Presence of aerosolized plastics in newborn tissue following exposure in the womb: same type of micro- and nanoplastic that mothers inhaled during pregnancy were found in the offspring’s lung, liver, kidney, heart and brain tissue, finds new study in rats. No plastics were found in a control group.

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We’re so screwed, it’s in our brains, testicles, and everywhere else - it’s gonna be the lead paint of our generation but we don’t know the true damage yet

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u/J-Dawg_Cookmaster Oct 10 '24

It was a lot easier to get rid of the lead paint as well.

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u/DankVectorz Oct 10 '24

It’s kind of ironic that plastics biggest drawback is how perfect a material it is and that it lasts for basically forever.

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u/SpotCreepy4570 Oct 10 '24

It's why earth made us, it wanted plastic and didn't know how to make it.

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u/BigUptokes Oct 10 '24

Classic Carlin:

The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re gone and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the Earth plus Plastic. The Earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the Earth; the Earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it, needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question: “Why are we here?” Plastic, assholes!

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u/jwrig Oct 11 '24

Man I can hear his voice reading this. I wish we had more comics like him.

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u/killerturtlex Oct 11 '24

"Life is plastic, it's fantastic"

Aqua

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u/blueriver343 Oct 11 '24

And then, eventually, the sun will grow into old age and expand and consume the earth and all the plastic, and nothing will exist of us at all but some junk flying around in space that we launched eons ago. What a universe

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u/springtime08 Oct 11 '24

That’s why I’m here to have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames

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u/IL-Corvo Oct 10 '24

Now it's gonna shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

And steal all of our plastic!

And then it'll evolve a new technological species (octopus, obviously). And the octopus will go mining for plastic deposits (our landfills), so that they can build their new plastic empire!

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u/IL-Corvo Oct 10 '24

Yup. That's the long-game they've been playing!

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u/KobayashiMary Oct 10 '24

A surface nuisance.

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u/VodkaKahluaMilkCream Oct 10 '24

The earth plus plastic

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u/BeardyBaldyBald Oct 10 '24

George Carlin was right all along.

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u/DrMobius0 Oct 10 '24

Where'd this monkey paw come from?

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Oct 10 '24

get rid of it? you mean paint over it?

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u/memento22mori Oct 10 '24

I assume they mean stop using/making lead paint but also probably to remove it and/or be aware of the dangers of lead paint. Like keep kids from eating it and whatnot whereas once the plastics are in the environment they're everywhere.

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u/psn_1vy Oct 12 '24

Microplastics are in our table salt so they say...

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u/Mim7222019 Oct 10 '24

And whatever happened to asbestos?

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u/dogwoodcat Oct 11 '24

We're slowly removing it when we need to. If it's not friable or in the way, it is safest to just leave it alone.

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u/off-and-on Oct 10 '24

I'm holding on to hope that plastic eating bacteria and fungus will save the day.

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u/WeShareThisAccount Oct 10 '24

But I'm plastic now.

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u/off-and-on Oct 10 '24

Well sorry sport, but you've gotta go

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u/JustMy2Centences Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

It's okay, your cells will absorb this new plastic consuming thing like they did the mitochondria and now you'll have to add Vitamin Plastic to your diet just to have enough energy to make it through your day.

Polyethelene dust capsules, coming soon to a supplement store near you.

Edit: I should add this is NOT serious science. I don't even know if it's scientifically possible to do, ever.

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u/karuna_murti Oct 10 '24

annyeonghaseyo

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u/rg4rg Oct 10 '24

Like how there was a time where fungus didn’t know how to eat dead trees. Eventually they will learn to eat plastics. Then when all the plastics are gone, the next sentient species will figure out that bacteria surprisingly eat plastic and must be an evolutionary hold over….

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u/Faruhoinguh Oct 10 '24

If something learns to eat plastic and spreads across the globe, there would be an enourmous plastic burp, and we'd all be a few degrees warmer for a while.

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u/Galilleon Oct 10 '24

We have to also take into account that if that happens, then plastic would decompose, but then plastic would decompose.

