Shows
Drip FeedDrip Feed #29: it isn't just talk, talk, talkThat plastic water bottle you finished in seconds? It might outlive your grandchildren. But emerging innovations are turning this grim reality around, offering edible packaging, smarter recycling, and global cooperation to tackle plastic pollution at its roots. Scientists have created edible food wrap from milk protein and plant cellulose using electrospinning, a process that stretches liquid into fibers 1,000 times thinner than human hair. At high humidity, these biodegradable mats transform into clear films, offering a future where packaging could vanish into your meal or soil. This milk-based material also enhances foods’ texture and nutrition while avoiding synthetic wa...2025-08-1302 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #28: past, present, futureThat clear mountain stream or deep well water might seem pure, but our planet holds invisible legacies. Recent research reveals how past pollution and modern chemicals linger, posing risks to nature and our health, while science races to find solutions.Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, mercury has doubled in global rivers. This heavy metal doesn't vanish, but accumulates in fish and moves up the food chain. While stricter global controls are helping, it’s still an uphill battle and we are fighting the inertia of ages.Even wildfires leave toxic marks that echo in...2025-08-0603 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #27: the more you know...That plastic bottle or takeout container seems harmless, right? But these everyday items are breaking down into microplastics and nanoplastics. Tracing their journey from remote mountain peaks to our own bodies reveals the complexities of the problem but it also sparks innovative solutions.Recently, scientists discovered microplastics even on the pristine Appalachian Mountains, proving wind and rain carry these particles far from cities. This suggests that truly untouched places might be vanishing and that even fresh mountain air might carry unseen plastic particles. This shocking spread highlights the urgent need for global action, but we’re still le...2025-07-3004 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #26: the road is ever windingSo, most of us imagine plastic pollution as visible trash, bottles on beaches or bags tangled in trees. But the real story is far more insidious, unfolding in places we rarely notice and affecting creatures we seldom consider. From the soil beneath our feet to birds soaring over remote oceans, plastic has woven itself into ecosystems in ways we're only beginning to understand.Consider the humble earthworm, nature's underground engineer. Recent studies reveal nearly a third of these vital soil creatures now contain microplastics. As worms tunnel through contaminated earth, they accumulate synthetic particles that then travel...2025-07-2303 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #25: ouroboros-y plasticYou might think that plastic waste is nothing more than a global headache. But what if we told you that the same stubborn qualities that make plastic so problematic are now fueling a wave of scientific breakthroughs? From liquid metal traps to self-healing materials, researchers are turning trash into treasure in ways that could reshape our relationship with plastic forever.Take the humble plastic bottle. Right now, millions of them end up in landfills or oceans, where they’ll linger for centuries. But a team at the University of Southern California has found a way to give th...2025-07-1603 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #24: PFAS and PFURIOUSFound in everything from food packaging to furniture fabrics, persistent substances known as PFAS have accumulated in our environment and bodies over many years. While this may sound concerning, exciting new developments in science are now offering real hope for addressing this challenge in meaningful ways.Recent studies have deepened our understanding of how these chemicals interact with human health and ecosystems. Researchers have discovered that PFAS exposure affects immune systems differently across populations, with some individuals showing heightened responses to minor threats while others exhibit reduced resistance to infections. Of particular interest is emerging evidence about...2025-07-0903 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #23: pretty sure this isn't what they meant by neuroplasticityIf you’ve lived a very lucky life, you might assume your body is a plastic-free zone. But new research reveals that microplastics aren’t just in our oceans and food, they’re infiltrating our brains, and the consequences could reshape what we know about human health.Scientists have discovered that microplastics, particles smaller than a grain of sand, can cross the blood-brain barrier, a protective shield once thought to be nearly impenetrable. A groundbreaking study published in Nature found that nanoplastics accumulate in brain tissue within hours of exposure, triggering inflammation and oxidative stress linked to neurod...2025-07-0203 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #22: why are my lungs