People sometimes ask me, "Is there anything worse than plastic?" My answer would be, "Of course!" One thing that's definitely worse than plastic is... recycled plastic, as this new study shows. 👇
Experts believe there may be as many as 13,000 different chemicals involved in the manufacture of plastics, the vast majority of which are totally unknown to us in terms of their safety and potential toxicity.
But plastics can also be contaminated with other chemicals, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals & industrial chemicals, at various stages of their lifecycles. If these contaminated plastics are then recycled, humans can then be exposed to these harmful substances.
Researchers tested plastic pellets from recycling plants in 13 different plants across the world. They found 491 readily identifiable organic compounds, with a further 170 tentatively identified. As you can see from the table below, they span a wide variety of chemical classes.
As well as being harmful to the workers handling them, recycled plastics are also potentially harmful to consumers who use them. Recycled plastics have a wide variety of applications, from toys and furniture to clothing.
Recycled plastic clothing, like these t-shirts from the brand Oceanness, are advertised as the height of ethical consumerism, but in reality if you wear such clothing, you may be exposing your body, through your skin and through inhalation of fibres to some horrible chemicals...
that you wouldn't find in "virgin" plastic.
And look, here are 100% recycled plastic toys for your little ones to chew on all day long...
This new study makes it pretty clear, as far as I can see, that recycling plastic is a bad idea. We already know that recycling produces massive quantities of microplastic waste as well. What we really need to be doing is phasing out our use of plastics, full stop. And now.
This course does exactly what it says on the tin: it provides you with a six-week course focused on abdominal development. Add it to your normal weight-training regimen. 👇
The course is not intended for absolute beginners. Vince believed beginners shouldn’t train abs at all. For beginners, according to Vince, general training, and especially compound movements, is enough to stimulate the abdominals. Only later, after the bodybuilder has gained some experience, should they then start to train abdominals specifically.
The six-week course consists of six one-week regimens to be performed one after the other, in order. Each regimen contains a different exercise or exercises, which Vince describes in detail.
Some weeks, such as week two include different exercises depending on the practitioner’s skill level. Weeks five and six are based around the same difficult exercise—the shoulder planche.
A new study shows that tampons are laced with heavy metals including lead, arsenic and cadmium. Every single tampon tested in the study had lead in it. 👇
The researchers analysed 60 tampons representing 14 different brands from the US, UK and EU. These included name brands and store-brand products. The samples were tested using a process called inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to identify metals present.
The researchers found lead and cadmium in 100% of samples. Arsenic was detected in 95% of samples.
Interestingly, the highest concentrations were for zinc and calcium.
UK and EU tampons generally had lower quantities of metals in them than US tampons.
The study starts from the position that there must be some evolutionary reason for the persistence of genes for same-sex attraction, since they persist despite being apparently maladaptive (gay people don't reproduce).
The researchers therefore devised a "desirable dad hypothesis": that men possessing traits associated with same-sex attraction are actually more likely to be attractive to women.
Here's how the researchers describe this in the study abstract:
"Same-sex attraction, a heritable trait with a reproductive cost, lacks a comprehensive evolutionary explanation. Here we build on a hypothesis invoking antagonistic pleiotropy, which suggests that genes linked to male same-sex attraction remain in the gene pool because they have conferred some fitness advantage to heterosexual men possessing them. We posit the “desirable dad hypothesis,” which proposes that alleles linked to male non-heterosexual orientations increase traits conducive to childcare; heterosexual men possessing same-sex attracted alleles are more desirable mating partners as a function of possessing superior paternal qualities."
They then conducted three separate studies to investigate this hypothesis.
In the first study, women were asked to assess personality traits associated with parenting via surveys. In the second, a small group of women were presented with male dating profiles classified as masculine, neutral and feminine and asked to rate them with regard to their prospects for relationships, both short- and long-term. And in the third, these same women rated the same profiles they’d seen in terms of their perceived parenting abilities.
The results of the three studies were a resounding “yes” to the question, “Do women prefer feminine men as partners and mates?"
Apart from cholesterol, sunlight is probably the most demonised "substance" in all of health. You're told sunlight is harmful, but the opposite is true, as a new study shows. UV light makes you eat more, but it also ramps up your metabolism.👇
What the researchers found in this new study is that mice exposed to consistent UV radiation (one of the main components of sunlight) exhibited increased appetite, which could be seen not only in eating behaviours, but also in levels of the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite.
Regardless of whether or not the mice were fed a normal diet or a high-fat (i.e. junk-food diet) they didn’t gain weight. Yes, you read that right: even mice fed a junk-food diet, if they were exposed to steady UV radiation, didn’t gain weight, even when they ate more.
But how?
Because the UV radiation triggered the release of norepinephrine, which not only reduces levels of leptin, but also increases energy expenditure by turning white fat into more metabolically expensive brown fat (yes, not all forms of body fat are created equal).
The researchers found that the increased energy intake of the mice was converted to heat before it could accumulate in white fat, and so the mice didn’t put on weight.
There's now massive amounts of research being conducted into microplastics and their effects. Barely a day passes without multiple new studies. Here are a few I saw on my travels today. 👇
No surprise: single-use beverage cups release significant quantities of microplastics when hot water is added to them. Interestingly, rinsing the cup with pure cold water before use reduces plastic release by over half (up to 65%).
Microplastics are in fish-oil capsules. Most probably get their from the manufacturing and packaging process.
AIR IN 99% OF CARS CONTAINS TOXIC CHEMICALS LINKED TO CANCER AND HORMONE-DISRUPTION.
A new study shows that virtually all car interiors are off-gassing harmful flame retardants. 👇
Researchers analysed the air in 101 electric, gas and hybrid cars made between 2015 and 2022, and found that 99% of the samples contained a flame retardant called TCIPP, which is being investigated as a potential carcinogen, and two others, TDCIPP and TCEP, which are already considered to be carcinogenic.
These chemicals are also considered to be endocrine-disruptors, meaning they interfere with the body’s natural hormone balance, and they are linked to neurological damage.
“Considering the average driver spends about an hour in the car every day, this is a significant public health issue,” said Rebecca Hoehn, lead researcher.
“It’s particularly concerning for drivers with longer commutes as well as child passengers, who breathe more air pound for pound than adults.”