Our brains are 0.5% plastic by weight, and the percentage is increasing rapidly

[GuitarStv]

The Democrats (or whoever comes next) will be busy reversing all these EOs after the GOP is voted out eventually. Assuming we can manage to vote them out. Or we ever have free elections again.

Even in the unlikely event that democracy continues in the United States without civil war, it's going to be really hard to get things up and running the way that they used to be after all the layoffs dump all the qualified federal employees with subject matter expertise.

[Metalcat]

The Democrats (or whoever comes next) will be busy reversing all these EOs after the GOP is voted out eventually. Assuming we can manage to vote them out. Or we ever have free elections again.

Even in the unlikely event that democracy continues in the United States without civil war, it's going to be really hard to get things up and running the way that they used to be after all the layoffs dump all the qualified federal employees with subject matter expertise.

Exactly this. It's nowhere near as simple as just flicking a switch and having anything go back to how it functioned before.

You actually need civil servants to make policy happen, it doesn't just happen because someone wills it to exist. The damage to the policy development and implementation system is profound and not reversible. It can be rebuilt, but not restored.

[swashbucklinstache]

It's simple. A job for me needs two of compensation, stability, and a purpose, with compensation the least important. I've forgone multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in compensation so I could help our most vulnerable people. My net worth would be triple what it is now if I worked for market rate pay. My compensation in year 15 of my career is a hair over the starting compensation at a company I had an offer from when I graduated. A company that gets your children addicted to dopamine and abuses people in developing nations and our planet's natural resources. You might be reading this on one of their phones.

The most efficient and greatest deal in the history of the world, frankly. Thrown away in the name of ????? Without stability, if I am forced to leave there's no world in which I'm coming back.

The fun part is most of my colleagues are more qualified for {generic} your job than you are. I've overseen supervisees who went on to all of the top 3 law and med schools in the US, stem phds at Harvard and Princeton, top MBAs etc. Some of these people will take your job. More of the people who stayed will take your spot in grad school in the coming years. Bonus? More than a few of them have said around the water cooler that they'll fire any Republicans whenever they get an opportunity in their next role, which they can legally do (thanks Republicans!) I don't agree with that personally, but be careful if you think there's no employment downsides for you. If nothing else, dumping a bunch of top job candidates on the market will depress wages a bit even if it doesn't knock you a few pegs down the ladder.

I'm certain the world is better off with these people who love their country with their salary not just their lips spending their life's work coming up with creative ways to abuse the planet and her people so some billionaire can be slightly richer.

[swashbucklinstache]

Herb, I trust we'll see you at the next round of marches or a receipt for your donation to the Democratic party right?

All new research grants have been frozen at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) — an action apparently ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to cut spending and workers across the US government.

There's hundreds or thousands of these but we'll just pop down a few from the first page of Google search results about micro plastics research.

https://www.nsf.gov/science-matters/5-nsf-projects-transforming-how-researchers-understand

The U.S. National Science Foundation champions research on how plastic impacts the planet.

https://www.hws.edu/news/2025/unlocking-solutions.aspx

10 April 2025 • Faculty • Research • STEM
Unlocking Solutions: New NSF Grant Propels Microplastic Research

https://www.nsf.gov/news/microplastics-shape-determines-how-far-they-travel

Cornell University researchers have developed a model to simulate the atmospheric transport of microplastic fibers and shows that flat fibers, which are more prevalent, travel farther in the lower atmosphere than spherical fibers.

The modeling has the potential to help scientists determine the sources of this pervasive waste, which could inform policy efforts to reduce it. The U.S. National Science Foundation-supported results were published in Nature Geoscience

https://www.nsf.gov/news/researchers-cook-new-way-remove-microplastics

Researchers at Princeton University have found a way to turn a common breakfast food into a new material that can cheaply remove salt and microplastics from seawater.

The researchers used egg whites to create an aerogel, a lightweight and porous material that can be used in many applications, including water filtration, energy storage and sound and thermal insulation.

The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation through a grant to the Princeton Center for Complex Materials.

