231–240 of 282 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
'I disagree, therefore I am an expert in skepticism.' The sword cuts both ways.
No it doesn’t. What you’re describing is an oxymoron.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem isn't just the plastics themselves. Plastics are chemical "sponges" that will soak up pollutants over time from the environment (brominated fire retardants, bisphenols, PBCs, pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals, etc) and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body. Even if plastics of all sizes are 100% biologically inert, they're still a Trojan Horse for other toxins. https://www.sciencedirect.com…
>Roughly 50% of indoor dust is composed of microplastics, so it's not like it's uncommon. I highly doubt that. Soil, skin and pollen are usually the big ones. Hairs depending one how you count dust, but eliminating hair like fibres would also eliminate most of the sources of plastic, unless you allow really large particle sizes. [edit] Checking research. The highest claim I found was 39% of fibres (in household dust,…
It was just an aside anyway. My main point is that MPs are vehicles for toxins, which addresses the original question about how (supposedly inert) microplastics can cause harm.
Thanks again for setting me straight, I must have misremembered.
The various "OMG MICROPLASTICS" studies always smacked of alarmism. No one has actually identified tangible harms from microplastics; it's just taken as a given that they are bad. So this fueled a bunch of studies that tried to find them everywhere. Even the authors of this study go to great pains to not challenge the dogma that microplastics are existentially terrifying. So I fully expect we'll still be panicking ov…
Off the top of my head, wouldn't it be super easy to expose lab rats to microplastics and measure results? No way this isn't heavily studies by now. Edit: found a whole meta-study in like 30 seconds of searching: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/...
> Micro/nano-plastics negatively affected the blood glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, and reproductive function in mice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. You can dry your hands on a towel in seconds. I don't know what you mean by "perfectly dry"...? Like, nobody needs to blow-dry their hands before putting gloves on or anything.
I do a medical procedure several times a week that requires gloves. If you don't flap your hands around for 30+ seconds, any remaining moisture from handwashing (or sweat) makes them stick to your skin and you wind up fighting them (and about half the time, ripping a hole). A towel is not enough.
I'm not doubting your personal experience. I'm just saying it's in no way a universal rule. I'm sure experiences will be different depending on glove material, glove size, and just the different shapes of different people's hands.
But for me and for plenty of people I've worked with earlier in my life, swapping gloves was way faster and easier than washing hands again. Plus, washing your hands like 40 times in a shift is going to dry them out. It's not great.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is true that there is not currently conclusive proof that micro plastics are a significant risk to human health. However, this is the same line the tobacco industry used for decades even though they knew different.
Is there any specific evidence that they are a risk to human health? I mean, I get the instinct that foreign-entity can't exactly be good for me , but the same instinct applied to GMOs, and as far as I know organic foods have never yielded any sort of statistically visible health impacts. Plastics earn their keep in general by being non-reactive and 'durable', so it's not entirely shocking if they can pass through (o…
Plastics are chemical "sponges" that will soak up pollutants over time from the environment (brominated fire retardants, bisphenols, PBCs, pesticides, phthalates, heavy metals, etc) and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942...
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Verla-Wirnkor-2/publica...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Luckily HN software developers, the foremost authority on literally every subject imaginable, are here to bless the world with their insights.
You joke, but given that SWE/AI researchers literally invented AI that does everything else for them and is often super-human at intelligence across most things, I would unironically prefer the opinion of the creator of such a system over most others for most things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Food safety regulations in most states require that food workers replace gloves if they handle raw meat and switch to other foodstuffs. But they don't generally require them to replace gloves between batches of (the same kind of) meat, or between different kinds of vegetables, or when switching from vegetables to meat, or between customers if they're on a service line. While it's recommended in those situations, I'm…
I mean, they don't require gloves to be replaced in those situations because there isn't a good safety reason to. There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken. Or similarly between customers if you're just handling food, and not a cash register or anything. It's not like you're touching the customers ...
Typo?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, they don't require gloves to be replaced in those situations because there isn't a good safety reason to. There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken. Or similarly between customers if you're just handling food, and not a cash register or anything. It's not like you're touching the customers ...
> There's zero reason to replace your gloves when switching from dicing green peppers for a salad to picking up raw chicken. Typo?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Spiritual equivalent of a life sciences forum discovering memory safety, one person who wrote code for a bit saying they wrote a memory bug in C once, then someone clutching pearls about why programmers irresponsibly write memory unsafe code given it has a global impact. I used to be a code monkey, I wrote systems software at megacorps, and still can't understand why so many programmers irresponsibly write memory u…
That's the analogy working as intended: the answer to "why do programmers still write memory-unsafe code" is the same shape as "why do microplastics researchers still wear gloves." The real answer is boring and full of tradeoffs. The HN thread version skips to indignation: "they never thought of contamination so ipso facto all the research is suspect" (to go a bit further, in case it's confusing: both you and I agree…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what you mean or how it’s related. If the idea is microplastics aren’t actually a problem, I’m totally open to that. But “it’s possible everyone involved is overrating it due to scientists seeing fatty acids or hydrocarbons and calling it plastic” needs a little more than anon assertion :)
PE consists of very long hydrocarbon chains. It can degrade into shorter hydrocarbon chains. Fatty acids also have long hydrocarbon chains. The detection method for microplastics commonly involves pyrolysis, which breaks down polymers into smaller molecules. It's not hard to see that they'll end up looking nearly the same.