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'Zombie' Hormone Disruptors Rise From the Dead
ananyo writes "Hormone-disrupting chemicals may be far more prevalent in lakes and rivers than previously thought. Environmental scientists have discovered that although these compounds are often broken down by sunlight, they can regenerate at night, returning to life like zombies (abstract). Endocrine disruptors — pollutants that unbalance hormone systems — are known to harm fish, and there is growing evidence linking them to health problems in humans, including infertility and various cancers 'Risk assessments have been built on the basis that light exposure is enough to break down these products,' adds Laura Vandenberg, an endocrinologist at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who was not involved in the study. 'This work undermines that idea completely.'"
I assume that there simply weren't as many endocrine disruptors in the wild, so it was less of an issue over evolutionary time; but for (modestly complex) chemicals to be photosensitive enough to degrade; but suitably structurally favored to have more than a remote probability of being created by the recombination of their breakdown products is rather interesting...
Would it be in any way adaptive for hormones themselves(which disruptors are often very similar to, hence the ability to neatly disrupt the endocrine system) to have this level of durability, or is it much more likely that it's mere chance, biologically irrelevant until we started pumping the things out on an industrial scale?
The other day I caught a bit of a documentary on the zombie craze. It ended with the head of some zombie research institute saying something along the lines that deep down, they view the zombie appocolypse as a metaphor for any disaster, manmade or natural. The same tactics, supplies, and training you need for a zombie outbreak can also be used to survive another hurricane Katrina.
Zombie survival fantasies are also about the most tactful way to work through your serious interest in gunning down shambling hordes of your abhuman inferiors, without attracting social condemnation or law-enforcement interest.
This is not to say that all zombie enthusiasts are doing this, many are indeed, harmless LARPer types who are guilty only of perhaps not knowing when a premise is no longer amusing; but if you do happen to suspect that the Racial Holy War is looming, and negroid looter swarms will emerge from their slums to march on the exurbs any day now, a little fretting about 'zombies' is a good way to get your feet wet without making yourself a total pariah in polite company.
Kind of makes you wonder if the breakdown products from this stuff can get into your body separately, and then combine there. Well, it makes me wonder. Maybe that's because I'm not a biologist, or maybe it's because I'm a pessimist.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Chemical industry" isn't a thing that exists, is it? Most of these are from agricultural run-off, aren't they? The article certainly seems to suggest that. What you're really hating is modern farming practices.