Danger Dust

"Our study shows that different parts of a material, and even different grains of sand, can behave in very different ways during the same impact event "

The researchers found that, in addition to other chemical reactions, the heat created by intense compression leads to the grains fracturing, melting, and re-solidifying.

The team observed that different metallic materials exhibit distinct ways of dissipating energy during high-speed impacts. Materials such as aluminum absorb energy by the formation of defects and plasticity, while brittle materials like soda lime glass dissipate energy by fracturing and fragmenting.

Quantifying 3D time-resolved kinematics and kinetics during rapid granular compaction, Part I: Quasistatic and dynamic deformation regimes

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002250962400231X

The recent overhaul of welding fume regulations in Australia has ushered in a new era of workplace safety.

With the new, safer exposure limit reduced to 1 milligram per cubic meter from 5 mg/m3 of air, it’s imperative that companies and workers adapt swiftly to maintain compliance and protect the health of the workforce. This tightening of regulations reflects a growing recognition of the serious health risks posed by welding fumes, including potential respiratory and neurological damage.

Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica dust, which is present in many types of rocks.

McNeill was not given any form of protection from the dust, which can cause lung cancer, tuberculosis, kidney disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

New national laws that take effect today give workers the right to demand multiple safety control measures, such as PPE, water suppression, on-tool extraction systems and local exhaust ventilation systems.

Published online 2019 Jun 5

Considerable evidence indicates that autoimmune disease expression depends on both genetic and environmental factors.  These results support a multihit model of autoimmunity, where exposure to different environmental factors acting on distinct immunostimulatory pathways complements limited genetic predisposition and increases the risk of autoimmunity above a critical threshold.

A key question raised by the present study relates to the mechanistic basis of the synergisms between virus and silica in autoimmunity. Considering the essential role of the innate immune system in spontaneous lupus, we hypothesize that virus and silica might contribute by inducing distinct innate immune pathways that, acting in concert, more efficiently promote inflammatory cell activation both in the lungs and systemically, break of tolerance, and autoimmune disease onset and severity.

In conclusion, the present study provides evidence that a chronic viral infection can significantly enhance the risk of developing autoimmunity following silica exposure and vice versa. Thus, susceptibility to lupus, and likely other autoimmune diseases, appears to depend on the additive effects of a sufficient number of genetic and environmental factors to which an individual is progressively exposed throughout life.

The name “Morgellons” is derived from a disease recognized in the seventeenth century in French children by Sir Thomas Browne. These children were noted to have “coarse hairs” protruding from their backs. The distinguishing feature of MD is the appearance of skin lesions with filaments that lie under, are embedded in, or project from skin.

Filaments can be white, black, or brightly colored.Furthermore, MD patients exhibit a variety of manifestations that resemble symptoms of Lyme disease (LD), such as fatigue, joint pain, and neuropathy.

A study found that 98% of MD subjects had positive LD serology and/or a tickborne disease diagnosis, confirming the clinical association between MD and spirochetal infection. Conversely, 6% of LD patients in an Australian study were found to have MD.

Nearly half of the world's land surface is now classified as drylands and these areas are accelerating their own proliferation, according to new research.

The findings, published August 29 in the journal Science, show around 45% of global land surface comprises deserts, shrublands, grasslands, and savanna woodlands. A chief characteristic of these regions is water scarcity, which significantly affects natural ecosystems and human-managed landscapes, including agriculture, forestry and livestock production.

While it has long been known that climate change and land management practices contribute to dryland expansion, the results revealed a surprising factor: drylands themselves are accelerating their own spread.

The Suomi NPP satellite acquired this image of a plume of Saharan dust as winds lofted it over the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 24, 2024.

The Sahara Desert is Earth's largest source of airborne dust, and the particles can travel for thousands of miles. From late spring to early fall, it is common for the dry, dusty Saharan Air Layer to carry the particles westward across the Atlantic Ocean high in the atmosphere.

Saharan Air Layer activity subsides after mid-August, according to NOAA, making it less likely that the plume shown here is bound for a transoceanic journey. Instead, it arcs to the north after blowing out over the ocean. Earlier in the summer, however, several clouds of fine dust from the Sahara reached the United States, creating hazy skies over Texas.

