Say you're testing a sample of water in a test tube. Repeat all steps in exactly the same way, but use distilled water. You can even do all the steps and use no water! (Including having an empty container and pouring nothing from the empty container into the test tube).
By doing things like this you create samples that allow you to look for contamination. How do you know that the thing you're testing has microplastics? (Or whatever) because it has more than the blanks/controls. That's it. Congrats, you've isolated a variable in your experiment.
Btw, this is pretty common practice. In fact! Here's a video of someone doing exactly that "nothing" control looking for microplastics. Those steps are done at 10:20.
The point of the blank is to identify the base level given the current testing environment. Then you test again with the variable.
If the majority of the microplastics contaminants were introduced in the blank, the variable would show minimal, if any, bump.
If you run a blank and it has no fewer microplastics than the thing you are studying, then that tells you something.
You sure you're a coder?
(I don't work in this field any more, I was a lowly bottle washer and lab tech on a job creation scheme, I am sure the field has moved forward)
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/476076/1/1_s2.0_S014765132300286...
Whether the balance of how much plastic we use is leaning towards too much depends on the upsides and downsides, and this article is pointing out that one downside we thought was significant is less significant than we thought.
Also, line cooks.
Also the main finding of concern imo in the original Nature paper wasn't the finding that we have a plastic fork-worth of microplastics in our brains. It's the finding that brain tissue seems to concentrate microplastics at a much higher rate than other tissue in the body
I find it concerning that there seems to be such a concerted effort to downplay the significance of that finding
A couple of months ago there were a bunch of news stories, about how maybe oil companies should be sued, just like tobacco companies were.
Then, suddenly out of nowhere, it's actually the gloves that is the problem. It's an excellent counter to such a movement. The scientists are wrong, you see. Microplastics? Overblown!
The average joe will read only the headline/clickbait, and forever doubt microplastics.
Also, alcohol has existed since forever and humans have been drinking it since the beginning of civilization. We have a pretty good idea of what it does and how to keep it under control. Microplastics are a recent thing, it may be a dud, but it may be a serious problem for future generations, so keeping an eye on them is a good thing.
I just wrote the argument to get all the necessary research funded.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/01/microplastics...
> Animal and cellular studies have linked microplastics to biological changes including inflammation, an impaired immune system, deteriorated tissues, altered metabolic function, abnormal organ development, cell damage and more. A recent large-scale review of existing research by scholars at the University of California, San Francisco, concluded that exposure to microplastics is suspected to harm reproductive, digestive and respiratory health and suggested a link to colon and lung cancer.
> More than two years after the procedure, those who had microplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death than those who didn't.
> So far, his research shows that these plastics can get inside cells and lead to major changes in gene expression. "These findings suggest that the particles contribute to vascular disease progression, emphasizing the urgency of studying their impact," he said.
> Children, whose organs are still developing, could be at higher risk of harm
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/
> Thus, chronic exposure to low concentrations of microplastics in the air could be associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases depending on an individual’s susceptibility and the particle characteristics.
> The results of cellular and animal experiments have shown that microplastics can affect various systems in the human body, including the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive, and immune systems.
> In addition, microplastics interfere with the production, release, transport, metabolism, and elimination of hormones, which can cause endocrine disruption and lead to various endocrine disorders, including metabolic disorders, developmental disorders, and even reproductive disorders (i.e., infertility, miscarriage, and congenital malformations)
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The "compared to drinking alcohol" bit feels like bait and I won't engage. They are two completely different risk factors. For one, alcohol doesn't concentrate in brain tissue.
If I remember correctly, the method they used to detect microplastics, which involves pyrolysis, gives much the same result for lipids (which brain tissue has a lot of) as pure hydrocarbon plastics like PE and PP, because they all feature relatively long hydrocarbon chains and the pyrolysis products will contain the same short-chain hydrocarbons.
I find it concerning that there seems to be such a concerted effort to downplay the significance of that finding
There is nothing to be concerned about. This is just the (re)discovery of basic chemistry and the natural response to misguided alarmism.
I may have taken the bait from the plastics industry on this one, I really don't know, but wasn't one of the pushbacks something along the lines of "well yes, there are microplastics, and yes, they do accumulate in the body, but you shouldn't worry about it - there isn't really any evidence of systemic harm being caused by them"?
Do you know if there are studies that do show evidence of harm from microplastic accumulation? It sounds really bad at face value, but I still want good, hard evidence before I'm ready to add an industry to my personal list of perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
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Early research links them to serious risks, including increased risks of heart attacks, stroke, and mortality, alongside potential inflammation, metabolic disruption, and reproductive harm.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/01/microplastics...
> Animal and cellular studies have linked microplastics to biological changes including inflammation, an impaired immune system, deteriorated tissues, altered metabolic function, abnormal organ development, cell damage and more. A recent large-scale review of existing research by scholars at the University of California, San Francisco, concluded that exposure to microplastics is suspected to harm reproductive, digestive and respiratory health and suggested a link to colon and lung cancer.
> More than two years after the procedure, those who had microplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death than those who didn't.
> So far, his research shows that these plastics can get inside cells and lead to major changes in gene expression. "These findings suggest that the particles contribute to vascular disease progression, emphasizing the urgency of studying their impact," he said.
> Children, whose organs are still developing, could be at higher risk of harm
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/
> Thus, chronic exposure to low concentrations of microplastics in the air could be associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases depending on an individual’s susceptibility and the particle characteristics.
> The results of cellular and animal experiments have shown that microplastics can affect various systems in the human body, including the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive, and immune systems.
> In addition, microplastics interfere with the production, release, transport, metabolism, and elimination of hormones, which can cause endocrine disruption and lead to various endocrine disorders, including metabolic disorders, developmental disorders, and even reproductive disorders (i.e., infertility, miscarriage, and congenital malformations)