6 ms·

Ultrasound has potential to damage coronaviruses

53 points by tracyhenry 6y ago

JetSetWilly 6y ago
> “We’ve proven that under ultrasound excitation the coronavirus shell and spikes will vibrate, and the amplitude of that vibration will be very large, producing strains that could break certain parts of the virus, doing visible damage to the outer shell and possibly invisible damage to the RNA inside,” says Tomasz Wierzbicki, professor of applied mechanics at MIT. Why say they have proven it, when all they have done is a simulation and they have not demonstrated anything? It seems like they have a hypothesis, not that they have "proven" anything.
- JabavuAdams 6y ago
  Gotta market the research to get the sweet sweet grant dollars.
- effie 6y ago
  Exactly.
- scintill76 6y ago
  Also, at least as a layman, the RNA comment makes me a little worried about this technique leading to the accidental creation of a stronger mutant virus.
roflc0ptic 6y ago
If this actually causes physical damage to a virus, it raises the question for me: what else do ultrasounds physically damage? Surely COVID 19 can’t be the only thing in our body with a resonance frequency in that range
- burlesona 6y ago
  I was wondering the same thing.
- goda90 6y ago
  Viruses are considerably smaller than cells, so that probably plays a part in damage. Though maybe we should study the effects on DNA and organelles within cells. Also, the body regularly damages itself in attempts to eliminate infections. It then can heal. Ultrasound might damage other parts of the body, but it might not be worse than what the infection itself causes.
  - dheera 6y ago
    The body is particularly bad at fixing certain kinds of DNA damage though, and just lets itself die from cancer.
- clairity 6y ago
  ultrasounds are done on people all the time, especially during pregnancy on relatively fragile fetuses. we'd likely know of any serious risks by now. ultrasound is more akin to microscopic shaking than a mysterious flux of (highly potent) energy. also consider that the cov2 virus is particularly fragile, for instance, requiring the external support of water to remain intact. it's why you don't need masks in most common situations (just distance), because the virus disintegrates so easily. some viruses, on the other hand, can essentially hibernate and revive themselves once inside a host. those are the ones that would require enough excess energy that damage to other cells and organelles might be a genuine concern.
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    Great point. If you've never had an ultrasound, it's safe enough that the technician doing them (who may see dozens of patients in a day) isn't even wearing any shielding or protection.
    - UncleOxidant 6y ago
      Ultrasound is highly directed. The practitioner isn't getting exposed to a significant amount of ultrasound energy.
      - brodouevencode 6y ago
        Good point, and a fair one. I would imagine though if there were any chance though they would have to be shielded.
      - InitialLastName 6y ago
        Not only is it highly directed, ultrasonic acoustical frequencies disperse very quickly in air. At 1MHz, the energy absorption in air is ~160dB/meter, so a person sitting at arm's length away from the emitter (even if it weren't highly directed) would receive ~6*10^-17 of the power (if that weren't far below any possible noise floor, which it is).
  - _Microft 6y ago
- NoSorryCannot 6y ago
  Ultrasound is just sound above frequencies that humans can hear, which is a vast range from ~20khz up to practical physical limits, gigahertz at least. Your body has resonant parts that can be damaged by frequencies in the _audible_ range, the chief parts being in your ears but other parts, too, if the sound is sufficiently loud, e.g. a shockwave from a powerful explosion. So amplitude (volume) is clearly very important. All that to say, I don't think there's any cause here to draw suspicion upon sonograms or other time-tested procedures.