***

If none of that moves the needle maybe we can just bask in this amazing display of efficiency to begin with. Possibly the most efficient administration of all time. It's obvious reading the below that our best and brightest will make more efficient progress researching microplastics than ever before!

From the start of Donald Trump’s second US presidency, the agency has gone through whiplash-inducing changes: it froze all grant payments and then unfroze them in February following court orders; it fired its probationary employees in February and weeks later rehired half of them. And earlier this month, the agency cut its graduate research fellowship programme by half, offering only 1,000 positions instead of the usual 2,000.

[ChpBstrd]

The Democrats (or whoever comes next) will be busy reversing all these EOs after the GOP is voted out eventually. Assuming we can manage to vote them out. Or we ever have free elections again.

Even in the unlikely event that democracy continues in the United States without civil war, it's going to be really hard to get things up and running the way that they used to be after all the layoffs dump all the qualified federal employees with subject matter expertise.

IDK. The functioning of a democracy does not necessarily come down to effective school funding, research funding, pensions for the elderly and poor, healthcare systems, federally funded universities, or even law enforcement. There are many functioning democracies around the world which are failing to or unable to deliver these services, and yet they can continue to function if the majority of people support the concept of democracy, and would be unwilling to support or tolerate a dictator.

This gets us to the point of the problem. Democracy, and the concept of individual freedom, are both becoming unpopular in the U.S. About a fifth of Millenials and GenZ think dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances, the third of society represented by the Republican Party has gone complete authoritarian. The rest of us seem un-motivated to protect democracy or come up with solutions.

This, not the Department of Education or the IRS, represents society's bullwark against a descent into one-party rule. This is the problem, not laid-off bureaucrats, regardless of the merits of their work.

We can speculate how we arrived at this point of dissatisfaction and demoralization. Media overconsumption has something to do with it. But so does the almost universal concept that the government is supposed to manage the economy, and therefore our various personal financial dissatisfactions are the fault of our government. We have been conditioned to genuinely expect our elected officials to push some button that makes our stocks zoom up, our bosses give us raises, and bliss to appear in our minds like it does for the models in the car commercials. Politicians tried to answer the call, creating a hellscape of 5-lane highways lined by strip malls and gas stations between insular pockets of poorly-built garages with living quarters attached and lawns that require money not to look bad, because this configuration maximized consumption and GDP. But the creation of suburban hellscapes and consumeristic competition did nothing but make us more miserable, for which we blamed the government. Then along comes some rich savior who promises us greatness and of course we take the bait.

[GuitarStv]

The Democrats (or whoever comes next) will be busy reversing all these EOs after the GOP is voted out eventually. Assuming we can manage to vote them out. Or we ever have free elections again.

Even in the unlikely event that democracy continues in the United States without civil war, it's going to be really hard to get things up and running the way that they used to be after all the layoffs dump all the qualified federal employees with subject matter expertise.

IDK. The functioning of a democracy does not necessarily come down to effective school funding, research funding, pensions for the elderly and poor, healthcare systems, federally funded universities, or even law enforcement. There are many functioning democracies around the world which are failing to or unable to deliver these services, and yet they can continue to function if the majority of people support the concept of democracy, and would be unwilling to support or tolerate a dictator.

This gets us to the point of the problem. Democracy, and the concept of individual freedom, are both becoming unpopular in the U.S. About a fifth of Millenials and GenZ think dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances, the third of society represented by the Republican Party has gone complete authoritarian. The rest of us seem un-motivated to protect democracy or come up with solutions.

This, not the Department of Education or the IRS, represents society's bullwark against a descent into one-party rule. This is the problem, not laid-off bureaucrats, regardless of the merits of their work.