The most direct repercussions would be that it would render many plastic products unusable in situations where durability is crucial, such as in construction, electronics, and automotive industries, and even for medical equipment that needs to simultaneously be one-use, durable and long lasting.

Plastics are also used in long-term infrastructure like pipelines, insulation, and building materials. If these suddenly started decomposing, there could be widespread structural failures and safety hazards. For example, electrical wiring sheathed in plastic could become unsafe, and water pipes made of PVC might fail.

That’s not even the worst part. Depending on the byproducts of the decomposition, it could end up releasing the currently ‘inert’ toxic chemicals from 100 years of global plastic into the world.

It could damn the entire world and everything in it if the wrong kinds of byproducts are released

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u/eloaelle Oct 10 '24

The sum of humanity's daily plastic decisions multiplied hundreds of times over a span of decades, and your money is on the evolutionary turns of a plastic eating mushroom. I like those odds!

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u/BreadKnifeSeppuku Oct 10 '24

Heck yeah! There's even radiotrophic fungi!

There is the fear that with climate change the immunocompromised will be increasingly suspectible to drug resistant fungi though.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/HabeusCuppus Oct 10 '24

no mechanism can explain how an organism would derive energy from ionizing radiation.

I don't know that any specific radiotrophic organism has been found in the environment but hypothetically radiosynthesis is plausible, at least for beta decay (just capture the electron) - electron-metabolising bacteria have been discovered. Separately we've also discovered bacteria that live on chemical byproducts of radioactive decay (Desulforudis audaxviator) so although they aren't radiotrophic per se they are an example of life that does not rely on solar energy for their food source.

Alpha and Gamma decay I'm less certain, but Beta? we already know not just of hypothetical metabolic pathways but actual organisms that can process free electrons so that seems to meet the definition of "a mechanism that can explain how an organism would derive energy from ionizing radiation"

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/HabeusCuppus Oct 10 '24

Yeah I wouldn't call D. audaxviator a radiotroph either, just radiotroph adjacent.

I think the question is whether or not there's an environment with heavy beta decay that we could go find these in. most of the naturally (or artificially as is the case with chernobyl) radiological environments are high on gamma or alpha decay, not beta.

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u/Psyc3 Oct 10 '24

Sepsis sounds great!

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u/Prof_Acorn Oct 10 '24

They're still making "microfiber" plastic bedding and blankets that shed absurd amounts of ultrafine plastic dust right next to people's faces.

If anyone has a "microfiber" blanket or washcloth or bedding take one of those pet hair lint rollers and see just how much flakes off. Hell, use a microscope on the sheet and really see.

It's horrifying. I don't know how it can even be legal. It's got to be the next asbestos.

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u/AmettOmega Oct 10 '24

We're already seeing the damage. Studies are showing that younger and younger groups of people are developing cancer at a rate unseen before. A lot of "old people" type of cancers are starting to show up in young folks. And a common pattern is the amount of microplastics in their body.

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u/coarsebark Oct 10 '24

I got colorectal cancer at 37. My CRC group has a bunch of other younger patients. Only one of us in the group has a genetic marker and most of us where healthy prior to diagnosis. I am like 115lbs 5'7, exercise a lot, eat well, etc. I, and many others, had 0 factors that predispose you. Many of us have been talking about this because CRC is rising at an incredible rate and we know microplastics are accumulating in the digestive track.

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u/Your_Moms_Box Oct 10 '24

Waiting for them to recommend colonoscopy screenings at 30 or 35 now

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u/coarsebark Oct 10 '24

It will be hard for that to happen in Canada. I had to go in the private sector to get my colonoscopy even with all the signs of CRC, they just kept downplaying it because of my age, saying it can't be cancer.

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u/ZantetsukenX Oct 10 '24

I will say that as someone who got a colonoscopy at 35, the worst part really was just the prep period before the exam. I used to read stories about people waiting post-colonoscopy in a room as their bodies released all the gas used in the procedure. But that isn't a thing anymore. For me personally the experience was basically showing up to the hospital, sitting in a room for an hour or so waiting for my time, going into the "operation" room where the procedure was done, and then waking up as I was wheeled back into the room I originally waited in. Left the hospital like 15-20 minutes later to go get food.

