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What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

nautil.us

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Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#141

Post by escalt »

mr-wendel wrote: post #72
pcthrowaway wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

My concern is with all the infants. Being able to gawk out and stare at all the many faces you see, and how they respond to you has got to be foundational to your discovery of the world. If had to place a bet on a major "net negative" I'm going all in on this. I have one friend who absolutely swears that "covid babies" are a thing, and that you can spot them from across the room. I haven't yet figured out what that m…

Every baby right now is a "covid baby", so of course they're easy to spot

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#142

Post by zamfi »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #122
barbegal wrote: post #11

The 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…

What’s worrying about this is that we’re about 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, and is also affecting lab animals fed controlled diets. It would be fascinating if this was all correlated with a common environmental contaminant, and the increasing use of various plastics could line up well.

You may find this exposition interesting: http://achemicalhunger.com/

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#143

Post by pixl97 »

zerop wrote: post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

#1 on the list would be the coca cola corporation. They fight anything that would reduce plastic waste viciously.

#2 on the list is everybody else. Once you start looking at what is made out of plastics you'll realise the modern world is completely dependant on it. The use of plastics on food and medical devices dramatically reduces bacterial contaminantes saving millions of people a year from sickness. It's used on structural components of all kinds of device to reduce weight, thereby decreasing energy usage. It is a very difficult problem to solve.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#144

Post by simondw »

ejb999 wrote: post #62
goodpoint wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out masks are not made of asbestos. Unsurprisingly, masks safety and effectiveness has been studied extremely extensively.

>>Turns out masks are not made of asbestos. Neither are cigarettes, but getting enough cigarette smoke in your lung does causes cancer.

It also turns out masks are not made of burning cigarettes. How many more of these do we have to do?

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#145

Post by zamfi »

trzy wrote: post #116
slim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that pie chart to the left is not poor design choice. it demonstrates actual incompetency.

Why? The labels are given in absolute units but they are correct.

The issue is that the pie chart included a slice for the total and then two slices for each of the two components that sum to the total.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#146

Post by [deleted] »

danShumway wrote: post #97

In a slightly different direction than consumption, if you're worried about inhaling plastic particles: I haven't personally gotten the equipment to do actual measurements yet, but I keep pet rats and they have pretty fragile respiratory systems, and anecdotally when I put together a Corsi Rosenthal Box[0] and stuck it next to their cage their allergies/sneezing pretty much entirely vanished. I still need to get air…

[deleted]

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#147

Post by mdavis6890 »

zerop wrote: post #111

If we all are against usage of plastic, what stops us from eliminating it completely around us.

Nothing really, except our preferences. We could ban all plastics tomorrow in the US, if we wanted to. But I don’t think we’d be happy with the quality of life trade-offs.

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#149

Post by rgrieselhuber »

barbegal wrote: post #11

The 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…

Eating a credit card full of plastic per year sounds totally natural. Nothing to worry about!

Re: What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health?

#150

Post by PhoenixDavidson »

Relevant: https://www.gq.com/story/how-testosterone-therapies-are-tran...

"While Devgon was wondering what was wrong, he started reading about the increasingly prominent theory that toxins in pesticides and plastics are throwing off men’s endocrine systems—and he started to wonder about his own testosterone levels."

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31435864

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