How do you study microplastics in a plastic-filled lab?
4/30/202611 min
The news we hear about plastic is often alarming: We have a spoon’s worth of plastics in our brains, and there are microplastics in our hearts, lymph nodes, and bloodstreams. Plastics are ubiquitous, but the reality might be more complicated than it seems.
It turns out that measuring microplastics is really, really difficult. One reason? Because we’re surrounded by plastics! Think of the pipettes and petri dishes and gloves we use in labs.
Host Flora Lichtman chats with microplastics researcher Cassandra Rauert about the difficulties of studying plastics in the human body and what she’s doing about it—like how she designed a whole lab made almost entirely of stainless steel and glass.
Guest:
Dr. Cassandra Rauert is a senior research fellow studying microplastics exposure at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
- Can algae help pull microplastics out of our water supply?
- Where Does Plastic And Other Trash Go After We Throw It Away?
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Flora Lichtman· Host0:23
[upbeat music] Hey, it's Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday. You have seen the headlines like we've got a spoon's worth of plastic in our brains, and microplastics are found in our hearts and our lymph nodes and our bloodstream. It sounds alarming, but the story might be more complicated than it seems. It turns out that measuring microplastics is really hard to do because, guess what? We're surrounded by plastics, including the pipettes and Petri dishes and gloves that we use in the lab. Here to tell us more about this challenge and how she's working to get around it is Dr. Cassandra Rout, who studies microplastics exposure at the University of Queensland in Australia. Cassie, welcome to Science Friday.
Cassandra Rauert· Guest1:14
Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here.
Flora Lichtman· Host1:16
Okay, tell us about this problem. Why is microplastic measurement a challenge?
Cassandra Rauert· Guest1:22
Okay, so there are a lot of challenges. Um, the problems with the microplastics analysis is that the