ergest 6y ago
Might work wonders in being applied to air filters or disinfecting large spaces. Not sure if you could run this continuously especially when humans are around.
- mminer237 6y ago
  If you don't have humans to worry about, I would think UVC light would always be the more effective solution.
  - dTal 6y ago
    Light is easily shadowed. Ultrasound will propagate everywhere. UV light also damages objects.
jandrese 6y ago
As usual there is an xkcd for this. https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/ I'm not holding my breath on this one. Even if it does work the majority of the population will be vaccinated before it is approved.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  There's also no practical application for it.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  COVID-19 is not the only coronavirus disease
twirlock 6y ago
Oh so some kind of high frequency wave. Who could have predicted that? Can you imagine all the science required to brainstorm about that one?
JabavuAdams 6y ago
This is not very convincing, though of course it should be followed up on. Considerably more is known about the structure of the virus than the article seems to imply. I'd like to see more about what they mean by simulations "in water". If they didn't simulate intermolecular forces at all, these results seem unlikely to be relevant. The details really matter here. Many early visualizations of the spike protein only showed the protein amino acid residues, not any attached sugars (glycosylation). Turns out the sugars act as a reconfigurable armour that was preventing targeting of the spike protein by meds. AI-Driven Multiscale Simulations Illuminate Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Dynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIReA3s1Nwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIReA3s1Nwk
pvaldes 6y ago
The theory that a bat virus would be damaged by the same type of sounds that bats produce non-stop for hours feels very strange to me. If true, this coronaviruses should be extinct since millions of years ago. No one single virus would stand the extra loudly bat colonies. Specially not rabies virus that has a much more fragile structure. As this does not seem to happen, my bet is that will not work as expected. My instinct might be wrong, of course.
- dTal 6y ago
  There's a huge difference between medical imaging ultrasound at 25 MHz, and bat night-vision ultrasound at 200 KHz.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    Fair point. And there is a difference also between one bat and a thousand bats clicking at the same time in a colony and overlapping the calls. Either the singing is perfectly synchronised or those 0,2MHz would be higher. If the claimed effect is real then, hypothetically, the bigger the colony the less virus that we should find on it. This may happen or not. I don't have this data. Nobody studied it still from this point of view (If I'm not wrong).
    - dTal 6y ago
      ...not really, no. The supposed mechanism of action here is resonance. You can't generate energy in the 25Mhz range by overlapping a bunch of 200Khz tones, any more than a crowd of humans can generate ultrasound by yelling.
seesawtron 6y ago
Only a simulations study, title misleads one to believe that it is "actually" scientifically proven to be true.
phonethrowaway 6y ago
radio frequencies, too, work with the same principle... or lasers. this stuff isn't new, either, by any means. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife good luck getting past the quackery though. https://www.livescience.com/7472-kill-viruses-shake-death.html https://www.livescience.com/7472-kill-viruses-shake-death.ht...