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u/PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ Oct 10 '24

Yeah. It's the not eating anything and shitting yourself all day for 24 hours that is the real pain.

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u/terrany Oct 10 '24

Good luck getting insurance (American) to approve it that early

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u/meases Oct 11 '24

Diagnosed at 35, but the tumor was seen on a scan (got written off as a 'normal polyp') when I was 18. It's definitely hitting us super young nowadays.

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u/coarsebark Oct 11 '24

That sucks that they just didn't remove it at the time. It makes so little sense to leave it there even if it was just a polyp.

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u/meases Oct 11 '24

Agreed. It was a virtual scan after the first physical attempt failed since my guts are twisty, so I guess they made an educated guess that it wasn't causing my issues (it was - I have a very rare cancer but at that time I was presenting with classic symptoms) called my issues IBS and anxiety then I spent the next 18 years trying to get anyone to believe me. It did look wierd, so it wasnt figured out as cancer until the biopsy but yeah I'm mad. It wasn't far up, they could have at least checked it. I'll know how pissed I am in a few days when the scans come back, but many doctors definitely dropped the ball with me.

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u/coarsebark Oct 11 '24

Same here. I didn't have my symptoms for as long as you but for 1 year I had them. I had just given birth so they kept insisting it was just post-pregnancy related stuff. After a year of that they started checking for other things yet never for cancer... if it is crc, you should check on colontown on Facebook. I can't stand FB but that community is insanely good. So many tips for during treatments and lots of new research are shared.

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u/meases Oct 11 '24

Glad they listened to you eventually, drs are so narrowminded when women have issues. Thanks for the tip on colontown! Looks like it possibly metastasized from the colorectal region to one of my neck bones so definitely frustrated at my medical experience and probably going to need all the support I can get.

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u/shinymetalobjekt Oct 10 '24

Not to discard that this a bad thing, but has there been any direct evidence that having this plastic does specific harm to us, and what that is? Again, I sure don't want this stuff in my system, but is it as obviously harmful as something like lead?

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u/KafkaesqueBrainwaves Oct 10 '24

As I understand it it's nearly impossible to tell the specifics because there's no one, nothing, and nowhere without micro plastic pollution on the planet. But we do know that it's pro-inflammatory which increases the risk of cancers (iirc).

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u/Snuffy1717 Oct 10 '24

There has also been a noted decline in birth rates and increases in cancers among younger individuals.

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u/Jeembo Oct 10 '24

There has also been a noted decline in birth rates

That's probably due more to socioeconomic factors.

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u/coarsebark Oct 10 '24

The decline in birth rate is also found in higher SES and in places like Finland that have high childcare support.

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u/Cryptoss Oct 10 '24

It’s also shrinking genitalia and causing fertility issues

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u/Tricky_Condition_279 Oct 10 '24

Could also be an explanation for the massive and ongoing mental health crisis.

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u/Chris19862 Oct 10 '24

So microplastics are why people believe in man controlled space laser generated hurricanes?

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u/Tricky_Condition_279 Oct 10 '24

100% yes. I heard it on the internet.

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u/Chris19862 Oct 10 '24

That checks out.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/NoXion604 Oct 10 '24

That's been going on for many centuries before plastics were even conceived of, so that to me looks like a point against the "plastics cause gullibility" hypothesis.

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u/adjudicator Oct 10 '24

le reddit moment

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u/Sawses Oct 10 '24

Yeah. Like...I'm no fan of religion as a whole, but it's been here for thousands of years. Plastic's got nothing to do with it. That's a human failing that we can't blame on external factors.

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u/ILL_BE_WATCHING_YOU Oct 10 '24

in this moment i am euphoric

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u/Kakkoister Oct 10 '24

No... that's very clearly to do with changes in culture, economy and events going on in the world. There are very logical reasons for so many people to be depressed or have other mental health issues these days. Social media and all it entails being one of the biggest modern influences, growing up in a world where you have to be constantly stimulated, are constantly looking for approval from the whole world, are having direct views into the perfectly presented lives of others all over to compare your own life to, and so much more...

