Does it have a negative effect on us though?
I mean, assuming I do have a spoon's worth of microplastics in my brain, I don't notice any impairment.
I write JavaScript just fine.
Microplastics in the human brain
71–80 of 219 posts
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#72The only good news here is that it's possible that the body can clear the plastics. This is from the linked study: > While we suspected that MNPs might accumulate in the body over a lifespan, the lack of correlation between total plastics and decedent age (P = 0.87 for brain data) does not support this (Supplementary Fig. 1). However, total mass concentration of plastics in the brains analyzed in this study increased…
My understanding is the best thing you can be doing along with reducing exposure is regular blood donation
Pass the microplastics along to some other sucker, a cunning plan.
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Los Angeles would be very difficult to transition at this point, it’s just too low density. It was better 100 years ago than it is now.
Or Kansas City. Or St. Louis. Or Detroit. Or Chicago, even. Pretty much any major American city is less dense than it was 100 years ago. It was cheaper to build out than it was to build up.
From an infrastructure perspective building out instead of up is incredibly expensive. Not just transport but also water, sewage, electricity and internet.
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#74I like the analogy where other articles have said we have microplastics in our brain about the size of a credit card (which generally weigh between 4g and 10g) better. Saying a “spoon’s worth” seems to be downplaying the unmitigated potential risk. We have no idea what will happen as we (and all the other creatures on earth) keep storing more and more microplastics in our organs. Nobody is going to stop driving. Car…
> Nobody is going to stop driving. Car tires are the largest source of microplastics. many already have, bicycles and public transport ftw
There's realistically fewer than twenty metro areas in the US where the majority of commuters could rely solely on biking and public transit for everything. Twenty might be generous, even.
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#75This paper came up as a pre-print. You can't make the extrapolation that the headline is making - they're using gas chromatography to estimate quantities from 1-2mg samples, and then extrapolating to get to these scary sounding whole-organ estimates. If you look at the paper [1], you'll see that the microplastics in in situ samples are not discernible by light microscopy, and that there was a ~25% variation in within…
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Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#76I like the analogy where other articles have said we have microplastics in our brain about the size of a credit card (which generally weigh between 4g and 10g) better. Saying a “spoon’s worth” seems to be downplaying the unmitigated potential risk. We have no idea what will happen as we (and all the other creatures on earth) keep storing more and more microplastics in our organs. Nobody is going to stop driving. Car…
Not to mention that all spoons are different. I always get confused about “half a spoon”. Is it half of a “pile” or there must be half of its surface visible from above, while the subject matter is flat in the spoon (i.e. the lateral projection shows only the spoon). And should you account for the pile slope in case of bulk materials? And then when you figure that out, your spoon may be anywhere 0.5-1.5x in size/depth than someone else’s. It may be literally 3x times more or less. But even that is still less inexact than measurement extrapolation methods that the article uses, according to the top commenter.
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#77I like the analogy where other articles have said we have microplastics in our brain about the size of a credit card (which generally weigh between 4g and 10g) better. Saying a “spoon’s worth” seems to be downplaying the unmitigated potential risk. We have no idea what will happen as we (and all the other creatures on earth) keep storing more and more microplastics in our organs. Nobody is going to stop driving. Car…
> Nobody is going to stop driving. Car tires are the largest source of microplastics. many already have, bicycles and public transport ftw
still rubber so still microplastics?
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#78This paper came up as a pre-print. You can't make the extrapolation that the headline is making - they're using gas chromatography to estimate quantities from 1-2mg samples, and then extrapolating to get to these scary sounding whole-organ estimates. If you look at the paper [1], you'll see that the microplastics in in situ samples are not discernible by light microscopy, and that there was a ~25% variation in within…
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Obviously parent post is not making the point you're trying to argue, only making the point that the measurement is flawed. If you are going to address their argument do it in good faith and address the strongest point. This isn't reddit
Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#79This paper came up as a pre-print. You can't make the extrapolation that the headline is making - they're using gas chromatography to estimate quantities from 1-2mg samples, and then extrapolating to get to these scary sounding whole-organ estimates. If you look at the paper [1], you'll see that the microplastics in in situ samples are not discernible by light microscopy, and that there was a ~25% variation in within…
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Re: Microplastics in the human brain
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
And we need more lightweight cars , not heavier, since tire wear is proportional to vehicle weight to the fourth power. Ironically, CAFE regulations and EV incentives both did the opposite
EV/hybrid only "zones" in Europe are crazy to me because the electric cars leech more tire carbon into the air anyway. Some regulation seems intelligent on the surface, but the devil is in the details.
EV/hybrids also have regenerative brakes so emit less brake dust. Between emissions, tires, and brakes I'd be curious to see how it balances out.
But really cycling and transit are the way to go to make cities more liveable. Personal cars take too much space in a city and ruin the built environment for everyone not in one.