Danger Dust

Yet another strain of the virus that causes mpox might be readily spreading from person to person, according to an analysis of the pathogen’s genome. This development could further complicate efforts to halt the spread of the disease in Central Africa, which has seen a surge in infections over the past year. And it has left researchers scratching their heads over what is currently driving this surge.

Air pollution in Pakistan's second biggest city Lahore soared on Saturday, with an official calling it a record high for the smog-choked mega city.

For days, the city of 14 million people has been enveloped by smog, a mix of fog and pollutants caused by low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from seasonal agricultural burning and winter cooling.

The air quality index, which measures a range of pollutants, spiked at 1,067—well above the level of 300 considered 'dangerous'—according to data from IQAir.

"We have never reached a level of 1,000," Jahangir Anwar, a senior environmental protection official in Lahore told AFP.

The fastest animal on land is the cheetah, capable of reaching top speeds of 104 kilometres per hour. In the water, the fastest animals are yellowfin tuna and wahoo, which can reach speeds of 75 and 77 km per hour respectively. In the air, the title of the fastest level flight (excluding diving) goes to the white-throated needletail swift, at more than 112 km per hour.

What do all of these speedy creatures have in common? None of them are particularly big, nor particularly small for the group of animals they represent. In fact, they are all intermediately sized.

The reason for this is a bit of a mystery. As animals increase in mass, several biological features change as well. For example, in general leg length steadily increases. But clearly long legs are not the answer, since the largest land animals, like elephants, are not the fastest.

Based on the team's analysis, the lime clasts in their samples are not consistent with this method. Rather, Roman concrete was probably made by mixing the quicklime directly with the pozzolana and water at extremely high temperatures, by itself or in addition to slaked lime, a process the team calls "hot mixing" that results in the lime clasts.

"The benefits of hot mixing are twofold," Masic said.

"First, when the overall concrete is heated to high temperatures, it allows chemistries that are not possible if you only used slaked lime, producing high-temperature-associated compounds that would not otherwise form. Second, this increased temperature significantly reduces curing and setting times since all the reactions are accelerated, allowing for much faster construction."

And it has another benefit: The lime clasts give the concrete remarkable self-healing abilities.

When cracks form in the concrete, they preferentially travel to the lime clasts, which have a higher surface area than other particles in the matrix. When water gets into the crack, it reacts with the lime to form a solution rich in calcium that dries and hardens as calcium carbonate, gluing the crack back together and preventing it from spreading further.

Using a decade of wind, fire and health data from satellites and surveys from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, we show that crop burning responds to bureaucrat incentives: fires increase by 15% when wind is most likely to direct pollution to neighbouring jurisdictions, and decrease by 14.5% when it pollutes their own.

These effects intensify with stronger bureaucratic incentives and capacity. We also find that bureaucrat action against burning deters future polluters, further reducing fires by 13%.

Finally, using an atmospheric model, we estimate that one log increase in in utero exposure to pollution from burning raises child mortality by 30–36 deaths per 1,000 births, underscoring the importance of bureaucrat action.

Marek Marzec is a Polish stonemason who came to this country in search of work 13 years ago.

He found it – in the cutting rooms of kitchen worktop suppliers.

Now he’s lying in a hospital bed and dying – his lungs ravaged by fatal silicosis caused by the dust he breathed in whilst he shaped lengths of engineered stone to order.

His case is far from the only one. It’s thought hundreds of workers are at risk as many suppliers fail to install proper protective measures.

The increase in cases of silicosis has raised alarms in Spain, with 96 new diagnoses including several workers exposed to construction materials containing crystalline silica. Silicosis is a serious lung condition caused by prolonged inhalation of silica dust, which has been on the rise in countries like Australia, the United States, and now in Spain as well. In the month of June, the number of registered cases reached 355. In the peninsula, artificial stone countertops have been identified as a possible cause due to their high silica content.

Few autoimmune disorders are more challenging for patients than multiple sclerosis, a progressive condition that can affect vision, impair the ability to walk, cause extreme bouts of neuropathic pain, and tends to strike women at three times the rate of men.

New findings from a large team of researchers in Germany involving twins may provide the clearest insight to date illuminating the role of cytotoxic T cells—CD8+ T cells—in the progression of multiple sclerosis, also simply referred to as MS.

