6 ms·
Carbon nanotubes found in children’s lungs
- tajen 11y ago"found in all of 64 children" "also found in vehicle exhaust" Are there several definitions of nanotubes, one of them including a lot of carbon chains?
- putterson 11y agoI didn't read the article, and I'm no chemist, but I wouldn't be surprised if combustion produces carbon nanotubes. Buckyballs were discovered to be present in candle soot.
- sitkack 11y agoSounds like a great warning. Nanoparticles have the potential to be even more carcinogenic than asbestos, they will irreversibly permeate the ecosystem.
- putterson 11y agoI agree with you that these particles should be studied for their potential health and environmental impact, but combustion has been around much longer than humanity. I think that not all these particles are made equal and that being said I don't think that the nanotubes found in this study are much like what we are trying to create for technological purposes. They are probably very short/small and the article mentioned "[these] nanotubes are unlikely to have the cancer-causing potential of asbestos fibres, which are much larger and can get trapped in the lining of the lung." I believe their impact should be studied but there are also many other combustion products that probably have a larger negative impact.
- sitkack 11y agoMy comment is directed at synthetic nanoparticles, not historically present forms. Waiting until it is determined that nanoparticles are unsafe is too long. These things need to be proven safe before being allowed in the environment.
- gene-h 11y agoIt has been found that various organisms can degrade carbon nanotubes, so they won't irreversibly permeate the ecosystem[0]. But we really shouldn't be dumping them into the air. [0] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v5/n5/full/nnano.2010.44.html http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v5/n5/full/nnano.2010.44...
- sitkack 11y agoJust because horseradish can break down nanotubes doesn't mean I can inject into the cells I already have. The existence of a catalyst doesn't make nanotubes suddenly safe.
- aetherson 11y agoFortunately, that's not what your parent poster said.
- sitkack 11y agoAnd I can't read the whole paper since it is paywalled. > We have shown previously that single-walled carbon nanotubes can be catalytically biodegraded over several weeks by the plant-derived enzyme, horseradish peroxidase1.
- cotillion 11y agoIf nanotubes exist in car exhaust and buckyballs in candle soot then we've already performed a huge experiment on loads of people. Life expectancy is still increasing...
- sitkack 11y agoLife expectancy is a really poor metric. When accounting for the average life expectancy due to huge drop in infant mortality, LE has made very low gains at a high economic and medical cost. I was commenting that if naturally occurring nanoparticles as created in combustion are getting lodged into tissue, that synthetic nanoparticles have the same opportunity. Combustion byproducts are already known carcinogens.
- Houshalter 11y ago"every mouthful of food you and I have ever taken contained many billions of kinds of complex molecules whose structure and physiological effects have never been determined—and many millions of which would be toxic or fatal in large doses. We cannot doubt that we are daily ingesting thousands of substances that are far more dangerous than saccharin—but in amounts that are safe, because they are far below the various thresholds of toxicity. But at present there is hardly any substance except some common drugs, for which we actually know the threshold." E. T. Jaynes
- unclebucknasty 11y ago>life expectancy is still increasing...* Yet cancer, Alzheimer's, autism, etc. are on the rise.
- domas 11y agoBecause we are better at diagnosing them then years ago. It does not mean that there are more cases of "cancer, Alzheimer's, autism, etc.". People diagnosed with Asperger syndrome would be called quirky, or plainly weird twenty years ago.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
- jerf 11y agoToo late. Nanoparticles have already irreversibly permeated the ecosystem. Since long before Man, of course. Being afraid of "nanoparticles" is something like being afraid of "chemicals"... in the fully silly sense. You need to be afraid of something specific, not the general term. And I'm actually pretty down with a "presumed guilty until innocent" for specific, demonstrably new nanoparticles. (Most, if not all, carbon forms aren't going to be able to meet that bar, BTW.) Given the history of science and biology, that's not irrational. Generalized fear of anything "nanoparticle" is, though. The biological world has been nanoparticling just as it's been nanomachining for a lot longer than we've been here to worry about it.
- sitkack 11y agoI don't have the finger bandwidth to caveat every statement I make. Yes _new_ nanoparticles. I could make a new nanocoating, apply it to everything and then when it turns out to not by safe, my Inc can fold and I can continue on my merry existence. Nanoparticle toxocology is a complex field. And these _new_ substances penetrate cells walls very readily. It isn't antiscience to question the harm these things can do.
