The large physical size of the compound means it has trouble passing through biological membranes. This is why it has really low toxicity and doesn't bioaccumulate despite the fact that it doesn't biodegrade over time.

It does seem to accumulate on lake and ocean floors though. I think the larger concern is not on human or animal health but on long term ecological consequences which are harder to study

Synthesized from hydroxyphenyl-triazines (HPTs). HPTs were invented to protect materials like automotive paints, aerospace coatings, and heavy-duty plastics from solar degradation.

It doesn't seem to bioaccumulate in marine organisms despite the fact that it doesn't biodegrade. This seems to be due to the sheer size of the compound making it not easily cross the biological membranes. It does however accumulate on lake and ocean bed sediments so there are still some long term concerns.

Overall it's environmental profile seems like a huge step up from previous classes of sunscreen chemicals but it's not perfect either.

The title should link to the "full article". I wonder if OP's domain name is banned or something and they're doing this to get around it

the EWG's sunscreen reviews are quite in depth fwiw. They even assess the "data availability" of each ingredient

https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/best-sunscreens/best-beach-spo...

But they didn't do any actual testing? It's just some score based on ingredients and advertised SPF?

It's a compilation of the science around every ingredient. And the most in-depth one at that

This truly is the biggest drawbacks. It's almost impossible to make zinc sunscreen see-through. One technique is to micronize the zinc but this comes with its own set of risks including skin penetration and environmental risks that micronized zinc can pose to aquatic life.

I think the only solution is to embrace it. There isn't really a 100% safe sunscreen that is also invisible

Maybe more relevant is "Engineer syndrome" — the tendency of technically minded individuals to assume that their expertise in one area makes them an authority on everything

See also Nobel Disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

I think the problem overall is just that we live in a society that conditions us to get validation from the size of our paychecks. Software engineers get a fat paycheck and think "well I must be really smart. Why else would society compensate me like this?". I'm sure it's a problem in all sorts of highly-paid fields. I'm always shocked by how many physicians I see write massively ambitious, terribly researched generalizations (see Jared Diamond and the experts in relevant fields that will spend the rest of their lives dispelling myths he spread)

What specific consumer protections are you referencing?

The FDA's purpose is protection of the public health. Drug approval would be one specific example. The SCCS (EU) evaluating UV filter safety is another.

Frankly, the field of dermatology is so captured by corporations that my confidence is hardly raised when I see a degree in that field.

Is there a term for regulatory capture but for academia? Like "academic capture"?

I'd say dermatology, nutrition/dietetics, and phytopathology are 3 of the worst fields in this regard. I don't think we're fully over the sugar lobby's stranglehold on relevant science and I think the glyphosate lobby's hold is even stronger than that was. How many times are we gonna go through these crises and not reform the way we do and fund science?

I do this too but often forget to turn it back on when I need it off (e.g. for maps or for looking at a picture)

> that basically consisted of applying the same steps and rules n times.

Why use a non-deterministic, possibly hallucinatory, definitely expensive, LLM when it sounds like a codemod is the perfect solution for this?

In this case, handling all the edge cases and variants, and testing a codemod, would have taken significantly more of my time, which costs quite a bit more than the LLM.

Obviously, a deterministic tool is preferable in general, but it is not always worth bothering with for a one off task.

I usually make the llms do that part for me. Instead of asking the llm to refactor, ask it to write the codemod script that'll refactor, have it test that script, and even have it run it on its own. It's definitely faster and less error prone that way for me.

In that case, your original description of "basically consisted of applying the same steps and rules n times" was misleading.

The money people spend on things I could probably do with an emacs macro...

Your time to create that macro ain't free.

Neither is your time writing that prompt. When people are talking about elaborate prompts, with a lot of detailed instructions, guardrails etc. I'm kind of assuming it takes time.

How about coding an emacs macro with your agent?

I actually don't have any representation at the moment..