Tuesday, October 22, 2024

UBIQUITOUS

Microplastic Pollution is Everywhere, Even in the Exhaled Breath of Dolphins


THE CONVERSATION

October 22, 2024
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Bottlenose Dolphin of the California coast. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

Bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay in Florida and Barataria Bay in Louisiana are exhaling microplastic fibers, according to our new research published in the journal PLOS One.

Tiny plastic pieces have spread all over the planet – on landin the air and even in clouds. An estimated 170 trillion bits of microplastic are estimated to be in the oceans alone. Across the globe, research has found people and wildlife are exposed to microplastics mainly through eating and drinking, but also through breathing.

A microsopic image shows a thread-like squiggle of purple. The scale given for the object is 0.2 microns.
A plastic microfiber found in the exhaled breath of a bottlenose dolphin is nearly 14 times smaller than a strand of hair and can be seen only with a microscope.
Miranda Dziobak/College of CharlestonCC BY-SA

Our study found the microplastic particles exhaled by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are similar in chemical composition to those identified in human lungs. Whether dolphins are exposed to more of these pollutants than people are is not yet known.

Why it matters

In humans, inhaled microplastics can cause lung inflammation, which can lead to problems including tissue damage, excess mucus, pneumonia, bronchitis, scarring and possibly cancer. Since dolphins and humans inhale similar plastic particles, dolphins may be at risk for the same lung problems.

Research also shows plastics contain chemicals that, in humans, can affect reproductioncardiovascular health and neurological function. Since dolphins are mammals, microplastics may well pose these health risks for them, too.

As top predators with decades-long life spans, bottlenose dolphins help scientists understand the impacts of pollutants on marine ecosystems – and the related health risks for people living near coasts. This research is important because more than 41% of the world’s human population lives within 62 miles (100 km) of a coast.

What still isn’t known

Scientists estimate the oceans contain many trillions of plastic particles, which get there through runoff, wastewater or settling from the air. Ocean waves can release these particles into the air.

A diagram showing how plastics are broken down into tiny bits by the action of waves.
The ocean releases microplastics into the air through surface froth and wave action. Once the particles are released, wind can transport them to other locations.
Steve AllenCC BY-SA

In fact, bubble bursts caused by wave energy can release 100,000 metric tons of microplastics into the atmosphere each year. Since dolphins and other marine mammals breathe at the water’s surface, they may be especially vulnerable to exposure.

Where there are more people, there is usually more plastic. But for the tiny plastic particles floating in the air, this connection isn’t always true. Airborne microplastics are not limited to heavily populated areas; they pollute undeveloped regions, too.

Our research found microplastics in the breath of dolphins living in both urban and rural estuaries, but we don’t yet know whether there are major differences in amounts or types of plastic particles between the two habitats.

How we do our work

Breath samples for our study were collected from wild bottlenose dolphins during catch-and-release health assessments conducted in partnership with the Brookfield Zoo ChicagoSarasota Dolphin Research ProgramNational Marine Mammal Foundation and Fundación Oceanogràfic.

A person standing in chest high water holds a petri dish above a dolphin's blowhole.
Exhaled breath is collected from a dolphin during a wild dolphin health assessment in Barataria Bay in Louisiana. Todd Speakman/National Marine Mammal FoundationCC BY-SA

During these brief permitted health assessments, we held a petri dish or a customized spirometer – a device that measures lung function – above the dolphin’s blowhole to collect samples of the animals’ exhaled breath. Using a microscope in our colleague’s lab, we checked for tiny particles that looked like plastic, such as pieces with smooth surfaces, bright colors or a fibrous shape.

Since plastic melts when heated, we used a soldering needle to test whether these suspected pieces were plastic. To confirm they were indeed plastic, our colleague used a specialized method called Raman spectroscopy, which uses a laser to create a structural fingerprint that can be matched to a specific chemical.

Our study highlights how extensive plastic pollution is – and how other living things, including dolphins, are exposed. While the impacts of plastic inhalation on dolphins’ lungs are not yet known, people can help address the microplastic pollution problem by reducing plastic use and working to prevent more plastic from polluting the oceans.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Leslie Hart is Associate Professor of Public Health at the College of Charleston and Miranda Dziobak is an Instructor in Public Health at the College of Charleston.


Yes, You Should Leave Twitter (X)



 October 22, 2024
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Photo by Ravi Sharma

The other day, I read someone on X, the social-media hub formerly known as Twitter, say the argument against individualism in left-wing spaces has gone too far. I can’t recall who said this, or what the exact context was, but she was making the case that while there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, as the platitude goes, some consumption is more ethical than others.

In the animal movement, I’ve really appreciated the pivot away from individualism in recent years, which is still ongoing. Instead of focusing so much on changing individual behavior, namely by getting others to go vegan, activists seem to be focusing more on enacting pro-animal public policy. For instance, I’ve been pushing legislators to support more government funding for cultivated-meat research.

That said, I sympathize with what this commentator was saying. Ironically, I particularly feel this way when thinking about left-wing participation on X. I don’t want to pretend my hands are clean here. I’m a regular lurker on the website formerly known as Twitter. I follow a smorgasbord of political journalists, cultivated-meat experts, animal activists, socialists, movie critics and New York Knick fans.

Still, I think anyone left of center — or, more broadly, anyone opposed to the rising threat of right-wing authoritarianism — needs to get off X. Twitter has always been a bit of a cesspool, but since Elon Musk bought the site, he’s turned it into what is arguably the world’s largest fascist propaganda tool. Ideas which previously would have been confined to neo-Nazi message boards have entered the mainstream.

I don’t want to suggest Musk is solely responsible for this. Academics much smarter than me have outlined factors which lead to the rise of fascism. However, in the United States, I don’t think there’s anyone, other than former President Donald Trump, who has done more to legitimize the far right than Musk. His purchase and transformation of Twitter has shifted the Overton Window significantly.

Admittedly, it’s easy for me to say people should leave Twitter. I haven’t spent a significant chunk of my career building an audience there, as many of the people I follow have. The prospect of giving that up and starting over on another social-media site must be daunting. That said, in providing free content on X, these users are drawing eyeballs to what is fundamentally a fascist operation.

I’m also under no illusions about ownership of the alternatives. Take Threads, for example. It’s owned by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, no one’s idea of a leftist hero. I suspect he supports Trump. Still, Zuckerberg strikes me as bad in the way all billionaires are bad. Musk is uniquely toxic, in part because he appears more interested in spreading far-right ideas than actually earning money.

Of the Twitter clones I’ve tried so far, my favorite is Bluesky, but I don’t particularly care where the people I follow go. I just want them off X. Again, it’s easier said than done, especially for those who have grown an audience on Twitter, but I wish these people would pin a note to the top of their profile, telling me where I can find them going forward, and permanently log off.

Jon Hochschartner is the author of a number of books about animal-rights history, including The Animals’ Freedom FighterIngrid Newkirk, and Puppy Killer, Leave Town. He blogs at SlaughterFreeAmerica.Substack.com.