The fish that did hatch in these waters with high quantities of micro-plastics were "smaller, slower, and more stupid" than those that hatched in clean waters, lead author Dr Oona Lonnstedt, from Uppsala University, said. When exposed to predators, about half the young perch from clean waters survived for 24 hours. Those that had been raised with the strongest plastic concentrations were all consumed by pike over the same period.Kind of a bad analogy! Teenagers eating fast food are getting too much to eat and getting fat. Fish eating micro-plastic are getting no nutrition at all and forgoing actual food. If there's any kind of decent analogy to be found, I'd like to know why they don't try to make some plastic concoction for us people to eat that we'll find more enticing and satisfying than food. Then we could lose weight.
Most surprising for the research team was the way that plastic changed food preferences. "They all had access to zooplankton and yet they decided to just eat plastic in that treatment. It seems to be a chemical or physical cue that the plastic has, that triggers a feeding response in fish," Dr Lonnstedt told BBC News. They are basically fooled into thinking it's a high-energy resource that they need to eat a lot of. I think of it as unhealthy fast food for teenagers, and they are just stuffing themselves."
June 3, 2016
"Young fish become hooked on eating plastic in the seas in the same way that teenagers prefer unhealthy fast food..."
"... Swedish researchers have said."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
27 comments:
There's growing evidence that all we need to lose weight is for the government to get out of the nutrition business. We did better without them.
Aside from the question of what happens to the pike who fill up on plastic-eating perch, it seems a not-bad thing that the unhealthy fish get eaten and the healthy fish don't. As I recall from survival-of-the-fittest class, that's how it's supposed to work. Perch will stop eating plastic because perch that eat plastic won't have kids.
small fry
Not from personal experience, but would the better analogy be cocaine, or amphetamines?
1. Positive sensation effect.
2. Ends up being a substitute for food?
So, now they're giving IQ tests and timing the workouts of "smaller, slower, and more stupid" fish. Maybe we ought to extend Title IX to schools of perch and shoals of herring.
Guess researchers gotta research cause the world just gotta fret. I mean I'm fretting about all that estrogen I've been sucking in over the years and nobody seems to give a shit. My tits seem to grow more and more each day.
And that other thing seems to keep on shrinking. I mean how come my nose and ears keep growing but my thing keeps shrinking.
Why can't they make a pill that revs up your thyroid. I had a cat that became hyperthyroid, lost way too much weight. But cats have 2 thyroids so they took one out and he went back to normal. Seems like there's something there - we could boost the one we have a little.
Or, can't they make a pill that kills your appetite the way sleeping pills opioids do without the dope part.
Man, I'm full of ideas!
Sounds more like marijuana.
Smaller, slower and more stupid.
"... some plastic concoction for us people to eat that we'll find more enticing and satisfying than food."
Olestra was that, but it had imperfections.
How does one determine intelligence in fish? 'Stupid' because they're caught as prey?
Maybe the pike have something that allows them to sense especially well a fish that's been exposed to plastic v. one that is not. That would also explain the plastic fish mortality rates. I wonder if the researchers considered that.
MadisonMan said...I wonder if the researchers considered that.
That's a problem with research into real world phenomenon--have they identified and controlled for all alternative causes and explanations? As any honest climate scientist could tell you, the answer is usually no.
I love perch. Perch is a big in Wisconsin on Friday nights.
tits.
"How does one determine intelligence in fish? 'Stupid' because they're caught as prey?"
Blaming the victim.
The abstract doesn't say anything about fish...
"Population size and the quality of waste management systems largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris."
China.
Smart fish learn to taste bad or be pointy or look like rocks or coral.
Michael K said...
Sounds more like marijuana.
Smaller, slower and more stupid.
Sound more like dementia from getting old and stupid enough to take science-y MSM articles seriously.
Here's a study, one author (an activist) the same, which actually mentions fish: different answer than the clickbait from the BBC.
Ingested plastic transfers hazardous chemicals to fish and induces hepatic stress
...
"Here, we exposed fish to a low-dose of chemicals sorbed to plastics over a relatively long time period. Thus, as expected, we did not observe large amounts or differences in mortality among treatments. Rates of mortality within each treatment, throughout the 2-month experiment, were 4% from the negative control and virgin plastic treatments and 6% from the marine plastic treatment.
...
Still, fish exposed to virgin- and marine-plastic treatments show signs of stress in their livers, including glycogen depletion, fatty vacuolation and single cell necrosis."
What is needed is e. coli genetically modified to eat plastics.
Of course, that could play hob with the PVC sanitary sewer lines.
Hagar: What is needed is e. coli genetically modified to eat plastics.
I see this idea all the time. Haven't any of you read "Ringworld"? (A civilization is destroyed by a mutant bacterium that eats the room-temperature superconductor which is the basis of all power transmission.)
"How does one determine intelligence in fish? 'Stupid' because they're caught as prey?"
Ann: Blaming the victim.
No, all credit for adaptive evolutionary change goes to the victims. (At least, to the victims who are lucky enough to get eaten before they breed.)
Anyway. I've watched fish hunt and be hunted. The level of stupidity and clumsiness (on both sides) has to be seen to be believed. The only "smart" predator I've watched are barracuda.
Scene: Underneath a moored dive boat in the carribean. Twenty or thirty jack tuna have decided the shade is nice, and are milling around under the boat. Just visible in the near distance are a half-dozen barracuda. The jack are engaged in, apparently, harmless water-cooler gossip. Once in a while there is a brief flicker of silver motion, followed by a remark from a jack:"Hey, where'd Tim go? He was here a second ago. How about them Warriors, eh?"
Of course Ann was just riffing on recent rhetorical trends with her "blaming" comment. I hope.
"Young fry, I want to say one word to you. Just one word....Plastics."
Kind of a bad analogy!
That tends to happen with MSM fake-science-y click-bait.
For anyone interested, here (or here) is a decent summary of the paper: Fish which ate plastic moved less and ignored the smell of predators. Boring, innit?
Not mentioned: stupid fish, fast food, teenagers.
"Kind of a bad analogy! Teenagers eating fast food are getting too much to eat and getting fat."
There isn't any nutrition in potato chips, cheetos and lots of other salty snacks that children eat instead of a healthy meal. I've seen parents and grandparents give their children and grandchildren a bag of some kind of salty snacks after they just get home from school which doesn't provide any nutrition. I think the analogy isn't as bad you think. Educated and affluent people are a lot more healthy food conscious than a lot blue collar families. Fast food isn't just McDonalds which can provide good nutrition if not too many sweets are consumed.
Plastic concoctions are nowhere near as enticing as Soylent Green, to name one alternative.
I am deeply suspicious of this study. I am deeply suspicious of "studies" in general. this isn't my fault. It's theirs.
I'm with you Tyrone.
The goal of today's science seems to be:
1. Media splash, and
2. Increased funding.
I used to review research papers. I often thought one of the conclusions, "Further research is warranted." was the first sentence written.
Post a Comment