Blog
One study per post. Each one sets out what was done, what was found, and what it cannot show, with a link to the paper.
Subscribe with RSS- Research, Tire wear, Human health
Tire chemicals change in the air, and the aged mixture is what lungs meet
A York University and Environment Canada team rebuilt the chemical soup that forms when tire antioxidants oxidize in roadside air. It was far more damaging to human lung immune cells than the single chemical everyone has been studying.
Read the post - Research, Wildlife, Tire wear
Coho salmon are dying from tire runoff in spring, not just in fall
Adult coho have been dying in urban creeks after autumn rains for decades. A 2026 field study shows juvenile coho die at the same rate during ordinary spring storms, which means the hazard is year-round.
Read the post - Research, Food
Most of the microplastic in our diet is not from seafood
A University of Amsterdam review pooled 193 studies of microplastics in food. Seafood gets the headlines, but vegetables, grains, and meat matter more, and the measurement method changes the answer.
Read the post - Research, Wildlife, Oceans
Plastic at 2,000 metres: what deep-sea vent animals show
Korean researchers found microplastics in 92 percent of snails and mussels living at hydrothermal vents in two oceans. How the animals feed decided where the plastic ended up; where they lived decided how much.
Read the post - Research, Biomimicry, Solutions
A mesh that copies tangled seaweed catches plastic from a millimetre down to nanometres
Sargassum rafts and seagrass Neptune balls already trap plastic in the ocean. Engineers at North Carolina State built a biopolymer version and showed it captures a range of particle sizes that has defeated most filters.
Read the post - Research, Human health
Why the human-health evidence is still thin, according to the people who review it
A Nature Medicine review from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam concludes there are strong indications that micro- and nanoplastics harm health, and that the studies so far are too small and too poorly measured to say how much.
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