News and Reporting
Isolated Puerto Rican lizard shows urban adaptation
Crested Anole YouTube short video.
Aging Activates Belly Fat Pump
Belly fat has a metabolism of its own. As we age, it becomes a factory pumping out more fatty cells that increase our waistline and damage our health. Scientists think they know why our waistlines expand in middle age.
Covering Up Heart Pump Damage
How to Find Health Information
Using ABCs to Find Health Topics
Much emphasis is placed on using search engines and natural language chatboxes like ChatGPT to find health-related information, but using your ABCs can still be fast and accurate.
For instance, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(cdc.gov) offers an alphabetized topic finder, an A to Z index.
Click on the letter "M" and malaria is five words down the list. Select "malaria" and everything you ever wanted to know about it is at your fingertips.
Reasons for alphabetical indexes:
- accessible for all computing devices,
- organize topics well,
- easy to use.
The Microplastics Menace
Ben Franklin had One Bowl
Ben Franklin, discoverer of electricity and elder American statesman, had one bowl from which he took every meal. He owned one bowl.
Later in life when the Franklins were well to do, his wife purchased a set of china. Mr. Franklin was flabergasted. The ever frugal Mr. Franklin claimed it was horribly wasteful and continued to eat out of his one bowl.
When does plastic begin to breakdown?
The answer is during product creation. In High-Risk, High-Reward: Investing in Game-Changing Plastics Extrusion Technology , ReDeTec founder Dennon Oosterman revealed two ways plastic begins to breakdown during the manufacturing process of a product, high heat and viscous shear.
Recovered plastics are already degraded even more before being put through another manufacturing process to make a recycled product.
Read more on ReDeTec's webpage.
3 Steps to Limit Microplastics in your Life
Step 1 - deliberately select non-plastic food products.
Don't panic! This is difficult. Some grocery stores don't stock applesauce in a glass quart jar container anymore, instead offering "convenient" single use packages.
Step 2 - remove food from plastic containers before heating, reheating, or eating.
This step is super important! Heat "supercharges" the release of microplastics. Breakdown of microplastics begins when the product is first formed from pellets into a mold by the application of heat. This process continues whenever plastic is exposed to a heat source.
Step 3 - pay attention to textile content in clothing and building products selecting more natural than man-made products.
Wear clothing made from natural fibers like cotton and wool. Install ceramic tile or wood flooring instead of carpet.
We tested our blood for microplastics. This is what we found by Samuel Lovett, March 07 2025, The Times
Microplastics have made it into our brains. Should we be worried? by Ben Spencer, Science Editor | Graphic by Matthew Cornick, Sunday February 09 2025, The Sunday Times
Nanoplastics may help set the stage for Parkinson’s risk by Vicki Contie, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Folks consume 5 grams of microplastics weekly, which is about the weight of a credit card.
So says wellness reporter McKenzie Brooks Beard of the New York Post in New study finds entire spoonful of microplastics in people’s brains — and 3 times as much in those with dementia.
Two simple changes help prevent microplastics in your diet.
Making a single change can cut your microplastics intake from 90,000 to 4,000 particles per year by Tracy Swartz in the New York Post.
There are actually two changes! One, reheat or cook in the microwave using a non-plastic, microwaveable container, and two, stop drinking fluids in plastic bottles. The latter is harder since almost every drink including milk comes in plastic bottles. Truly, though, milk tastes better in a cold, thick glass bottle. Insist on it.
A deep read into the microplastics menace
From oceans to dinner plates: The impact of microplastics on human health, an open access journal publication.