Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here it's not quite
Speaker 1: the notes of BlackBerry with oaky overtones that you might
Speaker 1: find in a cab salve. But marine scientists recently called
Speaker 1: on wine chemists to determine why plastic smells like food
Speaker 1: to seabirds, and the chemists found out that when plastic
Speaker 1: is left in the ocean, it gains a hint of
Speaker 1: the sulfur compound dimethyl sulfide, or d m S, which
Speaker 1: is a chemical released by algae. And even though it's stinky,
Speaker 1: d MS is odor has been likened to rotten cabbages.
Speaker 1: That smell is like a dinner bell for some long
Speaker 1: billed super sniffer seabirds. The study, published in Science Advances,
Speaker 1: examined why some seabirds mistake plastic for chow. It turns
Speaker 1: out that d MS is a smell they associate with
Speaker 1: the aroma of food. Well, once they realize they haven't
Speaker 1: found food at all, it's too late. They've already got
Speaker 1: a snootful and a belly fold of plastic. The study
Speaker 1: also explains why some species such as petrols, albatross and
Speaker 1: other tube noses are more prone to binging on plastic
Speaker 1: than others. The studies lead author, Matthew Savoca, who participated
Speaker 1: in it as a graduate student at e C. Davis,
Speaker 1: explained the researchers angle in a press release. He said,
Speaker 1: animals usually have a reason for the decisions they make.
Speaker 1: If we want to truly understand why animals are eating
Speaker 1: plastic in the ocean, we have to think about how
Speaker 1: animals find food. Tube noses had already been shown to
Speaker 1: follow their noses to food, and so the first step
Speaker 1: for the study was to learn what plastic smells like
Speaker 1: after it's been in the water. The scientists loaded pellets
Speaker 1: of three common types of plastic, high density polyethylene, low
Speaker 1: density polyethylene, and polypropylene into mesh bags and tied the
Speaker 1: bags to a buoy in the ocean at Monterey Bay
Speaker 1: and Bodega Bay off the California coast. Three weeks later,
Speaker 1: the bags were collected, and then the wine experts at
Speaker 1: the u C. Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and
Speaker 1: Food Science were called in. A chemical analyzer showed that
Speaker 1: the plastics smelled of d MS thanks to algae that
Speaker 1: had coated the plastic. The chemical is released when animals
Speaker 1: such as krill, a tube nose favorite food eat the algae,
Speaker 1: and this works to alert the birds to the presence
Speaker 1: of a meal of their own. It's a case of
Speaker 1: having a world class sniffer not being a good thing.
Speaker 1: The researchers found that the seabirds that follow their noses
Speaker 1: via d MS to food are almost six times more
Speaker 1: likely to ingest plastic as other birds. Study estimated that
Speaker 1: an alarming of seabirds eat plastic. Sharp pieces of plastic
Speaker 1: can injure their internal organs, while soft pieces can affect
Speaker 1: body weight. Since plastic takes up space in the stomach
Speaker 1: without giving any nutrition. The health effects of plastic on
Speaker 1: birds have not been completely studied, but more than four
Speaker 1: point eight million metric tons of plastic waste are dumped
Speaker 1: into the ocean every year. Some estimates put the amount
Speaker 1: as high as twelve point seven million metric tons, so
Speaker 1: this is another good reason to reduce, reuse, and or
Speaker 1: recycle your plastics. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: There's a Stinky Reason Seabirds eat plastic on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, written by Karen Kirkpatrick. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production by Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more
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