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Undisciplined: Devil With The Blue Jeans

About 150 years ago, Jacob Davis went into business with Levi Strauss, and the era of blue jeans was underway. Today, at any given moment, about half of the world’s population is wearing jeans and other denim garments. But nothing that successful comes without an environmental consequence, and a new study puts those costs into context.

Researchers from the University of Toronto reported finding lots of fibers from blue jeans in the Arctic Ocean – suggesting these fibers got there through atmospheric and oceanic processes. 

And that’s not great news for the environment, because even though denim is made from cotton, it’s not cotton — it’s a modified cellulose with lots of chemical additives.   

Sam Athey was the lead author on this report, and she’s joining us from her home in Toronto, where she researches plastic marine debris as a vector for toxic compounds in marine and freshwater environments.

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.