Senator says her words at Melbourne pro-Gaza rally were ‘a metaphor’ and the reaction to them ‘mock outrage’ that distracts from Palestinian suffering

The particles are in our blood, brains and guts – and scientists are only beginning to learn what they do Microplastics have been found almost everywhere: in blood, placentas, lungs – even the human brain. One study estimated our cerebral organs alone may contain 5g of the stuff, or roughly a teaspoon. If true, plastic isn’t just wrapped around our food or woven into our clothes: it is lodged deep inside us. Now, researchers suspect these particles may also be meddling with our gut microbes. When Dr Christian Pacher-Deutsch at the University of Graz in Austria exposed gut bacteria from five healthy volunteers to five common microplastics, the bacterial populations shifted – along with the chemicals they produced. Some of these changes mirrored patterns linked to depression and colorectal cancer. Continue reading...

National scientific agency has been ‘reshaping its research portfolio’ to deal with an imminent funding cliff in 2024

Deloitte isn’t the only big four firm slipping up on its citations, though it’s still the only one blaming the robots.