Tuesday's random Links of the Day

[pyesetz]

In a sign of the End Times, microplastics have been detected in human placentas.  These plastic particles are small enough to have travelled through the mother’s bloodstream.
      One of the particles they found was coloured with copper phthalocyanine, the most-manufactured pigment in the world, which is used in blue finger paints — suitable for children!

---

Dog.  Oil painting on wood.  His name is Virgil.
      The subject of this portrait probably has microplastics in his body.  The paint itself will become such when it flakes off.

---

This llama (named Cormac) has produced nanobodies that are very effective against COVID-19.  Llamas and other camelids have immune systems that produce single-domain antibodies, which are much smaller than regular antibodies, easier to manufacture, and can be given by inhalation.  This could someday become a vaccine or a test reagent, but “we have a lot more work ahead of us”.
      That grass he’s eating could be studded with microplastics, just falling out of the air like any other dust.

---

The US government at work.  (This photo from the article depicts a scene which almost certainly contains some bits of microplastic.)  This time, they are refusing to accept scientific recommendations that: ⟮𝟙⟯ men aren’t that different from women and both should aim for one alcoholic drink per day; and ⟮𝟚⟯ Obama’s “10% of your calories from sugar” is too lenient and the standard should be tightened to 6%.
      Money quote: “most people do not follow the government’s advice”.

---

Novavax, Inc. is a company that has been making vaccines for 30 years, but has never managed to gain regulatory approval for any of them.  They are now finally ready to *start* phase Ⅲ testing of their latest candidate, which consists of fat globules with SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins sticking out of them.  (The trials were delayed by some production problems, which might perhaps have involved microplastics.)

---

Europe is doing a massive “Trust the Science!” ad campaign to get people to take one of the COVID-19 vaccines.  I have a smallpox scar; my kids don’t.  While smallpox was a nasty disease in days of old, there were fewer problems with microplastics back then.

---

Just one word: 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴.

Comments

[rain_gryphon]

I'd not fret. Metal phthalocyanines are enormously stable, and almost certainly biologically inert.

[pyesetz]

It seems that their method for finding microplastics in placentas is only effective for the colourful ones, so the phthalocyanine was necessary for detection.  Another concern is that phthalates (which phthalocyanine is made from) are known to cause birth defects in male genitalia.