Microplastics: How Worried Should You Be?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Science, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 11.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Microplastics have been turning up in our blood, our lungs, and even our balls! But exactly what are they doing to us? And what about all the chemicals in plastics — can they mess with our hormones? We talk to reproductive biologists Prof. Patricia Hunt and Prof. Fred vom Saal, and pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Anne-Simone Parent. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsMicroplastics Chapters: In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Pat’s mice (06:26) Our plastic world (08:03) What do microplastics actually do in our bodies? (11:53) Plastics contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (15:06) Endocrine disruptors and…obesity?! (20:38) Are they funking up our junk? (29:23) Are we really eating that much microplastic? (32:50) What should we do? This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from Wendy Zukerman, along with Meryl Horn, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, and Michelle Dang. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Sam Bair. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, and Peter Leonard. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke with for this episode, including Dr. Meiru Wang, Dr. Roger Kuhlman, Dr. Christopher Tubbs, Dr. Giusseppe Paolisso, Prof. Jerry Heindel, Dr. Laura Geer, Dr. Mohan Qin, Dr. Haoran Wei, Dr. Thaddeus Schug, Dr. Thava Palanisami, and Dr. Xiaozhong Yu. Special thanks to Miah Foster and Diana Kenney. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to science verses.
0:06.0	I'm here with Senior Producer Rose Rimmler. Hello? Hi Wendy. You have a story to tell me? Yes, we're
0:18.0	going to start off with a bit of a mystery story today. I heard it from Professor Patricia Hunt. So it's like we were on the
0:27.5	trail of something we thought was going to be really big and then we tripped and
0:31.4	fell into something that was huge.
0:33.0	Ooh, I'm in.
0:36.0	It all started back in the late 90s.
0:38.0	Pat was running a lab where she was researching egg cells,
0:42.0	which one thing you got to know about Pat is that she loves
0:45.9	egg cells loves them. You know how some people are into like very niche things? Yes
0:52.2	to other people they seem niche to you, they seem extremely important.
0:55.0	So for me, it would be gelatinous marine invertebrates.
0:58.0	Yes.
0:59.0	You do love jellyfish.
1:01.0	For Pat, it's the egg cell, the moment it's released and is like ready to meet a
1:07.5	sperm. Well it's beautiful for one thing and it's absolutely fascinating because more we study the more
1:15.1	complex we realize the whole process is.
1:19.5	So to help her understand this complex process, she had mice in her lab. She had healthy
1:25.2	mice, but one day she took some of their eggs and looked at them under a
1:30.8	microscope and she saw that something weird was going on with their chromosomes.
1:35.2	Hmm. They should just line up like you know horses ready to start a horse race and
1:40.7	what we saw was they were splattered all over the place like they were completely
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Spotify Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Spotify Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.