shiny??So, scientists have long suspected inhaled microplastics don’t just pass through the lungs. But now we know they lodge there, suppressing the immune systems tasked with clearing pathogens and debris. These cellular janitors, primarily macrophages, become less effective at their critical job after microplastic exposure, leaving the lungs vulnerable to infections and chronic inflammation over time. Worse, these particles don’t stay put. Researchers have tracked microplastics migrating from the lungs to the liver, spleen, and even the brain within days of exposure, facilitated by their tiny size and the body’s circulatory systems. It’s a systemic invasion...2025-06-2503 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #21: plants, plastics, and pricingThe plastic crisis is hitting closer to home, and deeper into our bodies, than ever before. From hidden toxins in everyday items to groundbreaking fixes using okra and cornstarch, science is exposing the scale of the problem and the solutions hiding in plain sight.Let’s start with recycled plastics. A new report from Ameripen reveals a glaring gap between corporate promises and reality. While paper and aluminum packaging average 40 to 44% recycled content, plastics lag far behind. PET bottles sit at 18%, HDPE at 8%, and most others below 1%. The kicker? Even ambitious goals face hurdles, like FDA restrictions on...2025-06-1804 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #20: time travelers and a stick of gumTiny plastic particles are rewriting history and infiltrating our bodies in ways we’re only beginning to grasp. From insects in the 1970s to arteries and chewing gum today, science is uncovering just how deep the microplastics crisis runs.Let’s start with caddisflies. These moth-like insects, found near lakes and streams, build protective casings from whatever materials they find. A study of museum specimens at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands reveals something unsettling: larvae have been using microplastics in their casings since the 1970s. Researchers found synthetic fragments woven into preserved casings, suggesting plastic poll...2025-06-1104 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed # 19: all glimmers, no triggersThe Arctic, often imagined as a pristine wilderness, is facing the threat of PFAS chemicals. A global study led by researchers from Sharjah University, the University of Rhode Island, and others found these “forever chemicals” in polar bears, seabirds, and Indigenous communities relying on traditional diets. PFAS, used in everything from non-stick pans to firefighting foam, don’t break down. Instead, they accumulate, disrupting reproduction, weakening immune systems, and raising cancer risks.“The similarities in health effects across species…are deeply concerning,” says Rainer Lohmann, a lead author and oceanography professor. Arctic communities eating marine mammals face PFAS levels...2025-06-0403 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #17: all drops in the same oceanLet's talk about turning water woes into wins, because science just cracked some serious problems with America's drinking water.First up: those "forever chemicals" called PFAS that haunt our water supplies. A global team of chemists just invented a way to replace them in waterproof coatings without losing performance. They discovered that fluorine's magic "bulkiness" - what makes it so good at repelling water - can actually be copied using harmless carbon and hydrogen instead. That means we might soon have raincoats and food packaging that work just as well but won't poison us.Meanwhile...2025-05-2103 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed # 18: the call is coming from inside the house!Feeling safe at home might not seem like a privilege, but scientists are uncovering how bacteria, superbugs, and unreliable testing kits could be turning households into hotspots for contamination.Let’s start with stored water. A UC Berkeley team studying bacterial transmission in developing countries found that stored drinking water is a key pathway for spreading E. coli between households. By tracking strain-sharing patterns, they discovered that bacteria move not just between family members but also across neighboring homes. The silver lining? Communities with chlorinated water saw lower contamination rates in their stored water. According to researcher Ki...2025-05-2004 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #16: just a microplastic filled drop in the bucketIt's the scale of plastic production that makes all this talk about recycling seem ridiculous. In 2022, global plastic production reached 400 million metric tons, yet only 9.5% came from recycled materials. The remaining 362 million tons were manufactured from virgin fossil fuels, continuing our dangerous dependence on them. Even more concerning, of all plastic waste generated that year, just 28% entered recycling streams - and half of that was ultimately incinerated rather than reprocessed.But it’s not just the scale of making plastic, it’s also the scale of the resulting pollution. Chinese scientists discovered plants absorbing microplastics directly from