Isn’t it like that noone else wants to form a coalition with them?
omg we have fans! yay!
5 Likes
Now, I feel terrible about the smartphone situation. I get it now, what it feels like to be 50gens or BurgeonBlas.
5 Likes
I have a water dispenser in my apartment that uses a plastic tube to suck water out of big water jugs. Sometimes when the water gets low, the tube sticks out of the puddle and can’t get all of it, so, without consulting me, my roommate cut the tube. Is this safe? My roommate claims that the cut was clean but I’m still worried about more microplastics getting into the water now.
1 Like
If the cut was really made with just one press then it shouldn’t increase the amount of pollution.
Yeah, it’s too late, you have microplastics in your blood. I don’t think one straw’s tiny extra flecks will make the difference and give you like cancer or make you die more than a day younger or something. The jug is likely plastic, the straw is plastic, the meat you eat is from animals who ate plastic because they’re watered the same way you are, and guess what waters farmland? (Assuming you eat free range meats bc it’s natureyer) plastic nozzles on plastic or rubber pipes! Fixing microplastics is a society level issue and we aren’t fixing it for us, we’re fixing it for our great grandkids. I tried to look up if there was a meaningful health outcome difference between people who have a lot of microplastics and people who have very little, but the problem is they can’t find a control group! (And if studies are getting published, I’m not finding them.) they’ve found that microplastics are bad for you, but I can’t find any comparison between different amounts of them in humans. There are in animals because you can raise two generations of the mfers to prove a point, but I don’t know how the differences between the pig you raised to be microplatic free and the pig you grabbed from a farm compare to the difference between me and someone who who never nibbled on non food objects as a kid, or the person who never had a water filter.
3 Likes
How many people out there do NOT have microplastics in their body? North sentinel islanders? Eskimo people?
1 Like
Yeah, but it’s probably best to avoid extra sources of it if you can.
Also I think the problem of microplastics just resolved itself - a fungus was recently found that had evolved to eat plastic, which means that plastic can rot now like wood or bone.
Probably not Eskimos, because they get their food from the ocean. The best bet would probably be isolated tribes in the Amazon, as they’re significantly upriver from the ocean and any major sources of microplastics.
1 Like
Is the fungus a new species or an old one?
It would still take centuries for plastic levels to decrease in any significant quantity, and it won’t decrease if the quantity that gets thrown around is greater than the quantity that can be consumed by the fungus. Also, the fungus existing in one place doesn’t mean it exists everywhere.
1 Like
It exists in the ocean which means that, given enough food, it could spread essentially everywhere. And there is quite a bit of plastic, micro and macro, for it to feed off of. And the researchers said that it could ‘eat the entire body of plastic in two decades’ or something like that. Not very short, but not very long either in the grand scheme. Besides, it just evolved, it’s very likely that it will further mutate over the following years to be even more efficient.
2 Likes
What if there’s an upper limit to how fast it can digest plastic?
Which was said in reference to studies conducted with small samples, we don’t know how long it takes for big amounts of plastic. Plus if we continue to dump thousands of tons every year I doubt the amount of plastic will decrease, were it that we stopped to dump large amounts of plastic then the plastic amounts could actually start to decrease in apreciable amounts in thanks to the fungus.
Regarding possible mutations, seeing the nature of this forum you should know that evolution doesn’t happen in a matter of a few years.
I doubt it could reach places that don’t have salt water seeing that it lives in the ocean.
3 Likes
Polaris dawn Spacewalk tomorrow!
1 Like
Hi! thought id say something here.
3 Likes
Well you accomplish what you said you’d do.
What are your predictions? A great success or Titan 2: Space Boogaloo?
it’s be rly funny if it managed to top Boeing and all the spacesuits exploded, but that’s unlikely, so I’ll be nice and hope it goes well and everyone gets home safely.
3 Likes
Oh wait, that mission will last a few days, I thought it would just be a hop into LEO with a brief spacewalk and quick return.
They couldn’t hide from the wrath of the forum forever
2 Likes