5 ms·

Looks nice, but can 150 ºFahrenheit (65ºCelcius) "kill 99.9% of bacteria and pathogens" ? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_%28microbiology%29 ht

by slug 12y ago

Looks nice, but can 150 ºFahrenheit (65ºCelcius) "kill 99.9% of bacteria and pathogens" ? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_%28microbiology%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_%28microbiology%... it would seem that's not the case. Wonder if the article considers the effects of sun ultra-violet radiation to help in that process.

mpyne 12y ago
Even if it could kill 99.9% of bugs now, just wait until we get the inevitable HRSA superbugs after 20 years of this. Though this does sound neat, and it's still much better to have than nothing at all.
- azakai 12y ago
  It's not clear to me that bacteria and other pathogens could evolve around heat sterilization. I'm sure they can adapt in some ways to some amount of temperature change, but at some point (maybe hotter than this device can achieve) surely no organism can survive. It's like the old saying, it's easy to destroy HIV - the hard part is doing it inside a human body. In the case of sterilizing water, we don't have that problem, the water will remain usable.
  - Retric 12y ago
    A thermophile is an organism — a type of extremophile — that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 45 and 122 °C (113 and 252 °F) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile So, 150 °F is not really all that hot as some organisms thrive at 250°F or well above boiling. However, I suspect organisms that thrive at 150+°F are unlikely to also thrive in the human body. A more important issue is the effort to sterilize water by hand is unlikely to be made with any real consistency.
    - eru 12y ago
      > A more important issue is the effort to sterilize water by hand is unlikely to be made with any real consistency. That's what safety margins are for.
- patio11 12y ago
  This sort of thinking is often invoked to justify why the world can't get better for e.g. poor Africans, while ignoring the fact that the rest of the world has been doing it in a more effective fashion (e.g. boiling water with a fire) for literally millennia with no ill effects.
  - fernly 12y ago
    Those benighted primitives, why did it never occur to them to make a lens from 7mil clear plastic sheeting?
- ibisum 12y ago
  The lives saved by devices like this may end up being the ones who improve science, medicine, and technology sufficiently well enough to come up with the next innovation to improve conditions in life. Point? Entropy is a bitch, but mankind carries a bigger stick.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    Guys, guys, I get it. All I'm saying is that we do actually need to try to anticipate issues ahead of time. For everyone who's saying that nothing could evolve to resist this, please look at Legionnaire's disease: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease This is a disease which can be fatal, and is found in association with systems involving water, including hot water heaters. I'll grant you as much as you likely that you're unlikely to get this or that, what I'm cautioning against is the idea that you've found a silver bullet. You've never found a silver bullet against bacteria, and it's better to go into use of systems like these with that assumption. Thinking ahead to make "thoroughly rinse, clean, and dry this system at least once a week" part of the instructions for use as a precaution against bacteria isn't nay-saying, it could be quite valuable to the people we would have using systems like these in the future.
    - ibisum 12y ago
      As long as good technology gets communicated well enough to be effectively applied, with real results, there is hope in the world. How we go about doing that, especially for life-destroying subjects such as these diseases, is a matter of great importance to mankind and is thus, alas, subject to all mankinds' cultures. Expressions of technological prowess mean nothing if the basics of human life, in the first place - the real rudimentary stuff, like: water, food, shelter - are nearly non-existent. Our only hope, is all I'm saying, is in our ability to cross all boundaries and communicate under extraordinary duress, nevertheless, with effective results. So I fully support your position. I'm encouraged by the community efforts being made to address this; there is, after all, a very large industrial powerhouse that can be directed towards these problems. If we see Ebola-bots on the horizon, better hope they're flying away and not getting closer, uh oh ..
danielharan 12y ago
65C sounds like plenty enough heat over an hour. Such temperatures are common in sous-vide (see e.g. http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html - interesting headings to grep include "Pasteurized in Shell Egg" and "Computing the Destruction of Pathogens")

by slug 12y ago

mpyne 12y ago

Even if it could kill 99.9% of bugs now, just wait until we get the inevitable HRSA superbugs after 20 years of this. Though this does sound neat, and it's still much better to have than nothing at all.

azakai 12y ago
It's not clear to me that bacteria and other pathogens could evolve around heat sterilization. I'm sure they can adapt in some ways to some amount of temperature change, but at some point (maybe hotter than this device can achieve) surely no organism can survive. It's like the old saying, it's easy to destroy HIV - the hard part is doing it inside a human body. In the case of sterilizing water, we don't have that problem, the water will remain usable.
- Retric 12y ago
  A thermophile is an organism — a type of extremophile — that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 45 and 122 °C (113 and 252 °F) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermophile So, 150 °F is not really all that hot as some organisms thrive at 250°F or well above boiling. However, I suspect organisms that thrive at 150+°F are unlikely to also thrive in the human body. A more important issue is the effort to sterilize water by hand is unlikely to be made with any real consistency.
  - eru 12y ago
    > A more important issue is the effort to sterilize water by hand is unlikely to be made with any real consistency. That's what safety margins are for.
patio11 12y ago
This sort of thinking is often invoked to justify why the world can't get better for e.g. poor Africans, while ignoring the fact that the rest of the world has been doing it in a more effective fashion (e.g. boiling water with a fire) for literally millennia with no ill effects.
- fernly 12y ago
  Those benighted primitives, why did it never occur to them to make a lens from 7mil clear plastic sheeting?
ibisum 12y ago
The lives saved by devices like this may end up being the ones who improve science, medicine, and technology sufficiently well enough to come up with the next innovation to improve conditions in life. Point? Entropy is a bitch, but mankind carries a bigger stick.
- mpyne 12y ago
  Guys, guys, I get it. All I'm saying is that we do actually need to try to anticipate issues ahead of time. For everyone who's saying that nothing could evolve to resist this, please look at Legionnaire's disease: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease This is a disease which can be fatal, and is found in association with systems involving water, including hot water heaters. I'll grant you as much as you likely that you're unlikely to get this or that, what I'm cautioning against is the idea that you've found a silver bullet. You've never found a silver bullet against bacteria, and it's better to go into use of systems like these with that assumption. Thinking ahead to make "thoroughly rinse, clean, and dry this system at least once a week" part of the instructions for use as a precaution against bacteria isn't nay-saying, it could be quite valuable to the people we would have using systems like these in the future.
  - ibisum 12y ago
    As long as good technology gets communicated well enough to be effectively applied, with real results, there is hope in the world. How we go about doing that, especially for life-destroying subjects such as these diseases, is a matter of great importance to mankind and is thus, alas, subject to all mankinds' cultures. Expressions of technological prowess mean nothing if the basics of human life, in the first place - the real rudimentary stuff, like: water, food, shelter - are nearly non-existent. Our only hope, is all I'm saying, is in our ability to cross all boundaries and communicate under extraordinary duress, nevertheless, with effective results. So I fully support your position. I'm encouraged by the community efforts being made to address this; there is, after all, a very large industrial powerhouse that can be directed towards these problems. If we see Ebola-bots on the horizon, better hope they're flying away and not getting closer, uh oh ..

danielharan 12y ago

65C sounds like plenty enough heat over an hour. Such temperatures are common in sous-vide (see e.g. http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html - interesting headings to grep include "Pasteurized in Shell Egg" and "Computing the Destruction of Pathogens")