The disorder is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system characterized by the immune system's assault on the protective myelin sheaths of nerves. Irrevocable demyelination—loss of the fatty insulation surrounding nerves—interferes with the conveyance of nerve impulses between brain and body. Medicines can help control the disease, slowing progression and easing pain, but there is no cure.

In children, exposure is responsible for an annual loss of some 765 million IQ points in children globally. Low-level lead poisoning is a risk factor for adults, which can result in chronic kidney failure, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Lead accounted for 5.5 million deaths annually from cardiovascular disease.

Marine animals like jellyfish, corals and sea anemones often live with algae inside their cells in a symbiotic relationship. The animals give the algae nutrients and a place to live; in return, algae give the animals some of the food they make from sunlight via photosynthesis.

While this food production seems great for the jellyfish, the algae can also change its host animal's immunity, similar to the changes made by human pathogens, like parasites that cause malaria. This side effect of the partnership weakens the jellyfish's immune system, making them worse at fighting off infections.

Source :

Trade-off between photosymbiosis and innate immunity influences cnidarian’s response to pathogenic bacteria

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.0428#d1e1971

A stone worker in hospital with terminal silicosis says he developed the disease after inhaling dust while cutting engineered stone kitchen worktops in unsafe working conditions.

Marek Marzec, a 48-year-old father of three originally from Poland but living in London, has worked for several engineered stone producers in north London and Hertfordshire since 2012. He was diagnosed with silicosis in April this year. Since then, his condition has rapidly deteriorated and he has been told by doctors he has only weeks to live.

So far in this series, we’ve talked about man-made byproducts — Fordite, which is built-up layers of cured car enamel, and Trinitite, which was created during the first nuclear bomb test.

But not all byproducts are man-made, and not all of them are basically untouchable. Some are created by Mother Nature, but are nonetheless dangerous. I’m talking about fulgurites, which can form whenever lightning discharges into the Earth.

It’s likely that even if you’ve seen a fulgurite, you likely had no idea what it was. So what are they, exactly? Basically, they are natural tubes of glass that are formed by a fusion of silica sand or rock during a lightning strike.

Much like Lichtenberg figures appear across wood, the resulting shape mimics the path of the lightning bolt as it discharged into the ground. And yes, people make jewelry out of fulgurites.

Based on a true story told by Dr Oliver Sacks, Awakenings focuses with exquisite detail on the experiences of a few extraordinary people affected by a disease known as encephalitis lethargica, or the “sleepy sickness”. Yet far from being a rarity, this disease affected a million people worldwide during and after the first world war. Then it vanished and has remained a mystery for the past century. The question that has never been answered is: what caused it?

The disease was first described by a neurologist in Vienna in 1917. It was noted that the initial symptoms were similar to those of flu, but that’s where the similarities ended. Over the next few weeks, some would be unable to sleep at all, while others would be so drowsy they could be woken for only a few minutes to eat.

About half died in this early phase, but those who survived were even more perplexing. After recovering, often returning to work, many started to notice stiffness, slowness in their movements and even that their eyes would get stuck in certain positions. Sadly, this slowly progressed. And many were left – like De Niro’s character – in a frozen state, unable to speak or move.

Olfactory dysfunction, often dismissed as a minor inconvenience, may actually be an early sign of various neurological and bodily diseases, as indicated by this research.

"The data are particularly interesting because we had previously found that olfactory enrichment can improve the memory of older adults by 226%," said Leon. "We now know that pleasant scents can decrease inflammation, potentially pointing to the mechanism by which such scents can improve brain health."

This finding, he added, could hold key implications for mitigating symptoms and possibly even reducing the onset of certain diseases through therapeutic olfactory stimulation.

A study by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), an agency dependent on the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain, concludes that the most intense Saharan dust events ever recorded in the air quality monitoring networks of Spain and Portugal occurred between 2020 and 2022.

Dust concentrations were so high that the air quality monitors were unable to measure such a high concentration of respirable PM10 particle.

The concentration of respirable PM10 and PM2.5 particles, i.e., particles with a diameter smaller than 10 and 2.5 microns, respectively, is a key record in the air quality networks, in the European Union standards.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is drafting new guidelines for tradesmen working with engineered stone after report shows increased risk to silicosis.

