Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Monday January 13 2020, @04:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the I've-got-you-under-my-skin dept.

Microplastics are Everywhere, but Their Health Effects on Humans are Still Unclear:

Plastic pollution is getting under our skin. Literally. As plastics have become ubiquitous in modern society, so too has plastic pollution, including that of tiny plastic particles. These microplastics have been detected in the air, water and even in some foods, making their presence in our bodies essentially inevitable.

"We definitely know we're exposed, there's no doubt," says Chelsea Rochman, an ecologist at the University of Toronto in Canada, who studies human-made pollutants in fresh and saltwater environments. "We drink it, we breathe it, we eat it.

How pervasive is that plastic exposure, and is it bad for your health? Scientists don't yet know, but they have some working theories. Here's what we know so far about these tiny, pervasive plastic particles.

Once it enters the environment, the plastic we throw away breaks down in the sun, waves and wind into much smaller pieces. We also producetiny plastic fibers and particles when we wash clothes, drive our cars, wear down carpets and upholstered furniture and more. Microplastics are any smaller than a quarter inch, often defined as a millimeter or smaller; nanoplastics are even more miniscule, measuring less than 0.1 micrometers (a micrometer is 1,000 times smaller than a millimeter).

The biggest sources of human exposure to microplastics likely come fromairborne dust,drinking water (including treated tap water and bottled water) andseafood (shellfish in particular, because we eat the entire animal), Rochman says. Scientists have also detected microplastics in products as varied as sugar, honey, German beer and sea salt. Emerging research suggests humans are consuming more than 100,000 microplastic particles a year, according to Kieran Cox, a Ph.D candidate and Hakai Scholar at the University of Victoria, Canada.

"Microplastics are now considered an emerging food safety concern, but we really don't have all the answers yet," says Dave Love, a microbiologist at Johns Hopkins who studies aquaculture, fisheries and related environmental, health and social issues.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday January 13 2020, @07:50AM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 13 2020, @07:50AM (#942666) Journal

    False equivalency detected - try again.

    Pollen grain walls persist in the environment for hundreds of millions of years. Literally.

    Silicon dioxide persists even longer than that. Most of the time, it doesn't do any harm, except when inhaled under the "fine dust" form [wikipedia.org] - and it's advisable that you protect with a respirator mask if you know you are going to be exposed to it.

    Also, fresh pollen is known for a long time as potentially fatal and those sensible to it need to take precaution in order to survive.

    That's unlike microplastics, about which TFA says we don't know yet if some/all would need to take precautions when it comes to them - this seems to be a thing for which elevated concentrations is recent enough, and thus we don't know yet the impact on heath.

    ----

    Besides, in regarding sporopollenin specifically, a correction is needed: "persist may persist".
    From the linked with my emphasis:

    If the conditions are suitable the sporopollenin-impregnated walls of pollen grains and spores can persist in the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years, since sporopollenin is resistant to chemical degradation by organic and inorganic chemicals.

    If the conditions are suitable, full skeletons of dinosaurs can persist as fossils. But we already know that, in that form, they are no longer lethal. Not the same with plastics/microplastics.

    In 2019, researchers at MIT determined via thioacidolysis degradation and solid-state NMR the molecular structure of pine sporopollenin, finding it primarily composed of polyvinyl alcohol units alongside other aliphatic monomers, all crosslinked through a series of acetal linkages.

    Ah, so sporopollenin isn't indestructible? Let's see, besides pure physical processes, who may actually degrade it.
    So, among others, thioacidolysis is used in de-polymerizing ligning [file]. Guess what some members of other genus/species are able to do the same (thus likely to degrade sporopollenin too)?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Informative=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @10:54AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @10:54AM (#942688)

    except when inhaled

    Who was talking about inhalation? No one but you. Certainly not the FUD piece with the "Scientists have also detected microplastics in products as varied as sugar, honey, German beer and sea salt. Emerging research suggests humans are consuming more than 100,000 microplastic particles a year," in it. So why the blabbing?