Safety Video- Dropped Objects Demonstration

Now there's your incident mate !

The Ghanaian government has significantly ramped up the approval of mining permits under legislation passed in late 2022, intensifying concerns about runaway environmental damage.

The country is already the top gold producer in Africa, but much of the mining is done in forest reserves and other biodiverse ecosystems.

The government has long cracked down on artisanal illegal gold miners, but activists say the real damage is being wrought by industrial operations, both legal and illegal.

A debt default in 2022 has seen Ghana lean even more heavily on its gold to mitigate the crisis, prompting warnings that such a policy is neither economically nor environmentally sustainable.

In 2022, the West African nation of Ghana lost 18,000 hectares, or 44,500 acres, of forests — an area the size of 30,000 football fields.

But instead of strengthening restrictions, that November, the Ghanaian government decided to further expose the country’s protected woodlands to the corrosive effects of mineral extraction. The legislative changes allowed mining in critical biodiversity areas, relaxed rules for obtaining exploitation permits, and opened the door to more mining in forest reserves.

Even before the measure was passed, many of Ghana’s protected forests were exposed. Environmental campaigners had been advocating for curbing mining in these reserves altogether. The country has fought a highly publicized battle against small-scale artisanal miners, known as galamsey, yet the effects of industrial-scale mineral extraction have gone largely ignored.

Between 2000 and 2019, industrial mining was the leading cause of forest loss in Ghana, putting it in the same category as countries like Indonesia and Brazil, which have vastly larger forest areas.

‘Gold for oil,’ forests for gold?

Gold has always been central to the Ghanaian economy. Under British colonial rule, this West African nation was known as the Gold Coast.

In 2022, Ghana was the largest producer of gold in Africa, putting out 3.7 million ounces, or 105 metric tons. That same year, the country saw a jump in its industrial mining output, recording its highest ever production: 3.1 million ounces (88 metric tons) of gold.

But years of extraction of this precious metal have diminished the country in other ways: mutilating landscapes, destroying forests, polluting waterways, and degrading farmland.

Astronomers back call for review of bonkers rule that means satellite swarms fly without environment checks

Space boffins want pollution from the likes of Starlink regulated

Astronomy researchers from several US universities have joined a campaign coordinated by US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) to pause low Earth satellite launches and convince the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider exempting swarms of small satellites from environmental review requirements.

US PIRG notes that the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has increased by a factor of 127 over the past five years, driven largely by the deployment of mega-constellations of communications satellites from SpaceX's Starlink subsidiary.

Launching large numbers of small satellites presents potential pollution and safety risks, and spoils stargazing. With 6,000 SpaceX satellites in orbit – a number planned to reach 40,000 in a few years – and a satellite lifespan of just five years, US PIRG expects tons of satellite debris will be burned daily upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. That's in addition to the pollution caused by satellite launches, which US PIRG projects will be "equivalent to seven million diesel dump trucks circling the globe each year."

"We don’t know the long-term effects of the huge number of proposed satellites on our ozone, climate, and environment," argued Samantha Lawler, associate professor of astronomy at University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada, in a statement. "What we do know is relying on a decades-old decision to exclude 50,000 satellites from environmental review defies common sense."

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood—and kept selling them.

Several of 3M’s most successful products contained man-made compounds called fluorochemicals. In a spray called Scotchgard, fluorochemicals protected leather and fabric from stains. In a coating known as Scotchban, they prevented food packaging from getting soggy. In a soapy foam used by firefighters, they helped extinguish jet-fuel fires.

Johnson explained to Hansen that one of the company’s fluorochemicals, PFOS—short for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—often found its way into the bodies of 3M factory workers. Although he said that they were unharmed, he had recently hired an outside lab to measure the levels in their blood. The lab had just reported something odd, however. For the sake of comparison, it had tested blood samples from the American Red Cross, which came from the general population and should have been free of fluorochemicals.

Instead, it kept finding a contaminant in the blood.

What Hansen wanted to know was how PFOS was making its way into animals.

She found an answer in data from lab rats, which also appeared to have fluorochemicals in their blood. Rats that had more fish meal in their diets, she discovered, tended to have higher levels of PFOS, suggesting that the chemical had spread through the food chain, and perhaps through water. In male lab rats, PFOS levels rose with age, indicating that the chemical accumulated in the body. But, curiously, in female rats the levels sometimes fell. Hansen was unsettled when toxicology reports indicated why: mother rats seemed to be off-loading the chemical to their pups. Exposure to PFOS could begin before birth.