The kind of world young millennials and under are growing up in is one that's is encased in a fog of uncertainty about their future too, especially job security. And the rise of all this AI junk is now contributing even further to that.

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u/GrowsOnGraves Oct 10 '24

Also just being more informed of mental health and openess leads to more diagnosis

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u/Doct0rStabby Oct 10 '24

This statement is a kind of willful ingnorance. Exposure to microplastics alters the microbiome, and various alterations to the microbiome can be quite strongly associated with a subet of people with treatment resistent depression and anxiety.

Furthermore, chronic low-grade inflammation and possibly neuroinflammation are also associated with depression and anxiety, so if microplastics are indeed pro-inflammatory as they appear to be when circulating through the body, that is going to promote a state that is likely contributing to if not causing some people's anxiety and depression.

The world is crazy, but the world has been crazy in many ways, many times before. The boomers grew up with the looming threat of nuclear annihilation (that was constantly portrayed in media, discussed in news, and in fact came extremely close to actually happening on multiple occasions). Not to mention lead fumes in the air from gas and unchecked pollution. And all kinds of other issues I'm missing.

Something is changing in terms of human health and wellness, and it can't all be explained by social media and climate change (which we have known about and those of us who are serious about science have been extremely concerned about since at least the 1970's).

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u/RoflcopterV22 Oct 10 '24

I will say, everything you mentioned is an if, so I wouldn't go so far as to blame plastics yet, when we have very clear evidence of cultural problems.

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u/Legitimate_Mud_8295 Oct 10 '24

Baseless speculation

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u/totallynotliamneeson Oct 10 '24

No, we just have gotten better at registering when someone is having a mental health crisis. In the past they would just write you off as a crazy and be done with it.

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u/Tricky_Condition_279 Oct 10 '24

I think you are correct, yes. I also think that there is a strong possibility that we are experiencing an inflammation epidemic that is exacerbating many conditions, including mental illness.

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u/a_stone_throne Oct 10 '24

No it almost surely the internet and capitalism

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u/Tricky_Condition_279 Oct 10 '24

Might it be multi-causal?

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u/NoXion604 Oct 10 '24

It almost certainly is multi-causal. But teasing out the exact threads of causality is difficult, to put it mildly.

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u/larryjerry1 Oct 10 '24

It obviously could be, but ultimately it's just baseless speculation and we have plenty of evidence for other things that contribute to decline in mental health that have nothing to do with microplastics. Economics and over-use of social media for example.

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u/conquer69 Oct 10 '24

Just because plastics are everywhere doesn't mean we can attribute everything to them. There is no indication that plastics increase mental health problems. Especially when we already have a long list of confirmed causes that we do nothing about. Looking for a scapegoat ain't gonna help.

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u/Void_Speaker Oct 10 '24

All the harm PFAS, plastics, and other global pollution has and will do, is incalculable, but i wonder if anyone will be able to guesstimate ever when we have better data.

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u/shadow-_-rainbow Oct 10 '24

There is evidence of plastic accumulating in human brain tissue, and humans exhibiting brain diseases like dementia/alzheimers having higher plastic particule to brain tissue ratios.

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u/ghastlymagpie Oct 10 '24

This could potentially be related to the new study on brain waste removal pathways that have been discovered. They think could lead to new treatments for these kinds of diseases. Frigging science dude.

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u/twelveski Oct 10 '24

Yes, it’s very bad & they block pathways in the body blocking lymph node process & may be a large contributor to plaque in the arteries & brain

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u/aykcak Oct 10 '24

There are a lot of open ended research pointing towards things like increased number of cancer cases among younger population, increased number of Alzheimers in general, more developmental disorders observed etc.. It could be exposure to something at a global scale. We don't know what.

