The Gaping Maw: Segment Eight

If You're Eating Shellfish, You're Eating Plastic

“My fear is that we have a latent reservoir of these products that could become our future supply of microplastics,” Ross said. “And they’ll in turn be ingested by zooplankton and move up into the food chain.”

Seafood eaters ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic every year, study shows

Scientists calculated that more than 99 per cent  of the microplastics pass through the human body - but the rest are taken up by body tissues.

If current trends continue, by the end of the century people who regularly eat seafood could be consuming 780,000 pieces of plastic a year, absorbing 4,000 of them from their digestive systems.

How Plastic We've Become

A federal government study now reports that bisphenol A (BPA)—the building block of one of the most widely used plastics—laces the bodies of the vast majority of U.S. residents young and old.

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Seven

TO: Malcolm O'Reilly, CEO, Tindalos Corporation
FROM: Randolph Carter, Head of Research
RE: Project Dhole, initial proposal

Mr. O'Reilly:

Attached you will find our initial proposal for Project Dhole, which we discussed last week at the stockholders' meeting. Dr. Gladley has been working around the clock on the genetic code, and we believe that we are on the cusp of a major breakthrough. Dr. Gladley assures me that despite using similar genome bases, this project will avoid the unfortunate side effects we saw in the preliminary T-virus trials and the Ghanian outbreak of 2087.

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Six

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Five

From A History of Plastics: Vol 3, 2194


What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

"The name “Pacific Garbage Patch” has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter —akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, along with other debris such as derelict fishing nets, much of the debris is actually small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye."

How Big Is the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"? Science vs. Myth

"A comparison I like to use is that the debris is more like flecks of pepper floating throughout a bowl of soup, rather than a skim of fat that accumulates (or sits) on the surface."

Climate change, meet your apocalyptic twin: oceans poisoned by plastic

"Five vortexes of filth now cover a whopping one-quarter of the planet’s surface. They get bigger every year."

"As our disposable culture roars along, humans are transforming the ocean into a trash-strewn, cancerous stew. At this rate, by 2050, the seas will actually contain more plastic than fish."

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Four

TO: All Employees

FROM: Freida Willman, Human Resources

RE: Worm Composting Bins

Hi everyone!

I'm sure by now you've all seen the new COMPOST BINS (yay!) in the break room next to the recycle bins! We're implementing worm composting as an EXPERIMENT to help our company become the earth-friendly, green company that we all know it can be. 

How does it work? It's simple! Just put your (approved) organic waste, such as banana peels, coffee grounds, tea bags, and so on, into the worm composting bin and the worms do the rest! Then Facilities Services will take the composted material and send it to a local facility that needs it. 

For more information about worm composting, including what types of food worms will eat, see this: Worm Composting 101. 

Keep an eye out for me, I'll be coming around the office to collect more wonderful ideas about how to improve our office!

Freida

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Three

From the bibliography of A History of Plastics: Vol 2, 2194

Artificial heart

A 40-year-old father has become the first UK patient to receive a portable total artificial heart implant. Before receiving the implant Matthew Green had been critically ill from end-stage heart failure and it was thought he might not survive until a suitable donor heart could be found. However, his symptoms have improved since doctors fitted him with a new artificial heart device.

...An artificial heart is a plastic device designed to replace a patient’s heart ventricles. The ventricles are the two large, lower chambers that pump blood towards the lungs and into the arteries that supply the whole body with blood. To fit the implant the ventricles are surgically removed and plastic tubes are used to replace the valves that would normally let blood in and out of the ventricles. The main section of the device, which features two artificial ventricles, is then plugged into the plastic valves to complete a synthetic heart system....

Incredible 3D Printer Can Make Bone, Cartilage, and Muscle

Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated tissues survive and thrive indefinitely.

Medical First: 3-D Printed Skull Successfully Implanted in Woman

Doctors in the Netherlands report that they have for the first time successfully replaced most of a human’s skull with a 3-D printed plastic one — and likely saved a woman's life in the process.

The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment Two

So much of the plastic we create goes into our homes! It's truly amazing what the plastics revolution can accomplish both in our homes and in industry.

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies. Go here for Part One.

The Gaping Maw: Segment One

From the bibliography of A History of Plastics: Vol 1, 2193

Patent for First Synthetic Plastic Issued December 7, 1909

Leo Hendrick Baekeland was living in Yonkers, N.Y., when he received patent #942,699 for the first synthetic plastic, known as Bakelite, an invention that revolutionized the manufacture of everything from buttons to car parts.

Polymeric microbeads and methods of preparation

....relates to a process for producing a porous, crosslinked polymeric microbead...

Cosmetic or pharmaceutical composition containing microspheres of polymers or of fatty substances filled with at least one active product

The invention relates to a pharmaceutical or cosmetic composition for topical application, containing, in a suitable carrier, microspheres of polymers...

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The Gaping Maw: A Tale in Multiple Segments - a multi-part story in scrapbook form for Horrordailies 2017.