53 points by tracyhenry 6y ago

> “We’ve proven that under ultrasound excitation the coronavirus shell and spikes will vibrate, and the amplitude of that vibration will be very large, producing strains that could break certain parts of the virus, doing visible damage to the outer shell and possibly invisible damage to the RNA inside,” says Tomasz Wierzbicki, professor of applied mechanics at MIT. Why say they have proven it, when all they have done is a simulation and they have not demonstrated anything? It seems like they have a hypothesis, not that they have "proven" anything.

JabavuAdams 6y ago
Gotta market the research to get the sweet sweet grant dollars.
effie 6y ago
Exactly.
scintill76 6y ago
Also, at least as a layman, the RNA comment makes me a little worried about this technique leading to the accidental creation of a stronger mutant virus.

roflc0ptic 6y ago

If this actually causes physical damage to a virus, it raises the question for me: what else do ultrasounds physically damage? Surely COVID 19 can’t be the only thing in our body with a resonance frequency in that range

burlesona 6y ago
I was wondering the same thing.
goda90 6y ago
Viruses are considerably smaller than cells, so that probably plays a part in damage. Though maybe we should study the effects on DNA and organelles within cells. Also, the body regularly damages itself in attempts to eliminate infections. It then can heal. Ultrasound might damage other parts of the body, but it might not be worse than what the infection itself causes.
- dheera 6y ago
  The body is particularly bad at fixing certain kinds of DNA damage though, and just lets itself die from cancer.
clairity 6y ago
ultrasounds are done on people all the time, especially during pregnancy on relatively fragile fetuses. we'd likely know of any serious risks by now. ultrasound is more akin to microscopic shaking than a mysterious flux of (highly potent) energy. also consider that the cov2 virus is particularly fragile, for instance, requiring the external support of water to remain intact. it's why you don't need masks in most common situations (just distance), because the virus disintegrates so easily. some viruses, on the other hand, can essentially hibernate and revive themselves once inside a host. those are the ones that would require enough excess energy that damage to other cells and organelles might be a genuine concern.
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  Great point. If you've never had an ultrasound, it's safe enough that the technician doing them (who may see dozens of patients in a day) isn't even wearing any shielding or protection.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    Ultrasound is highly directed. The practitioner isn't getting exposed to a significant amount of ultrasound energy.
    - brodouevencode 6y ago
      Good point, and a fair one. I would imagine though if there were any chance though they would have to be shielded.
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      Not only is it highly directed, ultrasonic acoustical frequencies disperse very quickly in air. At 1MHz, the energy absorption in air is ~160dB/meter, so a person sitting at arm's length away from the emitter (even if it weren't highly directed) would receive ~6*10^-17 of the power (if that weren't far below any possible noise floor, which it is).
- _Microft 6y ago
NoSorryCannot 6y ago
Ultrasound is just sound above frequencies that humans can hear, which is a vast range from ~20khz up to practical physical limits, gigahertz at least. Your body has resonant parts that can be damaged by frequencies in the _audible_ range, the chief parts being in your ears but other parts, too, if the sound is sufficiently loud, e.g. a shockwave from a powerful explosion. So amplitude (volume) is clearly very important. All that to say, I don't think there's any cause here to draw suspicion upon sonograms or other time-tested procedures.

ergest 6y ago

Might work wonders in being applied to air filters or disinfecting large spaces. Not sure if you could run this continuously especially when humans are around.

mminer237 6y ago
If you don't have humans to worry about, I would think UVC light would always be the more effective solution.
- dTal 6y ago
  Light is easily shadowed. Ultrasound will propagate everywhere. UV light also damages objects.

jandrese 6y ago

As usual there is an xkcd for this. https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/ I'm not holding my breath on this one. Even if it does work the majority of the population will be vaccinated before it is approved.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
There's also no practical application for it.
chickenpotpie 6y ago
COVID-19 is not the only coronavirus disease

twirlock 6y ago

Oh so some kind of high frequency wave. Who could have predicted that? Can you imagine all the science required to brainstorm about that one?

JabavuAdams 6y ago

This is not very convincing, though of course it should be followed up on. Considerably more is known about the structure of the virus than the article seems to imply. I'd like to see more about what they mean by simulations "in water". If they didn't simulate intermolecular forces at all, these results seem unlikely to be relevant. The details really matter here. Many early visualizations of the spike protein only showed the protein amino acid residues, not any attached sugars (glycosylation). Turns out the sugars act as a reconfigurable armour that was preventing targeting of the spike protein by meds. AI-Driven Multiscale Simulations Illuminate Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Dynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIReA3s1Nwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIReA3s1Nwk

pvaldes 6y ago

The theory that a bat virus would be damaged by the same type of sounds that bats produce non-stop for hours feels very strange to me. If true, this coronaviruses should be extinct since millions of years ago. No one single virus would stand the extra loudly bat colonies. Specially not rabies virus that has a much more fragile structure. As this does not seem to happen, my bet is that will not work as expected. My instinct might be wrong, of course.

dTal 6y ago
There's a huge difference between medical imaging ultrasound at 25 MHz, and bat night-vision ultrasound at 200 KHz.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Fair point. And there is a difference also between one bat and a thousand bats clicking at the same time in a colony and overlapping the calls. Either the singing is perfectly synchronised or those 0,2MHz would be higher. If the claimed effect is real then, hypothetically, the bigger the colony the less virus that we should find on it. This may happen or not. I don't have this data. Nobody studied it still from this point of view (If I'm not wrong).
  - dTal 6y ago
    ...not really, no. The supposed mechanism of action here is resonance. You can't generate energy in the 25Mhz range by overlapping a bunch of 200Khz tones, any more than a crowd of humans can generate ultrasound by yelling.

seesawtron 6y ago

Only a simulations study, title misleads one to believe that it is "actually" scientifically proven to be true.

phonethrowaway 6y ago

radio frequencies, too, work with the same principle... or lasers. this stuff isn't new, either, by any means. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife good luck getting past the quackery though. https://www.livescience.com/7472-kill-viruses-shake-death.html https://www.livescience.com/7472-kill-viruses-shake-death.ht...