251–260 of 403 posts
I think micro-plastics and "forever" chemicals will be our generation's asbestos/cigarettes controversy.
And Long COVID is shaping up to be our generation’s HIV/AIDS. History rhymes because people don’t ever learn. We deal with one problem or crisis at a time, instead of generalizing what was learned in order to help future generations avoid the same mistakes.
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Obesity is caused in part by environmental toxins, probably to different extents in different people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm... https://www.webmd.com/obesity/what-to-know-obesogens These so called "obesogens" just increase the propensity towards obesity and depending on exposure and your sensitivity to then, you can overcome them or not via exercise and dieting and other means.
Obesity is caused by eating too much. If you don’t eat then you won’t gain weight, there is no subverting the laws of thermodynamics. It sounds callous but if you go to Africa or visit a prisoner of war camp you won’t find many fat people and so blaming chemicals in America for so many fat people doesn’t make much sense to me.
in this case, fluorescent polystyrene particles
Did they neglect any effects of the fluorescent dye instead?
The fact that plastics are everywhere, and we have been exposed to them for several generations, should be seen as evidence of their harmlessness; we would've seen many obvious effects if they weren't. I see this as very similar to the sometimes argued link between cellphone radiation (or RF in general) and cancer.
This is simply more fearmongering from those who stand the most to profit from it...
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Citation needed. These comments read like Reddit/TikTok. Lots of frantic fearful hand waving, not a lot of evidence presented.
I don't understand this perspective, the need to wait for mountains of published evidence that something is "bad", or "bad enough" to do something about it. Plastic is toxic, we all know this. It's everywhere, it's in the food and in the water. In reality it's the "Citation needed" reflex that's the reddit-tier reaction to stuff like this, because it pretends that humans can't or shouldn't make decisions unless we al…
There are thousands of plastics, and a blanket statement like this is simply false. We should be working to figure out which plastics are toxic, and why. You're essentially looking at lead and coming to the conclusion that "Metal is toxic, we all know this."
This article cites synthetic rubber from tires as a potential source of micro plastics. Are there any studies that show how much people are exposed to?
Comparisons between rubber from bikes, motorcycles, and different classes of motor vehicles (sedans/cars, trucks, heavy duty trucks or machinery, and even the subclass of EVs).
Even more of a reason to get away from car centric transportation if the levels are several orders of magnitude difference.
I'm still shocked that there hasn't been more of a regulatory push to eliminate single-use plastics. In the US the closest we've gotten is banning plastic straws and charging for plastic carry bags. Everything I've read about plastic recycling points to it being ineffective and requiring massive amounts of fossil fuel to move the waste around the globe, often with much of it just getting burned or dumped into the env…
The problem of replacing plastic in food is the cost. If you use glass or steel or aluminum, you need new logistics to reuse them. Also, glass is heavier, and requires a lot of energy to be made, so it would require a production chain that ships back empty containers. The best silver bullet solution would be to have local canteen, a bit like in the army or at school, where you just get a subscription with a calendar…
The vast majority of people don’t want to choose your wet dream when they have the choice between their own private house versus a local canteen on a schedule. Nobody likes other people so much that they’d choose to be stuck in a school cafeteria environment for their food or their children’s food forever. Life is not perpetual kindergarten where everyone’s together all the time. Life is competition and mutually-beneficial cooperation in some things, and friends are made on the basis of mutual desire. Not forced socialization and collectives. What you are proposing results in mass starvation when the systems of incentives and motivations collapse.
More local farms and more vertical farms and more greenhouses and more victory gardens are the best path. I leave it to families and individuals to choose what options they want and to buy food whenever they want. With more production, all the options will get cheaper as we flood the world with more fresh produce from better and more localized supply chains owing to incoming innovations in vertical and greenhouse farming. Not interested in going back to top-down control structures from the 1900s.
What’s next? Restricting the caloric intake of political pariahs? Restricting the options available at the local canteen to give the best options to the friends of the party and everyone in charge? Lol
anyway, how is it crossing the blood brain barrier? dubious.
lots of things can cause change in behaviour through inflammation. cows milk for example. the solution to this and microplastics and a huge number of diseases will be gaining control of inflammation and metabolism. at the moment we dont even understand how they work.
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Would you expect that in glass bottles too? Is it just in the water supply?
I'm not sure but maybe to some degree? I have seen that recommended but I find it hard to believe the contamination source is the bottle itself. I figured it was from water source that was more concentrated with microplastic pollution. Which I assume happens more from plastics degrading in the environment over a long time, not simply water touching it in a controlled environment for a few months.
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The problem of replacing plastic in food is the cost. If you use glass or steel or aluminum, you need new logistics to reuse them. Also, glass is heavier, and requires a lot of energy to be made, so it would require a production chain that ships back empty containers. The best silver bullet solution would be to have local canteen, a bit like in the army or at school, where you just get a subscription with a calendar…
This is how they do it in Germany. Most working Germans I know of eat at the work canteen and have a small bread meal at home in the evening Weird that you're getting downvoted for this. HN is on a weird one recently
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Obesity itself is oestrogenic. It's the calories, stupid!
I used to think this, that the obesity thing was just a function of an increase in calorie consumption and a drop off in physical activity. I just can't take this view seriously anymore. When you look around today, there are body types that never existed prior to the 1970s - at least at any kind of scale. Comparing pictures of family gatherings from the 1950s through the 1970s, and then to the 1990s and beyond and th…
Being a cop is a very sedentary position in most of America. Unless you are a city cop out walking around you are probably in your car most of the day.