How One Company Secretly Poisoned the Planet

At some point in my material science and chemistry courses, I speak bluntly to my students that most research suggests that man-made polymers are bad for us.

Some are worse than others, but most research on the effects of polymers on humans seems to suggest that there are bad effects from most man-made polymers. Some are minorly bad, but others - like the family of PFAS - are more obviously and persistently bad.

The video above is short and has a direct message: DuPont is bad (or has acted badly).

The longer video below - from Veritasium - is far longer but is much, much more informative.

If this sounds familiar, you might've seen a semi-recent movie about this story, Dark Waters.

Why are Crazy People Called Mad as a Hatter?

I've know the broad strokes of the mercury-hatter connection for a while but not the specific details and history that are retold in today's video.

Sounds like the hatter/Danbury shakes were a very early version of lack of workplace protections. The hatters might as well have been told to lick their radium paintbrushes.

Source - vintag.es

The worry about black food plastics...and a correction

This video was published by Adam Ragusea in November 2024 about a study from a month or so earlier than that. 

The tl;dr of the study is that many black plastics are produced from recycled black plastics that are frequently sourced from electronic waste which contains higher amounts of particularly toxic, flame-retardant chemicals. Those 'new' black plastic items could - especially if used in high heat areas like food flippers and turners on the stovetop - release higher than safe amounts of those chemicals.

In the above video, Adam goes through the possible concerns that this raises as well as noting a possible math error in the study's calculations suggesting that the level of concern is slightly lower than the authors might have initially suggested.

The article was corrected - noting exactly the math error that Adam suggested, and Adam published a spectacular video explaining why that error should not undermine faith in the scientific process or even in the researchers and authors of the original article.

Food Plastics = Estrogens in Your Body

I promise that I'll have something fun and dopey for next week. We've been on a run of pretty heavy content mostly telling us that polymers are killing us.

I'm going to go outside and watch some butterflies.