This is why it is good lab procedure to always "run a blank." A blank is simply a sample that is constructed exactly like a real sample but without the thing you are studying. This way you quickly learn about contamination from tools/gloves/environment etc.
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ggm
I had strong echoes of a naieve lab experience in the 1970s: testing for organophosphates in seawater at the Forth Estuary was basically impossible except for gross amounts, because the standard analytical glass washing we used contaminated the glassware. You have to maintain a completely independent suite of glassware from pipettes all the way through to reaction vessels, and chromatography cells, and wash them with chromic acid, or special formulations.
(I don't work in this field any more, I was a lowly bottle washer and lab tech on a job creation scheme, I am sure the field has moved forward)
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citrin_ru
If lab gloves specifically designed to not contaminate samples are shedding microplactis particules I would expect plastic not designed for this to shed much more micro-plactis particules when it's used.
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martingoodson
People seem to be misunderstanding this paper. It doesn't claim that any previous papers have overestimated contamination. That would only happen if scientists didn't routinely use blanks as a comparison, which they do.
E.g. "A procedural filter blank was created during each sample batch and analysed alongside the samples, to enumerate potential contamination that could have been introduced during the extraction process."
We don’t even need to see scientific evidence to see that we’re probably using too much plastic. Most stores and especially supermarkets are full of plastic. Most clothing contains plastics. It’s just hard to avoid even if you want to.
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culi
The fact that there's so much microplastics everywhere that it's hard for us to even study tissue in isolate is already not encouraging.
Also the main finding of concern imo in the original Nature paper wasn't the finding that we have a plastic fork-worth of microplastics in our brains. It's the finding that brain tissue seems to concentrate microplastics at a much higher rate than other tissue in the body
I find it concerning that there seems to be such a concerted effort to downplay the significance of that finding
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Panzerschrek
Someone needs to analyze samples which can't be contaminated. Like samples from an asteroid. As I know, for a couple of years ago there was a delivery from one.
This is why it is good lab procedure to always "run a blank." A blank is simply a sample that is constructed exactly like a real sample but without the thing you are studying. This way you quickly learn about contamination from tools/gloves/environment etc.
I had strong echoes of a naieve lab experience in the 1970s: testing for organophosphates in seawater at the Forth Estuary was basically impossible except for gross amounts, because the standard analytical glass washing we used contaminated the glassware. You have to maintain a completely independent suite of glassware from pipettes all the way through to reaction vessels, and chromatography cells, and wash them with chromic acid, or special formulations.
(I don't work in this field any more, I was a lowly bottle washer and lab tech on a job creation scheme, I am sure the field has moved forward)
If lab gloves specifically designed to not contaminate samples are shedding microplactis particules I would expect plastic not designed for this to shed much more micro-plactis particules when it's used.
People seem to be misunderstanding this paper. It doesn't claim that any previous papers have overestimated contamination. That would only happen if scientists didn't routinely use blanks as a comparison, which they do. E.g. "A procedural filter blank was created during each sample batch and analysed alongside the samples, to enumerate potential contamination that could have been introduced during the extraction process."
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/476076/1/1_s2.0_S014765132300286...
Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47561711
We don’t even need to see scientific evidence to see that we’re probably using too much plastic. Most stores and especially supermarkets are full of plastic. Most clothing contains plastics. It’s just hard to avoid even if you want to.
The fact that there's so much microplastics everywhere that it's hard for us to even study tissue in isolate is already not encouraging.
Also the main finding of concern imo in the original Nature paper wasn't the finding that we have a plastic fork-worth of microplastics in our brains. It's the finding that brain tissue seems to concentrate microplastics at a much higher rate than other tissue in the body
I find it concerning that there seems to be such a concerted effort to downplay the significance of that finding
Someone needs to analyze samples which can't be contaminated. Like samples from an asteroid. As I know, for a couple of years ago there was a delivery from one.