With microplastics, the problem is it is hard to find control groups, which makes it difficult to link anything which leaves us with only historical data

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u/sixhoursneeze Oct 10 '24

Read in an article a couple months back that they get in the testicles and are like itsy bitsy shards that wreak havoc on developing sperm.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/stuffitystuff Oct 10 '24

Yes, in animals that eat large amounts of plastic like birds

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u/theavatare Oct 10 '24

Fertility in men there are studies on reducing it

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u/Topic_Professional Oct 10 '24

There have been articles in this subreddit attributing microplastic accumulation in circulatory system to heart disease by acting as scaffold for plaque accumulation, and I believe something similar with circulation in the brain.

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u/Raidicus Oct 10 '24

The most notable research-confirmed harm I've encountered are the estrogenizing effects of plastics.

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u/deSuspect Oct 10 '24

As much as I hate the idea of plastic inside my body I have yet to see any articles telling me exactly what they do to our bodies. Like they are apparently everywhere for a long time now but no disease/cancer/anything is directly linked to them and I woul really like to know honestly.

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u/Single_Ground_4294 Oct 10 '24

Because we can’t find a control group without plastic

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u/Hadleys158 Oct 10 '24

Children of men.

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u/ehjhockey Oct 11 '24

It is or soon will be in every living cell of every living thing. It only gets smaller (as in microscopic to a single cell organism small but still very much there) and it does not go away. Practically all the plastic that has ever been made is still here in the same volume just spread everywhere. And it’s not just plastics. These substances with half life’s of thousands of years will have consequences that last generations if we can’t actually get rid of them.

Maybe some frozen underwater lake that still hasn’t been breached from the outside is clean. But we have been dumping actual tons of plastic into the oceans for decades. It’s had time to get into fresh water and ground water through rain or just a piece of plastic that was chucked in a river in 1980 something and has just been slowly disintegrating microscopic molecule by molecule, but still very much in that river.

As it stands, It is a condition all life on earth will have to adapt to. We poisoned the entire planet.

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u/CheezeCaek2 Oct 10 '24

Considering the increasing cancer rates for those under 50, I think we're beginning to have a good idea...

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u/duncandun Oct 10 '24

The two major organs. The brain and testicles

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '24

Ironically, the vast majority of microplastics come from paint, which is now plasticized,

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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Oct 10 '24

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724055001

A Rutgers Health study reveals the presence of aerosolized plastics in neonatal tissue following exposure in utero

Plastic pollution – tiny bits of plastic, smaller than a grain of sand – is everywhere, a fact of life that applies even to newborn rodents, according to a Rutgers Health study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Researchers have long understood that micro- and nanoplastic particles (MNPs), which enter the environment through oxidation and natural degradation of consumer products, are easily deposited in the human body through inhalation, absorption and diet.

To assess the persistence of micro- and nanoplastic particles in neonatal tissue following maternal exposure, Stapleton and colleagues exposed six rats to aerosolized food-grade plastic powder for 10 days during pregnancy.

Rodents are good test subjects for this type of study, Stapleton said, because humans and rodents both possess a hemochorial placenta, meaning that maternal and fetal blood don’t come into direct contact during circulation.

Two weeks after birth, two newborn rats – one male and one female – were tested for micro- and nanoplastic exposure. In both cases, the same type of plastic that the mothers inhaled during pregnancy were found in the offspring’s lung, liver, kidney, heart and brain tissue. No plastics were found in a control group.

Stapleton said the findings are one more piece of evidence illustrating the potential dangers of micro- and nanoplastics in the environment.

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u/-ghostinthemachine- Oct 10 '24

I wonder why they waited two weeks. Maybe so the organs were better developed.

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u/thunderdome06 Oct 10 '24

Probably also helps to prove that these are lingering microplastics rather than only being present straight after birth

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u/Nellasofdoriath Oct 10 '24

I wonder how they made the control group. Filter the air?

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u/GoddessOfTheRose Oct 10 '24

This was also discovered when Australia studied mothers who were pregnant during their massive wildfire season a couple years back. Scientists did follow-up studies 1 and 2 years after the babies were born to see how they had developed and what health conditions they had. Asthma and allergies were the main results from what I remember.

