure out there’s simpler solutions to nutrition, especially in the gut.
There was a story on HN today about a plastic-eating enzyme: >Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing post-consumer waste plastic at low…
We’d have to have a huge array of enzymes to deal with the dizzying array of chemicals we group in under “plastic”.
For example, the linked article specifically targets polyethylene terephthalate which they say is a huge target because it accounts for 12% of all plastic waste.
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#55I was thinking about this tonight on my walk. I've been noticing some funny looks at my mask wearing. I usually walk with my mask on. I have done this way before Covid. I used to wear it for allergies. My allergies just felt better when I wore a mask. Tonight I could smell burn't tires on my walk. A older guy happened to be doing a burn out in his Tesla. Yea--I know, not the typical burnout guy. A few Japanese beers…
Mask-wearing is like foot-binding and leeching.
Pathological and perverse, perhaps. But also totally cool and in agreement with the experts.
It's a window into our psychology. Anthropologists of the future will reap much research papers.
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#56This article conflates particles of any size, and often does not even mention sizes, e.g., '28 particles' in a serving of beer? That is imprecise (doesn't mention size) and wrong: probably way to little, as nano particles are used in filtering (clarifying) beer. The articles also doesn't really tell me how to avoid all that plastic. If 40 percent of human diet contains plastic, then there's hope, so which 60 percent…
> but what elephant do I miss? Probably the plastic that was in those tomatoes to start with. I doubt there's a practical way to avoid it, it's probably fairly random depending on where the food is from. Especially if I recall right it's often found in the water supply which you then drink directly or is used to water plants which you then eat.
Plants are reasonably good at filtering the water they ingest through their roots, if they weren't your tomatoes would be full of sand and mud (clay).
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#57Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#58Quoted post unavailable.
There is this 'caps lock' key on your keyboard, please press it, once.
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#59The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942... The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic cons…
I can't take anyone seriously who publishes a pie-chart like this: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03043894203199...
Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
certain groups (nurses, doctors or certain workers) have to wear a masks all of the time for years. It would have definitely been noticed if it would cause such effects...the control group exists, just compare it to the rest. It would have been obvious.
But those groups are particular ones that are also exposed to other environments that affect health so any discrepancy will be hard to attribute. Also, doctors did not wear masks to the extend we did during Corona. They'd only wear them during some surgery, not the whole day including even outside.
Indeed. Nor were they wearing the same one again and again for months on end, and stuffing it in their jeans pocket in between.