Penguin 'Toxicologists' Find PFAS Chemicals in Remote Patagonia
ucdavis.edu77 points by giuliomagnifico 9 hours ago
77 points by giuliomagnifico 9 hours ago
Two notes for cynical HN crowd:
1. Why you/penguins should care about this: PFAS suppress immune function and reduce reproductive success in birds [1]. They transfer from mothers to eggs and disrupt thyroid hormones and immune organ development in avian embryos [2]. In humans, IARC classified PFOA as a Group 1 carcinogen in 2023, which means there is the highest classification (i.e. International Agency for Research on Cancer is convinced PFAS causes cancer). A 2x increase in serum PFAS is associated with a 49% drop in vaccine antibody levels in children [3]. These are the same compounds showing up in >90% of penguin samples in remote Patagonia. They don't break down. They bioaccumulate up the food chain. And the "safer replacements" like GenX are clearly reaching the ends of the earth too. This is bad for penguins and for people.
2. This is a problem I'm taking seriously. My startup, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com) is developing a modified oat fiber that selectively binds PFAS and plasticizers in the GI tract without stripping nutrients like charcoal does. It will also remove PFAS from the blood. Early-stage, binding data is promising. Clinical trial happening in ~6-9 months. Website has our early data and a pre-order signup form.
[1] Vendl et al., "Profiling research on PFAS in wildlife," Ecol Solut Evid, 2024. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002... [2] Halldin et al., "Developmental exposure to a mixture of PFAAs affects the thyroid hormone system and the bursa of Fabricius in the chicken," Sci Rep, 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56200-9 [3] Grandjean et al., JAMA 2012;307(4):391–397. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22274686/
Interesting, best of luck with this, microplastics really are the modern lead.
You said it removes them from the blood: does the body dump microplastics in the gut for your product to remove them from the blood or how does it work (if you can answer due to proprietary reasons)?
Are saunas and blood donations not also effective for this?
PFAS (and, to a lesser extent, plasticizers) circulate from the blood to the gut ~5 times per day through enterohepatic circulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterohepatic_circulation). This is why cholestyramine was shown to be effective at reducing serum PFAS by up to 60% in a Swedish trial.
Blood donations are also somewhat effective, saunas less so. Also, to be clear, PFAS are very different from microplastics. PFAS are the Teflon chemical.
In PFAS's defense, we really needed to poison the whole planet. Otherwise people would have occasionally needed to get wet in the rain, or perhaps scrub their pots and pans. Really, these extremely minor conveniences are worth the devastating cost to ours and future generations.
so many things contain it, like plumbing tape that a plumber might use right in your water supply - to fix a leak leading to your tap :/ and then the ski waxes until recently. it is really strange lots of these products are still sold all over
It's a common misconception, but microplastics and forever-chemicals (PFAS) are not the same thing. They're two similar, but distinct pollutants.
> Are saunas and blood donations not also effective for this?
Yes, plasma & blood donations are good at reducing PFAS blood concentration. Some(?) firefighting foam contains PFAS, so they tend to have high blood concentrations. Donations have shown to significantly reduce that: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8994130/
All the older firefighting foam did. Some of the new stuff does. There's also some amount of "poisoning" from the old equipment to the new foam.
Unfortunately, PFAS sticks around forever, so everywhere that the old firefighting foam was deployed (e.g. air force bases) still has high levels of PFAS contamination.
They fitted some penguins with chemical-sensing silicone passive samplers.
I don't tryst penguin toxicologists, I've never heard of any reputable penguin colleges or labs.
Are they sure it's not from their gloves?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260329222938.h...
Is this going to be like the micro-plastics-are-actually-contamination-from-lab-gloves news all over again?
I'm all for removing PFAS and similar chemicals from the many places and uses they aren't needed, but if people don't care about PFAS in their tap water, they certainly aren't going to care about penguin PFAS.
> if people don't care about PFAS in their tap water
People don't? Sounds to me like they need to look at history a bit more.
To me, this looks very much like some of the other magical materials...
Lead in gasoline, asbestos as building material, tobacco etc
Future archaeologists are going to chronicle humankind's stupidity by the lead layer, the atom bomb testing fallout layer, the PFAS layer, etc. All of these were made possible by a misplaced sense of scale. Yes we can poison the whole planet. That little blue dot.