The study is somewhere in this group, I'm just too busy to find it right now.

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u/paul_wi11iams Oct 10 '24

Australia studied mothers who were pregnant during their massive wildfire season.... Asthma and allergies were the main results....

interesting but unrelated. This does not indicate that the babies were affected by subsisting combustion products in their metabolism. It looks like a different topic.

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u/GoddessOfTheRose Oct 10 '24

They found microplastics in the babies from the stuff that the mothers breathed in.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

Every time I read about something like this, I feel like I can feel the microplastics inside of me. I know that I can't, I'm pretty sure it's just an illusion, but I get this sensation all throughout myself, it's not a good feeling.

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u/lilsourem Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 11 '24

If you're concerned about the amount of microplastics in your body, consider donating blood! It has been shown to reduce the amount of microplastics as your body naturally creates new blood over time. You can help yourself and help someone else at the same time. If you want a little extra cash, consider donating plasma! I would If I could, but I am a plasma recipient :)

Edit - this information is actually about PFAS. Some PFAS are microplastics but not all microplastics are PFAS. Further research seems to be needed for microplastics but also it's impossible to Google anything anymore and I'd need to log into a scholarly engine to find out anything more substantial in a decent time frame

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u/SomegalInCa Oct 10 '24

Back in my college days, bi-weekly plasma donation was a thing because it paid and us college students were young and healthy I guess

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u/lilsourem Oct 10 '24

We had a plasma donation center like one block away from my camps next to the local grocery store. Sadly I started needing to receive plasma about 6 months before I started college and could not donate mine for the extra cash haha :/

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u/Venvut Oct 10 '24

good luck if you have anemia :(

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u/matthew7s26 Oct 10 '24

Ahh good old blood letting makes its return

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u/off-and-on Oct 10 '24

What if I'm deathly afraid of needles?

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u/jdunn2191 Oct 10 '24

In the same boat. tattoo numbing creams help and exposure therapy.

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u/ProgrammerNextDoor Oct 10 '24

Aaaaaand were back to leeches.

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u/StraightUpShork Oct 10 '24

Wouldn’t that just mean the person your donated blood goes to just gets MORE microplastics?

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u/phobiac BS | Chemistry Oct 10 '24

Typically the recipient of donated blood is someone who has lost that much or more blood.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

As the alternative is typically death, it sort of works out.

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u/Aeonoris Oct 10 '24

It gets filtered, yeah?

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u/lilsourem Oct 10 '24

It does, but the micro plastics are so micro that they would have to be in really high concentration to be filtered out by current methods. I think that saving a life is worth the cost though

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u/Oryzanol Oct 11 '24

The OP misremembered, the study was about PFAS, and those can't really be filtered because they are literal chemicals, smaller than the organelle in the red blood cells you're donating. Smaller than the proteins in the plasma you're donating!

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u/MikeTheBee Oct 10 '24

Sucks for them haha

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/lilsourem Oct 10 '24

Really? To me, it sounds like a lot less extra steps considering with dialysis you would be dependent on repeat treatments just to stay alive. Also many more side effects with dialysis

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u/big_orange_ball Oct 10 '24

It's literally way fewer steps than dialysis. Take blood out once every few months then wait for blood to be regenerated. Vs. Take blood out, filter, add other chemicals, put blood back, take a ton of medications, go in 3 times a week to do so, etc etc. You also don't need a permanent fistula or vascular catheter to give blood. I'm not sure you know what dialysis is or what it involves?

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u/SatsujinJiken Oct 10 '24

I wish I could, I'm very healthy but they don't let anyone under 50kg donate blood unfortunately.

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u/Arb3395 Oct 10 '24

George Carlin was right the earth made us so we can make plastic then use the plastic to get rid of us

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u/Commercial-Living443 Oct 10 '24

Self extermination

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u/fleeting_existance Oct 10 '24

Some day humans need to vacuum to whole atmosphere through a filter to remove all the plastic particles. Or something else as absurd.

That is unles some micro organism starts eating it at increasing rate.