We can speculate how we arrived at this point of dissatisfaction and demoralization. Media overconsumption has something to do with it. But so does the almost universal concept that the government is supposed to manage the economy, and therefore our various personal financial dissatisfactions are the fault of our government. We have been conditioned to genuinely expect our elected officials to push some button that makes our stocks zoom up, our bosses give us raises, and bliss to appear in our minds like it does for the models in the car commercials. Politicians tried to answer the call, creating a hellscape of 5-lane highways lined by strip malls and gas stations between insular pockets of poorly-built garages with living quarters attached and lawns that require money not to look bad, because this configuration maximized consumption and GDP. But the creation of suburban hellscapes and consumeristic competition did nothing but make us more miserable, for which we blamed the government. Then along comes some rich savior who promises us greatness and of course we take the bait.

I don't believe that the IRS or Dept. of Education are a democracy, and gutting them along with most other government agencies isn't what I'm talking about.  There is no way that Trump will voluntarily leave power.  He incited an insurrection last time, and this time the people around him have planned much better.  It's just the beginning of his presidency and he's already talking about being a third term president.  I'll be surprised if Trump is removed without violence, and this second time will be more significant than the first.

You will certainly have to fight for your democracy again, and I just don't see enough backbone from those on the left in the US to accomplish this.  Especially when half of the country seems to be happy to have Trump in power forever (can you imagine how badly the libs will be owned by that!).

[DoubleDown]

I don't believe that the IRS or Dept. of Education are a democracy, and gutting them along with most other government agencies isn't what I'm talking about.  There is no way that Trump will voluntarily leave power.  He incited an insurrection last time, and this time the people around him have planned much better.  It's just the beginning of his presidency and he's already talking about being a third term president.  I'll be surprised if Trump is removed without violence, and this second time will be more significant than the first.

You will certainly have to fight for your democracy again, and I just don't see enough backbone from those on the left in the US to accomplish this.  Especially when half of the country seems to be happy to have Trump in power forever (can you imagine how badly the libs will be owned by that!).

Yes. I don't think removing Trump with violence would even be possible, even if I didn't think he's likely the antichrist. Trump controls all the levers of power, law enforcement agencies, and the military, which he would not hesitate to use to put down any armed rebellion. There are tens of thousands of federal law enforcement agents. And the National Guard at his disposal. And the Insurrection Act. There would be massive bloodshed and loss of life, none of it his. Even if a majority of people were opposed to him, lack of effective resources and fear alone would preclude removing him from power. Backbone-less ReTrumplicans in Congress and the Courts will do exactly as he says. Even Lisa Murkowski (Senator from Alaska), one of the few remaining Republicans who aren't all-in on the Trump bandwagon and who has bucked him in the past, admitted this week that she's now afraid of him.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Saw this headline and had to post - Microplastics found in new body part — as scientists warn about common way they’re ‘leaching’ into us

I apologize in advance for linking to a spammy New York Post page, but here are the important parts -

Now a study published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety has found that in yet another part of the body, which researchers say “should serve as an important warning signal.”

Luigi Montano and his team at the University of Rome discovered microplastics in the ovary follicular fluid of 14 out of 18 women they studied.  Follicular fluid surrounds eggs developing in the ovaries, delivering nutrients like glucose, triglycerides, fatty acids, albumin and globulin.  “This discovery should serve as an important warning signal about the invasiveness of these emerging contaminants in the female reproductive system, considering that they can alter its composition and have an impact on the oocyte [egg], thus posing a significant reproductive risk for our species.”

There are two main ways human bodies get contaminated with microplastics: by breathing them in the air or by eating them in food.
One of the big issues, say experts, is that so much of our food is stored at some point in plastic containers or bags.  “Not only is it packaged in plastic when we buy it from the store, but then we cook it, and we often put it in plastic containers to store it in our fridge, because it’s easy and it’s cheap,” Victoria Fulfer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Rhode Island who studies microplastics, told NBC News. “And that plastic is leaching into our food.”  While that leaching appears to happen from any contact, it gets worse when those plastic containers are heated up.

[swashbucklinstache]

Herb, I trust we'll see you at the next round of marches or a receipt for your donation to the Democratic party right?

All new research grants have been frozen at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) — an action apparently ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to cut spending and workers across the US government.

