Daily Archives: April 8, 2022

Microplastics found deep in lungs of 11/13 tested living people for first time

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Microplastic pollution has been discovered lodged deep in the lungs of living people for the first time. The particles were found in almost all the samples analysed.

The scientists said microplastic pollution was now ubiquitous across the planet, making human exposure unavoidable and meaning “there is an increasing concern regarding the hazards” to health.

Samples were taken from tissue removed from 13 patients undergoing surgery and microplastics were found in 11 cases. The most common particles were polypropylene, used in plastic packaging and pipes, and PET, used in bottles. Two previous studies had found microplastics at similarly high rates in lung tissue taken during autopsies.

People were already known to breathe in the tiny particles, as well as consuming them via food and water. Workers exposed to high levels of microplastics are also known to have developed disease.

Microplastics were detected in human blood for the first time in March, showing the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs. The impact on health is as yet unknown. But researchers are concerned as microplastics cause damage to human cells in the laboratory and air pollution particles are already known to enter the body and cause millions of early deaths a year.

“We did not expect to find the highest number of particles in the lower regions of the lungs, or particles of the sizes we found,” said Laura Sadofsky at Hull York medical school in the UK,a senior author of the study. “It is surprising as the airways are smaller in the lower parts of the lungs and we would have expected particles of these sizes to be filtered out or trapped before getting this deep.”

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Source: Microplastics found deep in lungs of living people for first time | Plastics | The Guardian

Mega-Popular Muslim Prayer Apps Were Secretly Harvesting Phone Numbers

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Google recently booted over a dozen apps from its Play Store—among them Muslim prayer apps with 10 million-plus downloads, a barcode scanner, and a clock—after researchers discovered secret data-harvesting code hidden within them. Creepier still, the clandestine code was engineered by a company linked to a Virginia defense contractor, which paid developers to incorporate its code into their apps to pilfer users’ data.

While conducting research, researchers came upon a piece of code that had been implanted in multiple apps that was being used to siphon off personal identifiers and other data from devices. The code, a software development kit, or SDK, could “without a doubt be described as malware,” one researcher said.

For the most part, the apps in question appear to have served basic, repetitive functions—the sort that a person might download and then promptly forget about. However, once implanted onto the user’s phone, the SDK-laced programs harvested important data points about the device and its users like phone numbers and email addresses, researchers revealed.

The Wall Street Journal originally reported that the weird, invasive code, was discovered by a pair of researchers, Serge Egelman, and Joel Reardon, both of whom co-founded an organization called AppCensus, which audits mobile apps for user privacy and security. In a blog post on their findings, Reardon writes that AppCensus initially reached out to Google about their findings in October of 2021. However, the apps ultimately weren’t expunged from the Play store until March 25 after Google had investigated, the Journal reports

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Source: Mega-Popular Muslim Prayer Apps Were Secretly Harvesting Phone Numbers