Science Cafe: A Problem So Small You Can See It From Space

Do we really consume a credit card’s worth of microplastics in a week? That depends largely on how you measure it. But one thing is certain: microplastics are all around us and they’re here to stay.These plastics may be small, but understanding their impact requires research at all scales. Zooming in, microplastics are not solo actors: they host an array of plastic-associated microbes that could be unexplored reservoirs of pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes. Microbes also degrade plastic. Zooming out, the extent of the microplastic pollution in our waterways could be detected from space using remote sensing technology.Please join Chris Ruf, Principal Investigator of the Remote Sensing Group (RSG) in the Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering Department (CLaSP) and graduate student Gopal Sundaram of the College of Engineering; Melissa Duhaime, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and members of the Duhaime Lab (Rachel Cable, Lizy Michaelson, Skyler Har), for a discussion about one of our planet’s biggest tiny problems.