the...2025-05-1403 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #15: circular economies within circular economiesLet’s talk about turning toxic trash into treasure, because science just cracked the code on PFAS and wind turbine blades, with a side of carbon-negative plastics.First up: PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that haunt our water. A team at Rice University just pulled off a magic trick, zapping PFAS from water and transforming the waste into graphene. Their method removes 99.98% of PFOA (a notorious PFAS) while upcycling the leftovers into one of the most valuable materials on Earth, graphene, which sells for ~$100/gram.The best part? No toxic byproducts. Just clean water and a pa...2025-05-0703 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed # 14: weird, plastick-y feelingsLet’s talk about plastic, again, because the deeper we look, the weirder it gets.First, the good news: Australian beaches are cleaner. A 39% drop in coastal debris over a decade proves that policy changes and cleanups work.Now, the bad news: plastic is literally built to fail. A new study reveals that 75% of plastics have a "brick-and-mortar" structure where soft layers glue hard segments together. Problem is, those soft layers crumble easily, releasing a hailstorm of nanoplastics, even in landfills. The fix seems to be to engineer tougher connectors. Until then, expect more invisible po...2025-04-3003 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #13Let’s talk about PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that have infiltrated everything from our frying pans to our bloodstreams. These synthetic compounds, once celebrated for their non-stick and stain-resistant magic, are now revealing their dark side. But science isn’t just sounding the alarm, it’s fighting back with some ingenious solutions.First, the bad news: PFAS are everywhere. Since the 1950s, they’ve been used in everything from Teflon pans to fast-food wrappers, cosmetics to pharmaceuticals. Epidemiologist Martyn Kirk, who led Australia’s PFAS Health Study, says "Basically, the entire population of industrialized countries is exposed." While the...2025-04-2304 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed # 12Let’s talk about water, where it came from, where it’s going, and how we’re trying to save it. Because while H₂O might seem simple, its story is anything but. Let’s rewind all the way back to 100 million years after the Big Bang. A new study in Nature Astronomy suggests water formed back then, in the aftermath of ancient supernovae. When these massive stars exploded, they spewed out oxygen that mixed with hydrogen in space, creating water in dense pockets where new stars and planets eventually formed. Some of that primordial water might even have...2025-04-1604 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #11This time, let’s focus on the breakthroughs that might finally help us break our addiction to plastics. Because while plastic is everywhere, science is finding smarter, cleaner, and sometimes downright clever ways to deal with it.First up: a simple, cheap way to recycle PET, the plastic in your water bottles and polyester clothes. Researchers have developed a non-toxic, solvent-free process that uses an inexpensive molybdenum catalyst and activated carbon to break PET down into its building blocks. Here’s the kicker: all they need to finish the job is *air*.That’s right—after th...2025-04-0904 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed # 10Let’s talk about microplastics…again. Because, let’s face it, they’re everywhere. In our oceans, in our food, in our bodies, and even in the air we breathe. But science is uncovering some surprising truths about where they come from, where they end up, and what they’re doing to us and the planet.For years, scientists thought the ocean was a major source of airborne microplastics. The idea was that sea spray, wind, and waves lifted microplastics into the atmosphere, where they could travel far and wide. But a new study led by the Max Planck...2025-04-0204 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #9Again with the plastic?? Okay this time, let’s focus on how we’re making it easier to recycle, break down, and even turn into something useful. First up, a simple but brilliant innovation: labels that actually come off. A team from the Un iversity of Reading has developed a new polymer adhesive that sticks firmly to plastic bottles during normal use but breaks down when treated with alkaline solutions. This means labels can be easily removed during recycling, improving the quality of the recycled plastic. Now, let’s talk about breaking down plastics entirely. A team...2025-03-2603 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #8While it might seem like a basic human right, getting clean water isn’t always easy. Luckily, science is stepping up with some pretty ingenious solutions. First up, tea. Yes, tea. Northwestern University researchers discovered that brewing tea can naturally filter heavy metals like lead and cadmium out of water. The heavy metal ions stick to the surface of the tea leaves, trapping them until the used tea bag is tossed. Now, before you