Don't freak out about Nalgene

Oh boy. People found out that Nalgene was coating their polycarbonate bottles with bisphenol A, and they all freaked out!

I love how the media accuses politicians and coporations and some such as being fearmongers. Sure, some of these people really are fearmongers, but if the media did a good job, with, oh I dunno, a little research, maybe we could all destress just a little. I read a blog article posted by a girl who was getting rid of/finding new uses for her Nalgene bottles because (oh no!) she read here that they are coated with bisphenol A, which studies have shown can increase the risk of cancer in rats. Well, that does sound kinda scary . . . until you realize that everything increases the risk of cancer in rats. It's too bad that people are more likely to watch and read controversial, scary stuff, than they are to watch/read well researched and unopinionated news! And don't even get me started about how skewed and stupid the science reporting is. Seriously, get a science editor or corespondent or something! Someone who can tell you that what you are saying doesn't make any sense to anyone who knows a lick about science or engineering.

Nowadays I read science blogs written by people who don't make something sound scary just because it sells more news. This guy takes a very level-headed approach to the issue. If you read both posts, you come to the conclusion that, we still don't know whether Bisphenol-A can cause cancer. The problem we have here is that the Reuters article has you disdaining the FDA for not outlawing this substance! When the FDA is completely in the right. If they haphazardly outlaw Bisphenol-A, that's millions and millions of dollars lost in a US economy which I hear isn't spiraling downward anymore, but probably is still a bit sensitive.

The other problem is that science has no way of proving that something doesn't happen. We can't prove that BPA doesn't cause cancer. That's why the list of things that causes cancer includes thousands and thousands of materials and substances while the list of things that don't cause cancer is only, well, once someone told me broccoli was just about the only thing on that list . . .

But all the same, it is possible that bisphenol A may increase the risk of cancer at least a little more than broccoli, but the FDA won't get rid of it until they know that it does. Just like everything else that's not on the cancer list and isn't broccoli . . . Though reassuringly, scientists do know that the dose that seems to be harmful to lab rats is negligible in humans . . . hooray!

The fun part is that BPA is a form of synthetic estrogen . . . sorry, guys!! Just look what it does to roosters!
More Links about bisphenol-A

The Impending Polymer Post

In an earlier post, I started going off on a tangent and talking about my hobby of trying to determine which polymer something is made of. I deleted it from that post, because my goal in this blog is to be slightly entertaining and also to improve my writing skills . . . you can attest to how that goes. Anyway, here is that tangent:

It's actually not that hard to figure out which polymer you've got, and it's super easy on the 'recyclable' types, because you can check if you're right! There's a little recycle symbol on the bottom, and it'll have a number in the middle that will tell you exactly what you're working with. Sometimes it even has an abbreviation of the polymer name. After guessing a few times on those, you can get pretty good at it. As for the non-recyclable types, I pretty much just guess.

It also helps to know what a few polymers tend to look and feel like and what a few companies tend to use. For instance, Rubbermaid uses polyurethane and polyethylene. Plus you could probably make a good guess from this list of fairly common polymers that you've probably seen at some point: polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ABS, Lexan polycarbonate resin (the nalgene polymer--the bottle part, not the strap), acrylic, epoxy, polyester, nylon, as well as all the 'recyclable' polymers on the list--polypropylene, high density, low density, and regular polyethylene, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate--check that one out. It's a weird name, but I bet you've used that today. Boy oh boy, that was fun, but I'll tell you the story of why it's the environmentalists' faults that we can't recycle Styrofoam in this country later--also probably why I use quotes when I say 'recyclable.'

Anyway, the reason I decided to write the polymer post is that I continued trying to fix my nalgene today. I had already cut the broken part off, and recut the strap further down to fit it on the notch. It was a pretty soft material, so this was not hard.
I decided to try to make it stronger, though I was pretty sure that was a lost cause. When you make metals stronger, you heat them up so the atoms align in their crystalline structure, and then you quench the metal so the atoms stay where they are when the metal comes back to room temperature. Polymers don't really work like this. They either can be made crystalline, or they can't, and the more complicated they are, the less chance you have of having a material that will crystallize. Anyway, I was fairly certain I was not going to get the polymer above the crystallization temperature or the melting temperature safely in my kitchen, and I was even more certain that this was not going to make it stronger in any way, so really I was just playing around. I stuck it in boiling water, and quenched it, and guess what? It didn't work! I boiled it again, and simply worked the plastic together so it might stay together more. I had stretched it out a bit when I forced in onto the little nubbin on the top of the cap. That seems to have actually helped with the strength some, because now it feels slightly stronger than before, but I really have no way of measuring that.I suppose it's always good to know that if you have something made of polymer, some types become workable around 100 C. They don't melt at 100 C, so you can't mend cracks or holes, but you can reshape them sometimes. A butane lighter can be hot enough to actually melt the polymer, but it would be difficult to use unless it was used on fibers (eg. nylon and polyester). Boiling , of course, is only useful if you ever run into a problem where you'd need to reshape something. If anything melts in your attic over the summer, chances are spectacular that it'll shape right up if you stick it in boiling water and reshape it.

That's my polymer post! Hope you enjoyed it!

What's a Nalgene got to do with John McCain?

My MIT nalgene broke. Is it me or is that ironic?

So now I'm trying to fix it. Now, if I had to guess, I'd say the lid is a polyurethane . . . that's just a little hobby of mine--guessing which polymer things are made of. I wrote a whole paragraph on that before realizing that I was not meaning to discuss that area today . . . I guess I'll have to make another post (wow am I a geek).

Anyway, as I was trying to fix the possibly polyurethane top to my nalgene I recalled that my brothers did not know what a nalgene was when I came back from Boston to visit home in Broken Arrow, OK one year. They were all the rage in Boston. Everyone had one even if they didn't go camping or play sports . . . or drink water. So I was obviously surprised that my brothers didn't know what they were since they did do all of those things.

It was one of those things that made me realize that sometimes the Northeast US and the Southwest US are like different countries, and I must be impressionable because as I stay in one place, I find myself agreeing more and more with popular politics in the area. Back in 2004 during the first Presidential election, I remember quite clearly thinking that George W. Bush was an idiot, and I couldn't fathom that people would actually vote for him, but when I talked to my dad back in Broken Arrow, he had a completely different idea. He said "If anyone in this family votes for Kerry, I'm gonna pull them through a knot hole." Lord only knows what that means. He didn't, of course, because he'd probably be arrested, but it made me realize I had come far off track from where I had been even 4 years before that when I couldn't believe anyone would ever vote for Al Gore!

That brings us to here and now, where I find myself feeling more and more republican than I was a couple of years ago. I still feel that Bush is a terrible public speaker, and maybe should have listened to a few more differing opinions before making huge decisions, but he's obviously not *evil.* This time, I feel as though I am converging on a more middle of the road stance that just happens to be slightly to the right. I probably disagree with most republicans, but I don't care anymore. This is me saying "Thanks world, your input has been greatly appreciated, but I think I've made up my mind now!" Now if only a candidate I like can get enough people behind him/her to snag the nomination.: That seems to be the tough part when you're a more middle of the road voter.

Hey, at least it wasn't a post entirely about polymers and nalgene bottles! That's for next time!