Most people don't care. PFAS is only voluntarily being phased out in food packaging, rather than being banned. People cook with teflon-coated pans for the tiny convenience over a nitrided, ceramic, or seasoned cast iron pan. Outdoors enthusiasts want PFAS rain jackets and PFAS ski waxes, rather than the alternatives.
I definitely agree they need to look at history, consider what they're being exposed to, and understand how simple and easy some of the substitutions/mitigations could be. There's 0 reason why manufacturers are getting 5+ years to phase out a forever chemical in something like ski wax or dental floss.
> tiny convenience over a nitrided, ceramic, or seasoned cast iron pan
Or stainless steel?
> People cook with teflon-coated pans for the tiny convenience over a nitrided, ceramic, or seasoned cast iron pan.
...which has absolutely nothing to do with the PFOA that you might reasonably be concerned about. Teflon is chemically inert. It's literally used for human body implants. Teflon-coated pans are not your enemy. Fire-fighting foam, on the other hand -- you probably shouldn't bathe in it.
Any test that "detects" teflon in the generic category of "PFAS" is a hopelessly flawed test [1]. Unfortunately, a great many of these papers don't make the distinction, whether intentionally or due to incompetence, or simply because it's far easier to do that, and it gets better headlines.
[1] Important aside: historically, several of the major manufacturers of teflon had problems with PFOA contamination around the factories due to manufacturing processes. This is unrelated to your personal use of a Teflon pan, and also, the process has been changed. If you want to argue that the new process is also polluting, fine, make that argument -- but don't assert that the use of the final product is itself unsafe.
the concern is not about immediate effects of using products, but the fact that they are now everywhere in the environment, including water supplies and our own blood streams.
>PFAS in dental floss
Jesus Christ.
Speaking of which, it occurs to me that my toothbrush is also made of plastic, and that most toothpastes are also mildly abrasive...
I don't think it's that people don't care, I think it's that people are ignorant. I also don't think that's an accident, I think we're in the midst of a multi-decade project to create a populace that's as dumb as possible, because the more aware and educated people are, the less likely they are to allow the kinds of behaviour that are destroying the health of people, animals and the environment.
The ideal societal conditions for, say, a petrochemical company that is creating toxins that are genuinely "forever" for all intents and purposes, is a society where people are exhausted from their terrible job (or two jobs, or job + gig economy side hustle) and spend their leisure time glued to their phones, scrolling AI slop on instagram and gambling away their meagre savings on sports betting and prediction markets.
These are not people who are going to get educated about chemistry.
Scientific expertise is derided as elitism. The president lies constantly by issuing "truths" on his social media platform. Public education gets defunded and IQ scores are declining. Either this is just random societal decay, or this is serving the interests of the rich and powerful. I know where I stand on it. And yes, I'm cranky.
Yes, it could be (I posted the article about the gloves), but PFAS are different from microplastics, and not all the studies are contaminated by gloves.
The interesting part here is using the animals as “scientists” to collect samples in their habitats for years (2022-2024) instead of sending humans to collect samples. This is far more reliable in my opinion
The animal angle is fun and interesting, and my quip about the gloves is mostly a joke. My frustration comes from the fact that we don't (or shouldn't) need to know that PFAS is in Patagonia to care about it.
45% of US households contain PFAS, apparently, but no mitigation or even manufacturing bans are required for years.
In the US, one side cries about regular flouride in the water, but is meh to PFAS. Meanwhile, the other side is supposedly pro-environment, but can't even get the fortitude to ban PFAS ski wax.
No, they-are-not-actually-contamination. Some studies might have inaccurate numbers due to contamination. That's all.
Important to correct for, but doesn't invalidate the whole microplastics concern.
Just like how people never cared about lead in their tap water.
you missed the full jab -- "most people" did not care about lead pipes for drinking water. It does not take much effort to blankly state that the public "does not care" and proceed to spend less than one minute of thinking capacity to self-confirm and move on. IMHO That is what you see in some of the comments here -- "ignorance" in true form, on display here in a erudite and modern forum. Functional definition of "ignorance" for this topic? I do not know that and I do not care, end of discussion.