Must Be Microplastics on the Brain

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2 • 639 Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Not much passes into our brain from the rest of our body, to the chagrin of drug makers everywhere. So it should be cause for concern when a study found that microplastics were somehow ending up in our brain, says chief opinion editor Megha Satyanarayana. She takes a step back and brings us into the wider world of plastics and the way petroleum chemicals can become pollutants far beyond the factories where they are made. Plus, Satyanarayana discusses the Scientific American opinion section and her column Cross Currents, which aims to decode the science from the headlines. Recommended reading: Why Aren’t We Losing Our Minds over the Plastic in Our Brains? Subscribe to receive weekly emails alerts for Satyanarayana’s column Cross Currents: E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Megha Satyanarayana. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.
0:05.8	Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.
0:11.0	Yachtold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.
0:20.1	To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.
0:22.7	J-P. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T dot C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacult.
0:35.0	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Theltenman.
0:38.3	You may recall that during one of our news round-up episodes last month, I mentioned a new study on microplastics in the human brain.
0:47.0	That study also caught the attention of Scientific American's chief opinion editor, Mega Saty and Ariana.
0:55.4	She featured it in her weekly column Cross Currents,
0:58.3	where she dives into pressing issues related to health and the environment.
1:02.3	Meg is here to chat with us today about that February column,
1:05.2	titled Why Aren't We Losing Our Minds Over the Plastic in Our Brains?
1:09.4	She's also here to tell us more about the Scientific American Opinion section and what their work is all about.
1:17.9	Mega, thanks so much for coming on to chat.
1:19.9	I would love to hear a little bit about what you do at Scientific American.
1:23.3	I'm the chief opinion editor at Scientific American, and the department does this kind of
1:29.7	cool and unique thing and that we publish opinions from experts in different fields about
1:37.7	things that are happening in science, things that are happening in society, and where
1:42.1	are those two things overlap. We also publish opinion pieces
1:46.5	that are staff written, including some that are written by me and some that are written by Dan Vergano.
1:52.0	Dan Vergano is a senior opinion editor at Scientific American. He works with me on all of our opinion
1:58.2	pieces, and he's also the writer of a column called Argonaut.
	...

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