5 ms·

More 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

by achow 11y ago

More 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 ago
Most 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.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  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. As an ex-smoker I'm interested to know more about that, this is the first I've heard of it. Do you have any links or distinctive technical terms I could search on? I don't want to go on a fishing expedition.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    The latest Nobel prize in Chemistry might be a good start, more specific examples can be like specific (and apparently fairly recent) mutations in the XRCC1 gene that greatly reduce the risk of bladder cancer (which smokers normally have 3-5 times greater chance of contracting) in smokers. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073448 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... And there are probably 100's of other studies of various examples, our bodies constantly evolve to adapt to new environmental factors smoking is a fairly recent one but is still something that you could evolve to live with, not that we should count on that tho...
awqrre 11y ago
Breathing mosts kind of dust is not good for you... being cement, wood, asbestos... which is why workers wear dust masks.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  There's bad and worse, naturally occurring dust including asbestos (more on that a head) while isn't good isn't necessarily a major health risk because we've evolved to live on this planet that well has dust. While Asbestos isn't good the 2 types of Asbestos that actually pose a major health risk Amosite and Crocidolite are also the modern types of Asbestos that were discovered in the 19th century. Serpentine which is the most common and oldest types of Asbestos while still being classified as a potential risk isn't a major health risk. You are exposed to natural sources of Asbestos every day, it's one of the oldest materials we've used, and it's a great analogy for nano materials because until very recent modern times when Asbestos production kicked off a new methods to produce longer and tougher Asbestos fibers it wasn't a major health risk. The risky needle fibers that are known for giving people "asbestos lungs" aren't the common natural occurrence of Asbestos that we've been exposed too during most of our existence as a species, including the 5000 thousands or so years we've been using it. They are a product of modern manufacturing techniques just like nano-particles are a product of more recent manufacturing and engineering.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    Interestingly enough, if you look at the "spider webs" of a large forest fire or a house fire, what you are looking at are carbon nanotubes. While difficult to selectively make single walled or double walled, free carbon in the presence of a static field (which is pretty much everywhere) has a chance to form a tubular shape (and also buckyballs). I did some experiments using acetylene in a low oxygen environment to create a lot of free carbon (aka soot :-)) when trying to find ways to make conductive nanotubes reliably. Further, this isn't a "new" phenomena, so I expect the raging wildfires around the world are the primary source for nanotubes in the lungs.
    - dogma1138 11y ago

by achow 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

Most 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.

anigbrowl 11y ago
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. As an ex-smoker I'm interested to know more about that, this is the first I've heard of it. Do you have any links or distinctive technical terms I could search on? I don't want to go on a fishing expedition.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  The latest Nobel prize in Chemistry might be a good start, more specific examples can be like specific (and apparently fairly recent) mutations in the XRCC1 gene that greatly reduce the risk of bladder cancer (which smokers normally have 3-5 times greater chance of contracting) in smokers. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073448 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... And there are probably 100's of other studies of various examples, our bodies constantly evolve to adapt to new environmental factors smoking is a fairly recent one but is still something that you could evolve to live with, not that we should count on that tho...

awqrre 11y ago

Breathing mosts kind of dust is not good for you... being cement, wood, asbestos... which is why workers wear dust masks.

dogma1138 11y ago
There's bad and worse, naturally occurring dust including asbestos (more on that a head) while isn't good isn't necessarily a major health risk because we've evolved to live on this planet that well has dust. While Asbestos isn't good the 2 types of Asbestos that actually pose a major health risk Amosite and Crocidolite are also the modern types of Asbestos that were discovered in the 19th century. Serpentine which is the most common and oldest types of Asbestos while still being classified as a potential risk isn't a major health risk. You are exposed to natural sources of Asbestos every day, it's one of the oldest materials we've used, and it's a great analogy for nano materials because until very recent modern times when Asbestos production kicked off a new methods to produce longer and tougher Asbestos fibers it wasn't a major health risk. The risky needle fibers that are known for giving people "asbestos lungs" aren't the common natural occurrence of Asbestos that we've been exposed too during most of our existence as a species, including the 5000 thousands or so years we've been using it. They are a product of modern manufacturing techniques just like nano-particles are a product of more recent manufacturing and engineering.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Interestingly enough, if you look at the "spider webs" of a large forest fire or a house fire, what you are looking at are carbon nanotubes. While difficult to selectively make single walled or double walled, free carbon in the presence of a static field (which is pretty much everywhere) has a chance to form a tubular shape (and also buckyballs). I did some experiments using acetylene in a low oxygen environment to create a lot of free carbon (aka soot :-)) when trying to find ways to make conductive nanotubes reliably. Further, this isn't a "new" phenomena, so I expect the raging wildfires around the world are the primary source for nanotubes in the lungs.
  - dogma1138 11y ago