Kip Hansen Briefing — December 24, 2022
Most of the science being done today is good work – done with certainty. The problem comes when the press gets involved. Let’s be frank, scientists want their work to be widely read, they want their work to be seen as ‘important’, meaningful and, let’s admit it, popular. They want the press to cover their latest research.
The problem this causes is not entirely The Press’s fault – scientists tend to let their agencies’ press offices ‘make love’ research results and their significance. Mass media (no longer printed in the press but mysteriously spreading itself on the internet as bits and bytes – electronic 1s and 0s) need to produce content that people will read – or at least especially headlines that the public will click on.
[Clicks produce income for digital outlets – and I will admit to having invented, with five other people, one of the most ubiquitous tracking systems ever – increasing the commercial value of websites by 80% overnight. Yes, there’s a patent, long expired now.]
Our example today comes from our old favorites Guard, that journalists are easily attracted to science stories. The latest one is:
“Plastic barrier prevents sea urchin from growing normally, fin studyds”
The title is wrong in its own right, but the subheading is at least slightly more accurate:
“Chemical leaks out of plastic have been shown to cause deadly abnormalities, including the growth of intestines outside the body.”
Of course, that’s not entirely accurate either.
There is a study! (I love that saying more and more as a photo manipulation…)
The real research, seemingly carefully done, in an active science fashion, is:
This article is a “In newspapers, magazines Pre-proof” but it was peer-reviewed. this is a .pdf version is available for free.
Of course, when one reads the newspaper, one discovers that “barriers“Don’t do anything. But when fresh plant nurdles was poured into water and then “filtered for 72 h on a Heidolph orbital shaker (Heidolph Unimax 2010), shaking continuously at room temperature (approximately 18°C) in the dark” (at one beaker to ten cup of water ratio) one gets one leachate of fresh nurdles, it is not surprising that it contains a lot of chemicals.
If chemical leachate placed in a cup with newly fertilized sea urchin eggs, things did not go well for the little urchins. This is not a surprise. Virtually any combination of “non-seawater” chemicals will have some adverse effect because, according to the article, “Marine invertebrate development is a life stage. especially sensitive because it happens so quickly and directly in the water.”
The crux of the study is given in:
“Conclusion:”
“Sadly, the Nuddle spill is an undesirable source of plastic pollution, where large quantities of plastic nudurdles can be found (Partow et al., 2021; Sewwandi et al., 2022). That is very unlikely that high concentrations of plastic particles such as those used in our study were found in environments other than some of those immediately following these accidents.” [my emphasis – kh]
“We have demonstrated that the new plastic barriers can filter out toxic chemicals, especially heavy metals, at high concentrations that disrupt the development of sea urchin embryos.S.”
and they add speculation to good science:
“Given the highly conserved nature of developmental processes, it is not difficult to imagine that other organisms would be affected in a similar way..”
My bottom line:
first. Spilling large quantities of newly produced plastic beads called “nurdles” into the sea is a bad thing. This happened when Container ship X-Press Pearl sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka in 2021. But, we already knew that. And, of course, harm to sea urchin embryos is only possible in such large oil spill sites.
2. Nurdle and microbeads not of the ocean. When. There have been many efforts to eliminate plastic in general and microplastics in particular. Nurdles are about the size of lentils and bigger than microplastics – but Biodegradable same severance. No plastic waste belongs to the ocean, river, roadside or environment – it belongs to recycling plants, waste-to-energy plants or landfills.
3. Putting things that don’t belong in the ocean is BAD. Don’t do that. However, anything you put in the ocean, if not completely poisonous, becomes poison. or food or a home for some creatures of worms.
4. This kind of science is “fake science”. anti-plastic science is a fad, like link-what-is-bad-with-global-warming science. Will definitely be published, will almost certainly be covered by the press. Very few of them add to basic human knowledge. Simply put, a waste of effort and money. Quoting Dr. Judith Curry, “the research is neither helpful nor does it contribute to basic understanding.”
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Author’s comments:
We either have too many scientists and not enough to study, or too many scientists are forced to publish or die even if they are not published at all.
In the past, I have advocated scientific fields – such as “is plastic a problem” – in their larger field-specific bodies, the AGU being an example, to bring together their best people together and pose the most urgent or important questions to answer. Then scientists in the field can focus on what is most essential first. Silly studies like this will not be funded. [It is not entirely silly – but was unneeded — their main finding that “massive spills of nurdles are bad” was already known.]
Am I doing better? I don’t know – I write about things that interest me or attract my attention. I will not be offended by your opinion in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
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