Tech

Microplastics are everywhere. What does that mean for our immune system?

Here, pieces of plastic can end up collecting various types of bacteria, which stick to their surfaces. The seabirds that ingest them not only have stomachs filled with plastic — which can starve them to death — but they are also exposed to bacteria they wouldn’t encounter without them. It seemed to disturb their gut microbiota.

There are similar concerns for humans. These little bits of plastic, floating and flying around the world, can act as a “Troyan horse”, introducing harmful drug-resistant bacteria and their genes, like some researchers put it.

That is a deeply disturbing thought. As research continues, hopefully we will learn not only what microplastics are doing to us, but also how we can tackle the problem.

Read more from Tech Review’s archive

It’s too simple to say that we should ban all plastic. But we can do it by revolutionizing the way we recycle it, as my colleague Casey Crownhart pointed out in an article. article published last year.

We can use wastewater to track the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, EQUAL I wrote in an earlier version of Checkup. At this point we need all the help we can get…

… which is part of the reason why scientists are also exploring the possibility of using small viruses to treat infections caused by resistant bacteria. The phage was discovered about 100 years ago and is coming back!

Our immune system is extremely complex. And gender matters: there are important differences between the immune systems of men and women, as Sandeep Ravindran writes in this featurePublished in our issue of gender magazine.



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