About 94 percent of the plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are microplastics smaller than a grain of rice.
Sources
- The Pacific Ocean—facts and information (nationalgeographic.com)
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w (nature.com)
- https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ (theoceancleanup.com)
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-weighs-more-than-43000-cars-and-is-way-bigger-than-previously-thought (pbs.org)
- https://scienceinsights.org/what-is-the-great-garbage-patch-ocean-plastic-explained/ (scienceinsights.org)
More in Nature
- The humphead wrasse was added to CITES Appendix II.
- The sea just south of Greenland has remained relatively cool compared with the rest of the North Atlantic.
- A feral population of American mink was established in Japan in the middle 1960s.
- A 2025 paper by Kumada, Fukasawa, Yoshioka, Tsuda, and Ouchi, published in Science of The Total Environment, reported that vehicle-mounted cameras revealed a negative impact of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident on large-bodied bird abundance via paddy field abandonment.
- A 1-cup (240-gram) serving of miso soup made with miso, tofu, broth, and onions contains 1,140 milligrams of sodium, nearly half the 2,300-milligram daily sodium limit recommended for adults.
- The Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the Mariana Trench, lies about 10,935 meters (35,876 feet) below sea level — deeper than Mount Everest is tall (approximately 8,849 meters / 29,032 feet).