Scientists make concerning discovery while studying ocean water samples: 'We faced a big mystery'

Scientists use the ‘smell of burned plastic’ to measure nanoplastics in the ocean

Scientists recently estimated, for the first time, that the North Atlantic Ocean contains millions of tons of nanoplastics. To measure it, they used a detection method that picks up the chemical markers, or smell, of trace amounts of burned plastic. “Imagine you forget a plastic knife in the oven, and you turn it on and […]

Scientists make concerning discovery while studying ocean water samples: 'We faced a big mystery'

Scientists identified plastic as a marine pollutant by the early 1970s, whereas the term "microplastics" was coined in 2004 to describe litter in Earth's oceans — and a new study identified yet another worrisome form of plastic debris in the sea, Scientific American reports. What's happening? "Ocean plastic" is a catch-all term for plastic debris in water, on coastlines, or in any oceanic environment, and the identification of marine microplasti…