• a lil bee 🐝@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    We’ve obviously seen a lot of studies about the proliferation of microplastics. They seem to be in practically everything and everyone to an almost cellular level. Are there any modern studies or even just hypotheses for what the actual effects are? Has it just not been long enough for us to gather data?

    • AmbroisindeMontaigu@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      The problem might be that if they’re everywhere there’s no control group without them, so it’s hard to say if an effect is actually caused by microplastics or not.

      • piecat@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        In a laboratory setting, presumably you could makeq conditions clean enough to grow a cell culture that is free from micro plastics. But that isn’t going to tell you much about systemic effects like in an organ or body.

        Maybe you could breed mice in a clean room. Not sure what the generational half life of microplastics is…

        The alternative you could probably test is levels of Microplastics. Grow a number of colonies with varying levels of microplastics and compare between them.

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I have a hypothesis that the proliferation of microplastics could be related to the rising cancer rates in young people nobody can yet explain.

          At very least, people should stop microwaving plastic containers.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          6 months ago

          Don’t forget the food… And the water, and the water used to grow the food, etc. Creating a clean generation of even mice would be pretty difficult, it’s just everywhere, including most of the tools we’d use to make a cleanroom

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Eh, humanity is overrated anyway. I’m not an extinctionist, but if we wipe ourselves out that would pretty funny and appropriate.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The only way to improve the climate is to dramatically decrease the human population. If plastics are good at it, I say USE MORE PLASTICS!!!

        • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          This is just not true, it’s 4 companies driving almost alll climate impacting technologies, human population has been stabilizing across the board and human race is projected to peak at 10 billion.

          We have the resources to accommodate that number. It’s our technology, not the people and it’s fucking corporations.

            • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              Ah yes, im sure you have many figures and sources of why that is a fact

              …and it’s totally not your opinion “that human bad and number must go down because I’m smart and cynical”

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The problem is that plastics are not stable. They are constantly breaking down and releasing an array of chemicals in the process. Great, now they’re inside us too. Oh. They’re inside everything else too so yay?

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        6 months ago

        So an issue of correlation and causality.

        There are a lot of gastro surgeons and specialists that are running long term studies on increased stomach and colon cancer rates in relation to microplastics. A few of them have come out and started recommending colonoscopies starting at 40 instead of 50.

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    6 months ago

    This is true. I had mine tested, and there was one of my testicles that had way more microplastics than the other two.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    Between the microplastics, the pfoas and other fluorine based stuff from 3M, and the lead in fuel that airplanes are still allowed to use, and the lack of a more natural diet, it’s no wonder we’re all so screwed up.

      • ealoe@ani.social
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        6 months ago

        It’s worse than “allowed” to use, in the US it’s more like “required to use”. Newer engines that work on unleaded gas exist, and even some older engines are perfectly capable on unleaded gas. However, the FAA has to test and approve each part that goes on an airplane, and it’s a ton of work to do that for every type of airplane engine. Unless the government subsidized such testing and paid for unleaded fuel tanks to be installed all over the country, it’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          To be fair, I think this is for gas engines and not jet engines. So big commercial airports, and the con chem trail generating traffic, are in the clear.

          No, it’s just the smaller airports and tiny fields used for crop dusters. You know. The ones that are literally everywhere. :(

    • mPony@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      well that and being told for your entire life that you could be anything you want and do anything with your life that you chose as long as you worked hard (oh, and voted for tax cuts for the rich).

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      People were using lead in day to day life for thousands of years.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 months ago

        For thousands of years it wasn’t aerosolized. It isn’t even debated anymore. It’s a known and accepted fact that it has made people dumber.

        • Cybermonk_Taiji@r.nf
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          6 months ago

          Nothing new under the sun

          “One study speculates that Roman wine contained as much as 20 milligrams of lead per liter. Over time, the researchers said it would cause a “decrease in fertility and increase in psychosis among the Roman aristocracy….” Lead was also suspected to have been used in Egyptian winemaking vessels.”

        • Aux@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Yeah, it was simply added directly to the food as a sweetener. No biggie…

    • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      This is why we’ve never seen or heard aliens out in the universe. Every civilization burns itself out faster than they can solve long distance space travel. Maybe the Great Filter is just the inherent nature of sentient beings. It would make me feel better to know that every other civilization to ever exist in the universe also destroyed itself in this manner, but maybe we are a special level of stupid.

    • abcdqfr@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Got us to the moon in a relative jiffy though. Makes you wonder what majority of industrialized life ever burns itself out vs external circumstances.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        6 months ago

        We’ve been pretty up ourselves about it though, a blank flag waving on the moon will be cold comfort for the burning remains of our civilisation. I could imagine this being the inevitable end to an intelligent species, smart enough to destroy itself but dumb enough to destroy itself.

  • snownyte@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Scientists say discovery may be linked to decades-long decline in sperm counts in men around the world

    This is no issue to me, as someone who doesn’t prioritize having sex and has no intent to bring children into this awful world.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      Yeah same, but I worry about all the other affects like cancers, other mutations, some third horrible thing…

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah I have no doubt all kinds of weird cancers and degenerative diseases are going to be rampant in 50 or so years.

        Plastics breaking down and leeching into everything is going to make climate change look like leaded gas/paint.

    • morphballganon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It’s an issue if it accelerates the removal of abortion rights. Old crotchety white men afraid they’ll stop having heirs