Nanoplastics, Microplastics, Basketballs, Rice and Whales

Nanoplastics, Microplastics, Basketballs, Rice and Whales

Vice has a horrifying article on nanoplastics. I'll have to worry about them later though because Mirjam Guesgen trots out this amazing comparison:

"Microplastics are on the scale of micrometers, while nanoplastics are mere nanometers. To get a sense of just how small that is, imagine the difference between the size of a WNBA basketball (which is slightly smaller than the NBA equivalent) and a grain of rice."

If we're getting a rough sense of the difference from rice and basketballs what on earth could be the motivation to make it a WNBA basketball? How slightly smaller is it? Stack says:

"A standard NBA basketball has a diameter between 9.43 and 9.51 inches. In the WNBA, the basketball has a diameter of between 9.07 and 9.23 inches. Basketballs used in the NCAA are between 9.39 and 9.55 inches for men and 9.07 and 9.23 inches for women."

Around 5% smaller by diameter at most.

Also, is the WNBA / NBA distinction meaningful when we're not defining the type of rice? Basmati is 6-8 mm, so way more variability than basketballs. I don't even need to bust out the short grained varieties. This is so crazy I had to check out the plastics as well.

Guesgen says microplastics are on the scale of micrometers which is kind of what I had assumed too. But then I'm not a science journalist. Some light googling reveals that microplastics are fragments under 5mm. Some rice would be a microplastic, if it was plastic rice. I guess everything can be measured in micrometers but 5mm is 5000 micrometers. So what are nanoplastics? Maybe 5 micrometers and smaller?

"For particles smaller than 1 μm, they are defined as nanoplastics"

And:

"The term “nano” in nanoplastics tends to be contentious as many researchers follow the convention for nanoparticles that are defined as particles having a size approximately between 1 and 100nm."

Both from ScienceDirect.

So at the extremes that's five million times smaller, or to get a sense of just how much smaller imagine the difference between a grain of rice and around 1,300 blue whales, nose to tail. For the largest plausible nanoparticles, still about a whale. I'm not going to get into the gender.

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(Published to the Fediverse as: Nanoplastics, Microplastics, Basketballs, Rice and Whales #etc #nanoplastic #microplastic #rice #whales #basketballs How much smaller is a nanoplastic than a microplastic? A lot more than I expected, and a lot more than claimed in a recent Vice article. )

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Reviews and links for June 2010

Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017

Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

2/5

A barely reheated Glamorama (celebrities and brands in bold face) about star-fucking in the form of a movie script. Enough Palahniukisms to make it worth finishing (for me), but only because it was mercifully short.

 

Links

- BP 'trusted partner' of Olympics from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Appropriate given that much of the Olympic site is toxic sludge covered in a thin layer of plastic wrap...).

- Falls cost NHS millions each day from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Are they falling on expensive scanners or something?).

- Should nuts be banned on commercial flights? from All Salon (Ban them? I can't remember the last time I was served anything as luxurious as a peanut on a US flight...).

- Call to regulate artificial life from BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition (Public should have studied harder at school then.).

- City of Smarty Pantses from Spots Unknown (Says more about cost of living maybe?).

- "A hundred mile oil lake at the bottom of the Gulf that's 500 feet deep." from jwz (Hopefully this guy doesn't know what he's talking about...).

- Dolphin uses iPad as way to communicate with humans from Boing Boing ("S_ l_*g *nd th*nks !or *ll the !ish" - but what can it mean?).

- Feds meet with film director Cameron on oil spill from SFGate: Top News Stories (They can get rid of it in post-production?).

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