There's hundreds or thousands of these but we'll just pop down a few from the first page of Google search results about micro plastics research.

https://www.nsf.gov/science-matters/5-nsf-projects-transforming-how-researchers-understand

The U.S. National Science Foundation champions research on how plastic impacts the planet.

https://www.hws.edu/news/2025/unlocking-solutions.aspx

10 April 2025 • Faculty • Research • STEM
Unlocking Solutions: New NSF Grant Propels Microplastic Research

https://www.nsf.gov/news/microplastics-shape-determines-how-far-they-travel

Cornell University researchers have developed a model to simulate the atmospheric transport of microplastic fibers and shows that flat fibers, which are more prevalent, travel farther in the lower atmosphere than spherical fibers.

The modeling has the potential to help scientists determine the sources of this pervasive waste, which could inform policy efforts to reduce it. The U.S. National Science Foundation-supported results were published in Nature Geoscience

https://www.nsf.gov/news/researchers-cook-new-way-remove-microplastics

Researchers at Princeton University have found a way to turn a common breakfast food into a new material that can cheaply remove salt and microplastics from seawater.

The researchers used egg whites to create an aerogel, a lightweight and porous material that can be used in many applications, including water filtration, energy storage and sound and thermal insulation.

The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation through a grant to the Princeton Center for Complex Materials.

***

If none of that moves the needle maybe we can just bask in this amazing display of efficiency to begin with. Possibly the most efficient administration of all time. It's obvious reading the below that our best and brightest will make more efficient progress researching microplastics than ever before!

From the start of Donald Trump’s second US presidency, the agency has gone through whiplash-inducing changes: it froze all grant payments and then unfroze them in February following court orders; it fired its probationary employees in February and weeks later rehired half of them. And earlier this month, the agency cut its graduate research fellowship programme by half, offering only 1,000 positions instead of the usual 2,000.

Cool, now we're not only not funding new projects we're stopping the funding of existing research. Fuck science!

Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature.

The policy prevents the NSF, one of the world’s biggest supporters of basic research, from awarding new research grants and from supplying allotted funds for existing grants, such as those that receive yearly increments of money. The email does not provide a reason for the freeze and says that it will last “until further notice”.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01396-2

Yeah, fuck checks and balances, fuck the constitution!

Funding for the NSF, as for all other federal agencies, is set by the US Congress. To date, the agency has received only about one-quarter of the funding that Congress appropriated to it for the current fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.

At least we can rest easy that microplastics are no longer an issue. Zero medical training leaders like RFK are so forward thinking that they're spending half a billion of your tax dollars to revert to 90s vaccine tech based on basically no evidence. That tech was abandoned because it is worse, the end. Next they'll just declare that since microplastics weren't a problem in the 50s they aren't a problem now! I'm glad we have business leaders making these technical decisions for us. After all, everyone knows training is useless and all our best scientific and engineering achievements were made by people born into obscene wealth like trump, musk, and rfk. i trust them completely.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Just came across a microplastic - adjacent video (PFAS) by Veritasium - How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet

A few interesting take aways -
microwave popcorn is pretty bad for you (if you are trying to avoid PFAS)
bloodletting actually does seem to work
and you can check the PFAS levels in your drinking water here - https://ve42.co/pfasmapinteractive

Ultimately, we are at the mercy of industry and regulatory bodies to do the research and protect the population, so heaven help us in this new era of deregulation and unfettered capitalism.  Americans could end up wealthier and more prone to disease than ever!

[rosarugosa]

Just came across a microplastic - adjacent video (PFAS) by Veritasium - How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet

A few interesting take aways -
microwave popcorn is pretty bad for you (if you are trying to avoid PFAS)
bloodletting actually does seem to work
and you can check the PFAS levels in your drinking water here - https://ve42.co/pfasmapinteractive

Ultimately, we are at the mercy of industry and regulatory bodies to do the research and protect the population, so heaven help us in this new era of deregulation and unfettered capitalism.  Americans could end up wealthier and more prone to disease than ever!

I'm sure if we just take some ivermectin, we'll be fine!    /s