start using tea bags as your new water filter, the researchers aren’t suggesting that. Their goal was to measure tea’s abil...2025-03-1904 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #6Let’s talk about plastic. Not the kind you use to wrap leftovers or the one that makes up your favorite water bottle, but the tiny, sneaky stuff—microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs). These little troublemakers are everywhere, and science is just starting to figure out how much they’re messing with us. First, let’s start with bottled water. You know, the stuff we buy because it’s “clean” and “pure.” Well, a recent study at the University of California found that, on average, a single liter of bottled water contains about 240,000 particles of MNPs. And 90% of those are nanoplas...2025-02-2605 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #5Let’s talk about water. You know, that thing we all need to survive but sometimes take for granted. Turns out, science is making some pretty big waves (pun intended) in how we clean it, use it, and even think about it. First up, let’s dive into seawater desalination. Because freshwater supplies expected to meet only 40% of global demand by 2030, we’re going to need all the H2O we can get. A team of researchers from Rice University have developed a new purification technology that’s not only more environmentally friendly but also cuts costs by up to...2025-02-1705 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #4For every influencer trying to convince you that micro and nanoplastics are going to be the death of you, your loved ones, and everything in a 10 mile radius, there’s a stack of research that makes them sound like medieval peasants worrying about the end of days because of an eclipse. But they’re more concerned with selling you something than saying “well, the science is unclear about that.”At the Right Filter, we focus on the science. Not just because we’re giant, unrepentant nerds, (which we are) but because, if you’re willing to read enough paper...2025-01-3005 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #3The more we look for plastic, the more we find. And we keep finding it in places that we really really didn’t expect to find it, in forms we weren’t expecting.For example, when you think of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, do you think of a bunch of plastic bags, maybe some gallon jugs mixed in there? Or do you think of a slightly thicker soupy area of the ocean? Because it’s closer to the latter.And a lot of plastic pollution is like that soupy stuff, mostly micro and nano plasti...2025-01-2403 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #2As we do more and more research on PFASs and their impact on humans, it helps to imagine the situation from the biggest scale to the smallest. On the smallest scale, we know that PFASs affect cells and genes. On the biggest, we find correlations between PFAS exposure and various health issues. For example, a recent study by the Keck School of Medicine of USC showed an increase in the rate of certain cancers that are correlated with exposure to PFASs.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-links-pfas-contamination-range-rare.htmlHow much of an increase? Between 2 and 33...2025-01-1605 min
Drip FeedDrip Feed #1In spite of all the social media frothing at the mouth about PFAS, science continues its march. Recently, scientists have identified the 11 genes that are directly affected by PFASs and their siblings.https://phys.org/news/2025-01-scientists-genes-affected-pfas-neurotoxicity.htmlWhat this will eventually let us do is measure how much a human has been affected by these chemicals. See, we’ve managed to prove how they affect things in a lab setting, but the actual impact on something as big and complex as a human body is still in the category of “well, we’re not 10...2025-01-1603 min
Power of Ten with Andy PolaineThejus Chakravarthy – Make Work Suck LessPower of Ten is a podcast hosted by Andy Polaine about design operating at many levels, zooming out from thoughtful detail through to organisational transformation and on to changes in society and the world.
My guest in this episode is Thejus Chakravarthy, an operational consultant that focuses on people, process, and technology, in that order. Currently, he says he has his hands full as the full-time COO of one company and a C-suite consultant for another. His primary focus is on how we can make work suck less. To that end, he spent 15 years designing instructional systems, the last 5...2022-05-0647 min
How This WorksThejus ChakravarthyThis show with Thejus Chakravarthy ranges over a wide variety of topics but along the way we find out about his professional and life experiences in making change in the world.
We start with his origins crowning in a cab in Mumbai, India, the ease in which his right shoulder dislocates after a show once upon a time with his hardcore band Lovers and Killers, the joy of Royal Farm (RoFo) fried chicken, and the brilliance of a 'hot now' Krispy Kreme donut. Skipper and Thejus also get into his two books, Brushfire (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rb4...2021-02-021h 12