HSE is asking for industry feedback from the Worktop Fabricators Federation – an association promoting good working practices for worktop fabrication and stone masonry industries – who were presented with draft guidelines to review.

Dust created from working with stone can include silica and significant exposure can cause silicosis, a respiratory disease.

Air quality in India's capital Delhi has deteriorated to severe and extremely poor levels in the past few days, data shows.

Pollution levels crossed 25-30 times the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommended safe limit at several locations in the city last week.

Experts have warned that the situation will worsen in the coming days due to weather conditions, use of firecrackers during the festival of Diwali on Thursday and burning of crop remains in neighbouring states.

Delhi and several northern Indian cities report extreme levels of air pollution between October and January every year, causing disruption to businesses, shutting down of schools and offices.

A new study from Australia involving over 83,000 participants found that prolonged standing may not improve heart health and could even increase the risk of certain circulatory problems.

Researchers discovered that standing for extended periods did not reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. In fact, spending too much time either sitting or standing was linked to a higher risk of problems such as varicose veins and feeling dizzy or lightheaded when you stand up.

Phototherapy is provided by machines that resemble tanning beds or that can be smaller devices for hands or feet, but they emit a specific wavelength of ultraviolet light that treats psoriasis effectively without exposing patients to the cancer-causing wavelengths that are found in commercial tanning beds. Phototherapy is often used in combination with pills and biologic therapies for psoriasis (12% of patients were taking these medications during the LITE study).

The fool's funnel mushroom is also known as the false champignon and can easily be confused with the real champignon. Only when the mushroom is damaged by cutting, cooking or digestion, an enzyme releases the poisonous muscarine from this precursor molecule.

In other mushrooms however, muscarine is already present in its active form. It is not uncommon for organisms to show defense and protective reactions when they are damaged, for example by being eaten by animals.

The mixture of free active and "hidden" inactive muscarine, which only becomes active poison when eaten, increases the danger of certain types of mushrooms such as the funnel mushrooms. These results could help doctors and toxicologists to better assess the actual danger of certain types of fungi and treat poisoning more efficiently.

Schoolchildren in Pakistan's second-largest city of Lahore have been banned from outdoor exercise until January because of hazardous smog levels, officials said Friday.

The eastern megacity near the border with India regularly registers among the world's most polluted cities, this week recording more than 20 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Smog is particularly bad in winter as a result of low-grade fuel from factories and vehicles in the low-lying megacity of 14 million, where denser cold air traps emissions at ground level.

Seasonal crop burn-off by farmers on the outskirts of Lahore is also a major contributing factor.

Asbestos may have been banned from use in the UK since 1999 but the hazardous material continues to pose a serious danger to the population.

Low levels of asbestos are naturally present in the air, water and soil, which usually doesn’t cause people to become ill. However, regular exposure to asbestos – in the workplace, for example – is a real health risk.

Asbestos exposure can have an insidious effect on health. It can take decades for symptoms to become noticeable but, once diagnosed, most patients die within two years.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety, more than 5,000 people die from asbestos-related diseases each year, making asbestos the leading cause of work-related deaths in the UK.

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The UK's health body has warned that COVID-19 spreads "very easily through close contact with people who have the virus" and you can still be infectious for "up to 10 days"

NHS Calls for 10-Day Isolation for New XEC COVID Strain as Cases Rise; Experts Warn of Worsening Symptoms and Possible Return of Masks and Social Distancing

The NHS has issued a critical alert recommending a 10-day isolation due to a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in the UK. Recent UK Health Security Agency data shows a 17.8% week-on-week increase in infections and a 27.3% rise in related fatalities.

Scientists have identified a natural compound that halts the process involved in the progression of certain forms of cancer and demyelinating conditions—those that damage the sheath, known as myelin, that surrounds neurons—such as multiple sclerosis.

Source:

Distinct chemical structures inhibit the CEMIP hyaluronidase and promote oligodendrocyte progenitor cell maturation

https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(24)02418-9/fulltext

Benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) is a chemical that makes plastic more flexible and durable, and is found in many consumer products, including food packaging, personal care products and children's toys. Previous studies have shown that BBP interferes with the body's hormones and affects human reproduction and development, but the details of how it impacts reproduction have been unclear.