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Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

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Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#21

Post by codebje »

gww wrote: post #19
throwup238 wrote: post #9

Called it! > To be honest, after reading some of these microplastics papers I'm starting to suspect most of them are bullshit. Plastics are everywhere in a modern lab and rarely do these papers have proper controls, which I suspect would show that there is a baseline level of microplastic contamination in labs that is unavoidable. Petri dishes, pipettes, microplates, EVERYTHING is plastic, packaged in plastic, and cl…

I haven't really read the studies but shouldn't they have negative controls to negate these effects? Wouldn't that let the author's correct for a baseline contamination level in the lab?

On the one hand, hundreds or perhaps thousands of studies might be wrong. On the other hand, this one might be wrong. Who's to say?

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#22

Post by xienze »

darkerside wrote: post #5

So the problem is these particles are literally flying off the gloves of the scientists wearing them to the point it's interfering with the experiment and so... it's less of a problem?

Yes? Most people don’t live their entire lives in a lab wearing nitrile gloves, so there’s an argument to be made that the concentration of microplastics found in that setting is not reflective of everyday life.

So, not that microplastics don’t exist, but that they don’t exist to the same degree as in a lab environment.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#23

Post by vlz »

thebruce87m wrote: post #8
giantg2 wrote: post #2

Classic. This is like that female serial killer in Europe that turned out to actually just be DNA from a woman making the DNA collection swabs.

I thought that exact thing and opened the comments to see you’d already commented with it. There is a “case files” podcast on it that I found quite good.

This seems to be the Casefile episode about the "Phantom of Heilbronn"

https://casefilepodcast.com/case-178-the-woman-without-a-fac...

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#25

Post by inglor_cz »

While we are used to associate "the observer effect" with particle physics, it can appear in biology and/or chemistry as well.

Keeping things meticulously clean on the microscopic level is a complicated task. One of the many reasons why so few EUV chip fabs even exist.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#27

Post by jofer »

darkerside wrote: post #5

So the problem is these particles are literally flying off the gloves of the scientists wearing them to the point it's interfering with the experiment and so... it's less of a problem?

It's not microplastics coming from the gloves. It's particles of the powder used to coat the gloves and keep them from sticking. Different composition, but similar and easily mistaken.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#28

Post by Dilettante_ »

harladsinsteden wrote: post #18
globemaster99 wrote: post #14

Carl Sagan was right all along. Always question science, never trust these so called experts, do your own assessment, research and thinking. This must be another global climate change scam.

> Do your own assessment. Yeah, and my primitive home-grown analysis then carries the same weight as those from experts with professional equipment? Oh come on...

Doesn't have to be one or the other. Trust, but verify? Experts make mistakes, professional equipment can be mishandled. Don't take anybodies word, look at the evidence for yourself.

This is a very scientific way of thinking. It's only gotten a bad rap on account of people using it to attack others' research and then(crucially) failing to perform their own.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#29

Post by XorNot »

darkerside wrote: post #5

So the problem is these particles are literally flying off the gloves of the scientists wearing them to the point it's interfering with the experiment and so... it's less of a problem?

If you read the article you'd find that what they are finding are not microplastics - they're stearates[1]

These are soap-like chemicals used as mould release agents on gloves, but what also means are chemically similar to plastics when analyzed by some techniques and under a microscope will spontaneously form micelle-structures which look very similar to microplastics (you can't exactly get in there and poke them).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearic_acid

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#30

Post by MagicMoonlight »

giantg2 wrote: post #2

Classic. This is like that female serial killer in Europe that turned out to actually just be DNA from a woman making the DNA collection swabs.

That’s why you’re supposed to submit an unused swab with the samples, so that they can make sure the swab itself isn’t the source.
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