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Chemist Identifies Mystery 'Blobs' Washing Up in Newfoundland

30 pointsposted 3 days ago

by mykowebhn

(nytimes.com)

12 Comments

Terr_

3 days ago

> a spongy interior and range in size from a coin to a dinner plate, have been found for miles along Placentia Bay

For a moment I misread that as washing up on Placenta Bay, which would have added a whole extra level of odd.

Come to think of it, that blend of unsettling reproductive metaphors and coastal desolation would fit in the game Death Stranding.

ikiris

3 days ago

You don’t want to live on the shores of anywhere named placenta bay.

There’s guaranteed to be a historical reason for a name that out there, and not in a way that’s good for property value or sunset watching.

yencabulator

3 days ago

Usually it comes from a reasonably common last name Placencia, which comes from a town on the border region between Spain and France.

gcr

3 days ago

TL;DR: Rubber. Industrial adhesive. Nobody knows why this is there or who is responsible yet.

> I’m quite confident that the sample that I handled was PVA butylene rubber,” [Dr. Kozak] said in a phone interview, describing a mix of synthetic rubber and polyvinyl acetate, known as PVA. That polymer, he said, is “the active ingredient in white glue — the kind of white glue you have at home is a very dilute, kid-friendly version of this stuff.”

> Globs of the white sticky substance, which have a spongy interior and range in size from a coin to a dinner plate, have been found for miles along Placentia Bay since at least September

> Dr. Kozak said that one of the first things he noticed was that the blob had “a kind of petrochemical odor to it, kind of like if you walk down the turpentine aisle of your hardware store.”