[HN Gopher] Microplastics found in human heart tissues
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Microplastics found in human heart tissues
Author : clumsysmurf
Score : 21 points
Date : 2023-08-09 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| [deleted]
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _" Microplastics are plastic fragments less than 5 millimeters
| wide, or about the size of a pencil eraser."_
|
| That's the top of the range when we're talking about microplastic
| in oceans, right? Surely the upper range in human bodies is <1mm?
| rngname22 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "analyzed the samples with laser direct infrared imaging and
| identified 20 to 500 micrometer-wide particles made from eight
| types of plastic, including polyethylene terephthalate,
| polyvinyl chloride and poly(methyl methacrylate)."
|
| 500 micrometer is 0.5 millimeter. According to a random Quora
| user, that's about half the thickness of your credit card/a
| ziploc bag, a paper envelope, etc.
|
| Smal, but each sample "detected tens to thousands of individual
| microplastic pieces in most tissue samples", that adds up,
| though we don't know the distribution of sizes of those
| particules.
| kazinator wrote:
| This is an American website, discussing metric quantities. Go
| easy on `em.
|
| The supposedly correct definition of a microplastic is
| anything from one micron to 1000 microns. That's three orders
| of magnitude, which is useless. A 1000 micron chunk has a
| million times more mass than a 1 micron chunk of the same
| shape and density.
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(page generated 2023-08-09 23:03 UTC)