Real talk though has anyone else just thrown away a whole Tupperware container bc you left food in there for way too long and now you’re afraid to open it?
All of you are so valid
FYI, that is generally speaking a safe protocol.
Couple of notes. Fungi and bacteria are the first lifeforms discovered to eat plastic. They both use a technique of creating biofilms on and in things to establish colonies; even bacterial and fungi that don’t eat plastic will burrow into it. Visual inspection is not generally good enough to preclude fungal “roots” in plastic. Though if the plastic has separated (forming like a bubble or a peeling away film) then microbials have almost certainly established “roots” in the material. The metabolism of microorganisms denatures plastic even if they don’t eat it; this produces toxic biproducts similar to burning plastic.
If something has grown in the tupperwear from it being left along in the wet and the dark with a growth medium for who knows how long then opening it is a bad idea. That will almost certainly aerosolize spores or bacteria that have had long enough time and sufficiently isolated conditions to evolve their own special adaptations.
“Cleaning” and reusing the tupperwear is ill-advised in that case as you’d need a lab to guarentee the plastic isn’t compromised and playing host to some nasty biofilm that is resilient against typical cleaning practices, and the plastic itself likely is coming apart in a way that will perpetuate toxicity–low grade at best– even if you did manage to santize the surfaces. Best case scenario, you’re eating microplastic and the tupperwear is shedding as it breaks down over years.
It ain’t worth it.
^^^^^^
@venomtots what used to be a random post with no real direction is now actually validating and educational,
I already feel so much better about myself and all the Tupperware bowls I’ve sacrificed
like at the end of return of the jedi everyone else is dancing and getting shitfaced on ewok booze and shooting off fireworks because they just trashed the empire for good and luke is like, i just watched my father die in my arms and then personally threw his body on a funeral pyre… time to party pass the vodka
luke: *wanders off by himself, dissociates, sees the ghosts of his father and his teachers staring at him from the woods*
The reams of fabric and elaborate headpieces could be dismissed as either wasteful or quaint, depending on the sentiment of the being doing the dismissing, but each piece served a particular function, as did its placement.
they should have done the live action lion king with actors instead of cgi lions…but i guess lions can’t really act so might as well just make them people. and why not put them in denmark just to spice things up, in the middle ages too. i dont think anyones done that before
if you read in a frog paper “specimen was released in the field immediately after capture” chances are very good that what it actually means is
“i dropped the damn frog and despite the fact that we fell all over each other no one could recapture it”
sometimes when i am sad i go read through the tags on this post, because they are 70% other biologists saying things like “AND ALSO FUCK FIELD MICE” and “THAT CRAB ALMOST BROKE MY FINGER” and I am reassured that I am not the only one who has bobbled a wood frog right into their cleavage.
plus six or seven people who just….can’t figure out what a frog paper could possibly be. (guys it’s…a scientific paper. about frogs.)
and this one
which made me laugh despairingly because i mean
bro you don’t even know.
what is the code entomologists use for “i stepped on it, i’m so sorry, it was dark out and the specimen was very small”
“Impromptu dissection was performed under less-than-optimal lighting conditions.”
‘impromptu dissection’ is an alarming phrase in any context and i thank you for it
What’s biologist for “the little fucker BIT me and I yote it into the undergrowth on reflex”?
“Specimen was removed from the study pool due to abnormal interaction responses”
I am reblogging this 98% for the second to last comment holy shit I’m fucking choking
I’m enjoying the tags/replies discussing the proper conjugation of “to yeet.” I am in favor of the decision that the future perfect is “will have yitten.”
Expanding this, NASA has a few gems from their report language:
“Underwent unplanned rapid disassembly” – it exploded, and it wasn’t an explosion we wanted to happen
“Lithobraking maneuver” – it stopped because it hit the goddamned ground.
“Engine-rich exhaust” – the engine bell melted or evaporated, or the engine ejected itself out the back of the rocket without having a very good reason to do so.
“Fishing orbit” – the craft is in the ocean instead of space and we didn’t mean to put it there
“Thrust was observed along an undesired vector” – the engine leaked and the rocket spun off into oblivion.
“Wearing his manager hat” – a moron who shouldn’t be an engineer (a reference to the infamous quote “take off your engineer hat and put on your manager hat” in the meeting in which the Challenger was cleared for launch)