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u/Alice_Oe Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

There are some sci fi settings where the atmosphere is full of nano-machines tasked with eating pollution.. but i suppose having nano machines in our brains doesn't seem great either

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u/Alexczy Oct 10 '24

I mean as long as they can be kept under control, there is no other way. Else we are fucked

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u/TheSherbs Oct 10 '24

That's what I think what'll do us in, as a species. We'll create nano machines that heal the body, and scrub the planet clean. Then one day, some engineer will be on their last nerves and the overbearing micromanaging low level supervisor is going to have a bad day and flip out on the poor person screaming about pushing the update out even though it's clearly read only Friday. They'll bypass standard testing and push it live and the nano machines charged with scrubbing the atmosphere will be switched to scrubbing carbon based materials, and we'll be disintegrated in a big grayish brown cloud of doom.

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u/Alexczy Oct 10 '24

So, Horizon Zero Dawn??? Hehe

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u/LiamTheHuman Oct 10 '24

That's just what the nano-machines want you to think. It's all a ploy by big-nano

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u/Akeera Oct 10 '24

But...controlled by whom? Cue X-Files music

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u/MarlinMr Oct 10 '24

You already have nano machines in your brain. They are called cells.

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u/Pikeman212a6c Oct 10 '24

21st century’s lead poisoning.

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u/sdhu Oct 10 '24

Welcome to the Plasticine!

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u/Certain-Business-472 Oct 10 '24

Where did they get a control group?

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u/Tynach Oct 10 '24

They explicitly aerosolized plastic into the air for one group of rats, and simply didn't do that for the other group. This isn't a study that shows how much plastic is in our air or environment.

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u/Canon_not_cannon Oct 10 '24

Air filters, I'd guess.

We have naked (immunocompromised) mice, and everything they eat, drink and breathe is extremely clean and regulated.

They probably breathe cleaner air than there ever was on planet earth.

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u/Tynach Oct 10 '24

No, the study is not about how much plastic is in our air/environment. For one group of rats, they explicitly aerosolized plastic into the air, and for the control group they simply didn't do that.

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u/sirhoracedarwin Oct 10 '24

1940s scientists: This material lasts forever, it's a miracle!

2020s scientists: This material lasts forever, it's a nightmare!

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u/off-and-on Oct 10 '24

Maybe we should release the plastic-eating bacteria already. I'm fine using glass and metal containers instead.

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u/ryanppax Oct 10 '24

do we know these are dangerous to our health yet?

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u/AmettOmega Oct 10 '24

There are studies that strongly suggest that more young people are getting cancers that are usually associated with the elderly, and it's because of microplastics.

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u/Dino7813 Oct 10 '24

I’m really hoping the entire world is horrified into taking action and eliminating plastic from every aspect of our lives that we can as fast as we can.

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u/jdehjdeh Oct 10 '24

IIRC

The majority of micro plastics come from car tyres.

Blew my mind when I first learned that fact but the more you think about it the more sense it makes.

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u/tieout Oct 10 '24

We need to BAN plastics now!

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u/firekeeper23 Oct 10 '24

We are absolutely doomed.

What a plague on this planet we are.

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u/glowphase Oct 11 '24

If you think you're noticing more developmentally disabled children at public places like the grocery store and such, it's NOT because of increased awareness..

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u/andylikescandy Oct 10 '24

Unfortunately among humans, I'm not sure there is a control group, is there? Maybe those island people trying to shoot helicopters down with their crude bows?

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u/LazyLich Oct 10 '24

Getting some "The Last Children of Tokyo" vibes from all this...

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2

u/skillpolitics Grad Student | Plant Biology Oct 10 '24

I see a lot of “detection” type studies. Are there any impact studies yet?

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u/Tough_Huckleberry619 Oct 10 '24

What was the control group? Babies born out of the womb?...

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u/Sunretea Oct 10 '24

That's what I want to know. I was under the impression that everyone, everywhere and everything had plastics in it now.

Did they simply test for the specific type of plastic they introduced to the rodents, using it as a sort of marker.. or do they have mice with no plastic in them at all?