- gene-h 11y agoI don't know what definition of carbon nanotube includes something with a long chain of carbon, but in general carbon nanotubes refers to tiny tube structures composed of aromatic carbon( carbon connected to 3 other carbons). Vehicle exhaust and other combustion processes can produce a bunch of weird structures consisting of aromatic carbon, some of which are tube shaped: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~apgriesh/pubs/lagally_ast_2012.pdf http://www4.ncsu.edu/~apgriesh/pubs/lagally_ast_2012.pdf
- laxatives 11y agoAnother obvious question that wasn't answered is whether children without asthma or adults have nanotubes in their lungs.
- arprocter 11y agoI would guess the particles are from diesel soot[0], but that doesn't make sense that it's the 'first time they have been found', as diesel engines have been popular in Europe for decades. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust#Effect_of_particles_on_health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust#Effect_of_parti...
- gene-h 11y agoThis is the first time they have been found in humans and not just engine exhaust. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Especially considering there have been some rather heated "anti-nanotechnology" protests in france[0]. At best this could lead to better particulate emissions standards. [0] http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/January/22011001.asp http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/January/22011001...
- mhurron 11y ago> that doesn't make sense that it's the 'first time they have been found' First time it's been looked for would make it the first time it's been found if it's common.
- achow 11y agoMore I see these, the more it makes me wonder if we understand enough about the impact of 'Nano materials' on the health of living species. Sometime back there was some discussion around how graphene being so minuscule, can penetrate human tissues in a a way that we don't know about. Then much earlier - maybe couple of years back - there was some noise around nano silver particles, I haven't seen any conclusive discussion on that either. A quick search brought forth this: "Silver as a metal does not pose any danger, but when you break it down to nano-sizes, the particles become small enough to penetrate a cell wall. If nano-silver enters a human cell, it can cause changes in the cell" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140227115424.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140227115424.ht...
- dogma1138 11y agoMost likely not, same goes for any artificial material it takes decades until you are able to even begin to start understanding the effect on humans and until your body starts adopting to a new environment. We now see our bodies starting to utilize mechanisms to repair the damage caused to DNA by the likes of smoking, and even that mechanism is only apparent in a very small part of the human population. Nano materials are even more scary because depending on the actual material in question they can be made as fine as 100's or 1000's of molecules in size. Nanoscale Iron Oxide particles that first seemed to be quite bio-compatible now show signs of being potentially quite nasty http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3459910/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3459910/ We have very little understanding of the chemistry and hence biological impact of materials when we encounter them in very small and unique forms that do not appear in nature. Quite a few discoveries in material science and chemistry in the past few decades were a result of a field we though we mostly understood an element is an element no matter what, but now we know that the size and formation of elements on the molecular and atomic scales can have a huge impact on attributes of an element or a compound, whilst this isn't like rediscovering chemistry it does point at a very big and not yet understood part of it. Nano particles are also quite nasty in the way that many of them can pass through some filtration and containment solutions we currently have including hazmat suits and long term storage containers so i think there is a need for a call to stop and think about this entire industry very carefully.
- cabbeer 11y agoI have a few tennis rackets made from carbon nanotubes, should I be worried?
- ovi256 11y agoJust don't powder them, or, if you do, don't snort the powder. Just use common sense, in other words.
- learning_still 11y agoI really dislike when an article waits til the end to explain why I shouldn't care. First half of the article is all about how we should worry and care about this thing. Second half of the article is, "actually you should just disregard everything we just said."
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoMy wife (tech writer) calls this the 'mystery novel' form of essay. She says Engineers are particularly guilty of writing that way. She was right, in my case anyway. For a while after I married her I would go through all my writing and move the last sentence in each paragraph to first. Because I did it all the time.
- hinkley 11y agoThis sounds similar to 'burying the punchline' which we are also prone to do. If you have a solution to the problem you are describing, please notify us in the first paragraph so we don't think you're just complaining.
- murbard2 11y agoI really doubt it's going to be found in quantities large enough to make harvesting it economical.
- bitwize 11y agoBracing now for the Facebook clickbait posts about a supposed link between nanotubes and autism.
- anigbrowl 11y agoDon't borrow trouble.