
Caffeinated Seas Found off U.S. Pacific Northwest - MaysonL
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120730-caffeinated-seas-pacific-northwest-caffeine-coffee-science/
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IanDrake
>Human waste in coffee country has unknown effect on marine life.

I hate statements like this. It denies the possibility that there is no
effect. If the effect is unknown, then there is no proof that it exists.

~~~
CamperBob2
These articles can usually be traced back to some professor or postdoc
researcher whose lab got a shiny new toy with impressive specifications.

Being able to detect caffeine at 45 _nanograms per liter_ is pretty cool, but
I'd say the burden of proof is on anyone who claims that such a concentration
could possibly have an effect on anything except the sensors inside a
FrobozzCo 8566B Mass Spectrometer.

45 ng/l = about one grain of salt in a 1000-liter tank.

~~~
gvb
Hey, that isn't nearly scary enough.

According to Wikipedia, there are

    
    
      1.94E+02	grams per mole
      6.02E+23	atoms per mole
    

which works out to

    
    
      3.22E-22	grams per atom
    

Found in the seawater were

    
    
      4.50E-08	grams per liter
    

which means there were

    
    
      1.40E+14	atoms per liter
    

Put in "national debt" units, that is 140 _trillion_ atoms. The current U.S.
national debt is only 16.5 trillion[1], so that is 8.5 _times_ as many
molecules per liter as the U.S. government owes in dollars.

[1] <http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/>

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frozenport
I don't think the story is about caffeination, but rather caffeine as a marker
of human waste. 45 nanograms per liter doesn't sound like a lot, especially
when considering the short half life of caffeine.

~~~
miahi
45 nanograms per liter means about 1 cup of coffee every 6000 liters of water.
This doesn't sound like a lot, but 6000 liters fit in a cube of ~1.8m - and
there is a lot of water out there.

The biological half-life of caffeine (how long it takes the _human_ body to
eliminate it) is not important here; it's not about humans but the sea life;
nobody knows what happens to marine life in a continuous exposure to traces of
caffeine and other substances.

~~~
switch007
Slight miscalculation: 6,000 litres fits in 6m3 not 1.8m3 (ref:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=6000+litres+in+meters+c...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=6000+litres+in+meters+cubed))

~~~
computator
No, the grandparent was right. He's talking about how big a cube could contain
6000L, but you're calculating the volume of 6000L.

Simple way to visualize this: Think about the difference between a 4-foot
square and 4 square feet. The former is a much bigger area.

~~~
switch007
Of course! Thanks :)

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7rurl
Where is the proof that these elevated caffeine levels in the water are from
humans? Couldn't there be some naturally occurring source of ocean caffeine?
Caffeine producing sea weed, for example.

Also the "high" level they measured was 45 nanograms per liter of water, which
is 0.000001 parts per million. The molecular weight of caffeine is 10 times
that of water which means there is one caffeine molecule for ever 10 trillion
water molecules. Seems pretty insignificant to me.

~~~
dalke
> Seems pretty insignificant to me.

It repeatedly says things like "effects are unknown" and "we're not yet sure
about its environmental effects," he said. "But it's a very nice tracer, even
if it doesn't have a large effect, because in most parts of the world, you
know that this is coming from a human waste source."

Just because something seems insignificant, doesn't mean that it is.

As to the caffeine sources, this summary linked to the paper's abstract. The
highlights section, with bullet points, says: "► Caffeine concentrations
corresponded with storm event occurrence. ► Caffeine concentrations in rivers
and estuaries draining to the coast measured up to 152.2 ng/L."

This means it's not a ocean-based source of caffeine. You would need to spend
US$40 to see the references for the statement that "Caffeine, a biologically
active drug, is recognized as a contaminant of freshwater and marine systems."
Or make an interlibrary loan request and wait a few weeks.

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kqr2
A lot of drugs can be detected in water, e.g. prozac:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3545684.stm>

~~~
stevenrace
As well as spices that vary with season, cocaine, etc [0] ...

I'm curious as to how these tests are done. I'm guessing samples are drawn and
then run through a IR-spectrography machine. I wonder at what depth, how close
to sewage runoff, etc.

[0]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drink...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drinking-
water-cocaine/)

~~~
refurb
IR could never detect these compounds at that low of a level.

My guess is that they are doing a extraction of water, concentrating the
extracts and running a mass spec on a gas chromatographer.

That's the only way you'd be able to detect stuff at the ng or pg level.

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rhplus
I'm curious to know where the highest density of Starbucks is in the world. My
obvious guess is downtown Seattle or maybe Manhattan or central London. I'd
love to see someone compute the metric, perhaps the highest number of
Starbucks within a specific square mile or maybe the specific location on
earth which has the most Starbucks within say 1 mile.

<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=starbucks+in+downtown+seattle>

~~~
wiredfool
I'd like to find the spot in King County/Seattle area that's the farthest from
espresso. I'm going to venture a guess that it's in the middle of a lake.

~~~
larubbio
King County is very large and a lot of it is rural or forest service land. I
know Seattle owns a lot of land in the Cedar river watershed since that is the
city's water supply. I'd guess somewhere out there is the farthest spot.

~~~
xxpor
Seattle might own it, but it's not part of the city.

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nickhalfasleep
Without coffee, Washington state would be uninhabitable. I suppose leach
fields and other sorts of chemical filters could prevent this and other
chemical plumes. Moreover, I for one would be happy if I could retain my
caffeine longer.

~~~
pnathan
> Without coffee, Washington state would be uninhabitable.

What do you mean by this? I rather like Seattle and the Cascades.

~~~
MartinCron
It's probably a reference to the dark damp winters.

I love living in Seattle, but I remember a December trip to LA a few years ago
and thought "I can't find any good coffee here, but if I lived here I might
not need good coffee to keep from killing myself"

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driverdan
This is from almost 6 months ago.

~~~
gus_massa
I understand that 6 month is not a very big time for this new, but I think
that this comment don't deserve so much downvotes (it's light gray now). It's
not offensive and not wrong and not completely irrelevant.

I can't see how many points it has. I think that 1 or 0 could be fine, 2 or -1
are a little too much/few for my taste. But its points are now too negative.
Please don't abuse the downvote button.

~~~
driverdan
I understand it. This was all over the blogs 6 months ago when it was released
but I'm sure there are a lot of people who missed it the first time around.
Not everyone has Google Alerts setup for "caffeine" like I do. :)

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cpdean
Soon: Caffeinated-Sushi snobs

~~~
chiph
Soon: Super intelligent sharks <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0149261/>

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sabat
In other news, this is not a headline from The Onion.