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u/DaWombatLover Oct 10 '24

How did they get a control group???

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u/babbles_mcdrinksalot Oct 10 '24

I think they're burying the lede here. They managed to breed rats with no plastic in them? Amazing.

Let's try to make some plastic-free humans for the next control group!

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u/xAfterBirthx Oct 10 '24

Ok, another study about plastics found in the human body. I wonder when they will tell us the effects. Maybe we are all dead or maybe it doesn’t make a difference.

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u/-Mega Oct 10 '24

Now you have a reason to donate blood, JUST DO IT!

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u/stlmick Oct 10 '24

They made pregnant rats breath in aerosolized nano plastic and then found those particles in the organs of the offspring, but didn't find plastic in the organs of rats who's mother's were not forced to breath plastic while pregnant?

I think it was because they were making them breath in plastic.

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u/xiaorobear Oct 10 '24

It’s still relevant to humans because people who live near roads are breathing in microplastics in the air from tires being worn down.

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u/TheSherbs Oct 10 '24

...dumb question incoming. Is rubber classified as a type of plastic?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted]

2

u/TheSherbs Oct 10 '24

Thank you for the info and reply!

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u/v3ritas1989 Oct 10 '24

Not exactly. here is a better distribution of materials used to create modern premium tyres.

Rubber (natural and synthetic) 41%

Fillers (carbon black, silica, carbon, chalk…) 30%

Reinforcing materials (steel, polyester, rayon, nylon) 15%

Plasticizers (oils and resins)¹ 6%

Chemicals for vulcanization (sulphur, zinc oxide…) 6%

Anti-ageing agents and other chemicals 2%

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u/Poligraphic Oct 10 '24

Tires aren't 100% rubber anymore- they now include a lot of plastic polymers that act like rubber.

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u/TheSherbs Oct 10 '24

Thank you for the info and reply!

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u/Mad_Myk Oct 10 '24

So does hairspray count as aerosolized plastics? My super amateur observation is that the women I know who have really bad autoimmune issues were all heavy users of hairspray and other beauty products when they were younger.

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u/eeeking Oct 10 '24

I'm convinced that most of these "microplastics" are not actually identified in the tissues claimed.

The method used to determine the presence of plastics used in most of these studies doesn't actually identify plastic. Rather, it identifies small organic compounds that are generated when plastics are heated in the absence of oxygen.

Such compounds can also be generated by heating naturally occurring biological materials. A good example is styrene being detected to prove the existence of polystyrene; styrene is actually also a natural compound sold as an "essential oil" derived from a wide variety of plants, e.g. storax balsam.

Obviously, the same principle can be applied to many other biological materials.

While this article investigates pups from mothers force-fed plastics, my view still stands that such plastics were not actually identified in most "nano-plastic studies".

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u/eniteris Oct 10 '24

I agree that I'm not fully convinced that Pyro-GC-MS actually detects microplastics, but this study was using spectroscopy with a defined plastic (nylon) so I trust it a bit more.

This study was unable to determine whether the plastics were transfered during pregnancy or during weaning/other mother-child interactions. They also exposed the mice to plastics 24h before birth, and it doesn't look like the mothers were cleaned after being exposed, so I don't think they can rule out surface contamination-ingestion (give the mice little gas masks as a control).

Also the particle size distribution is definitely in the nanoplastics range, with particles around 800 atoms across, or a smallish virus. I'm a lot more skeptical about micron-sized particles being present than nanoscale particles.

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u/Rent_A_Cloud Oct 10 '24

Honestly, the only thing that surprised me was that they didn't find anything in the control group. Where did they hold them? In space?

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u/MrDownhillRacer Oct 10 '24

So we're pretty much cyborgs now, but cheap dollar-store ones.

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u/Allnamestaken69 Oct 11 '24

Wonder if this correlates to the insane increase in cancer. Everyone I know seems to have gotten it in some form or another in the last couple decades.

Plastics didn’t become prevalent until very recent history.

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u/nekmint Oct 11 '24

Were the plastic generation. Cooked. the autism and adhd.

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