    which TFA says we don't know yet if some/all would need to take precautions when

    Which is a really convoluted way to weasel out of telling the fact that at the moment we know we do not.
    A purely imaginary "danger" for which no one yet managed to create any proof of despite a decade (or more?) spent trying. Only ridiculously high dosages do have any observable effect - ones thousands times higher than what the FUD piece is screaming about, all stuffed into one tiny mouse; and moreover, even in those unfortunate victims of scientific cruelty the concentrations plateaued while still being fed more of it, and went down once the feeding stopped. I.e. a natural mechanism for removing polymer microparticles observably does exist in mammals; would be surprising were it otherwise, given the plethora of hard biopolymers found in nature.

    via thioacidolysis degradation

    This is priceless. I dare you implement this process within your body.
    "Thioacidolysis, that is, solvolysis in dioxane-ethanethiol with boron trifluoride etherate,
    You hadn't even tried to imitate parsing the text, did you?
    By the way, there are well-known natural degradation mechanisms for every common plastic in existence. Does not stop FUD mongers from pretending that plastics "do not degrade in nature", now does it?

    The part about determining the structure of sporopollenin should be of interest to you for a different reason; specifically, this: "This discovery ... laying the foundation ... for the design of new biomimetic polymers with desirable inert properties."
    When they do produce those nature-inspired polyvinyl plastics, I wonder what contorted FUD will have to be invented against that? *LOL*

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday January 13 2020, @01:38PM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 13 2020, @01:38PM (#942710) Journal

      except when inhaled

      Who was talking about inhalation? No one but you. Certainly not the FUD piece with the "Scientists have also detected microplastics in products as varied as sugar, honey, German beer and sea salt. Emerging research suggests humans are consuming more than 100,000 microplastic particles a year," in it. So why the blabbing?

      An example of contact with substance that we know is dangerous only on a certain way of contact.
      Back to you to demonstrate you equivalency is good. Come on, you only need to demonstrate 3 points:
      1. sporopollein is as ubiquitous as microplastics and can be found "in products as varied as sugar, honey, German beer and sea salt."
      2. sporopollein is innocuous on any and all ways of administration
      3. all microplastics are as innocuous as sporopollein
      Based on your dismissive attitude, it should be easy-peasy-I-can solve-it-in-my-sleep kinda demonstration, right?

      A purely imaginary "danger" for which no one yet managed to create any proof of despite a decade (or more?) spent trying.

      [Citation needed].
      I imagine a decade (or more?) should have resulted in a large number of FA in science periodics, so it shouldn't be hard for you to support your claim.

      via thioacidolysis degradation

      This is priceless. I dare you implement this process within your body.

      I don't need to, many species of mushrooms are already able to degrade lignin, in a way that human managed to do it via thioacidolysis degradation
      Ergo, it is likely that there exist species of mushrooms or molds able to degrade sporopollenin, using pathways that G.Shaw (the author cited by Wikipedia in your link) didn't try. He can assert "I couldn't find ways to degrade sporopollenin after trying these methods", but not "sporopollenin is absolutely impervious to biodegradation" (absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence)

      BTW, those researchers at MIT didn't try too hard to degrade sporopollein or they just needed a quick way to do it. Because, otherwise, sporopollein capsules were found to degrade in various degrees in conditions similar with human digestive tract [nature.com]

      Currently only one bacterium species able to eat PET (and PET only) [sciencemag.org] is known to exists and it needs cultivation conditions to do it efficiently [theconversation.com].

      ---

      And last; "demagogy" - I don't think it means what you think it means.
      Specifically, I deny my post was trying to lead people [merriam-webster.com] or engage in politics based on popular prejudices [merriam-webster.com] to gain power

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:29PM (#943125)

        You could not ask a search engine of "plastic eating bacteria" and notice at the very least this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria [wikipedia.org]
        Forgive my not buying your bullshit.

        The "needing proof" of sporopollenin presence in mead of all things, do you really pretend to not know what bee is and what they do?

        Specifically, I deny my post was trying to lead people or engage in politics based on popular prejudices

        Case in point.
        https://www.dictionary.com/browse/demagoguery [dictionary.com]
        If your trying to MISlead people by twisting words and wilfully ignoring facts are not "the methods or practices of a demagogue", it means you profess to believe the poor politicians do self-limit themselves out of those tools of trade. Which is demonstrably false.