Fluorochemicals had their origins in the American effort to build the atomic bomb. During the Second World War, scientists for the Manhattan Project developed one of the first safe processes for bonding carbon to fluorine, a dangerously reactive element that experts had nicknamed “the wildest hellcat” of chemistry. After the war, 3M hired some Manhattan Project chemists and began mass-producing chains of carbon atoms bonded to fluorine atoms. The resulting chemicals proved to be astonishingly versatile, in part because they resist oil, water, and heat. They are also incredibly long-lasting, earning them the moniker “forever chemicals.”

In the early fifties, 3M began selling one of its fluorochemicals, PFOA, to the chemical company DuPont, for use in Teflon. Then, a couple of years later, a dollop of fluorochemical goo landed on a 3M employee’s tennis shoe, where it proved impervious to stains and impossible to wipe off. 3M now had the idea for Scotchgard and Scotchban.

Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is still one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. However, the origins and rise of M. tuberculosis as a successful pathogen are not well understood.

Here, we report the isolation and characterisation of a marine sponge-derived mycobacterium (M. spongiae) from the Great Barrier Reef that has striking genotypic similarity to M. tuberculosis, with 80% average nucleotide identity. We further show by proteomic and lipidomic analyses that M. spongiae shares virulence factors and unique cell wall lipids with the tubercle bacillus.

In spite of these conserved genotypic and phenotypic features, M. spongiae was not virulent in a mouse model of infection, leading us to investigate its potential as a vaccine strain or genetic donor for enhancing the current BCG vaccine for tuberculosis. Our findings contribute to understanding the evolutionary origins of M. tuberculosis and provide further insights into its pathogenesis.

A new tool for monitoring immune health patterns over time has revealed how a pair of checkpoint inhibitor therapies works together to recruit new cancer-fighting T cells with every infusion.

The study challenges fundamental assumptions about how a common immunotherapy drug combination activates different types of T cells to defeat cancer and could help researchers more precisely measure immune response in future clinical trials.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors work by unleashing T cells to find and kill cancer cells.

Despite being on the decline after the 1970s, the prevalence of black lung has been on the rise over the last 2 decades, and the federal government has issued a new rule on miners' safety. With changes in mining technology, miners can dig deeper, exposing them more to silica, which is highly toxic and is driving rising rates of black lung

Pneumoconiosis, which encompasses the family of interstitial lung diseases—those that cause progressive scarring of lung tissue and eventually a lack of oxygen in the blood—can result from an autoimmune condition. It can also develop after an individual has inhaled either organic or nonorganic compounds that include bird and animal droppings, cotton or other fibers, silica, asbestos, diacetyl, beryllium, and talc.

Common forms of pneumoconiosis are asbestosis, silicosis, mixed-dust pneumoconiosis, and byssinosis, and they all are considered occupational lung diseases. One of the most well-known types of pneumoconiosis and potentially the best-known occupational illness in the US—perhaps infamous—is coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, also known as miner’s lung and black lung disease.

As its eponymous name states, this subtype of pneumoconiosis results from inhalation of coal dust and is most often seen in coal miners. It entails both inflammation and fibrosis of the lung tissue, and cases can be simple or complicated.

Described as far back as the 16th century as a blue-black marbling of the lung and in the 19th century as black pigmentation and darkening of the lungs, black lung disease is most often seen in miners of hard coal but can also be found among those who work in soft-coal or graphite mines.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of synthetic chemicals that resist degradation, posing a significant environmental and health risk.

Current methods for removing PFAS from water are often complex and costly. Here we report a simple, cost-effective method to synthesize an iron oxide/graphenic carbon (Fe/g-C) hybrid photocatalyst for PFAS degradation. This photocatalyst efficiently degrades perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a common type of PFAS, achieving over 85% removal within 3 hours under ultraviolet light. The catalyst also maintains high degradation rates over extended periods, demonstrating its stability and potential for long-term use.

This innovative approach offers a promising solution for addressing PFAS contamination in water, contributing to a cleaner and healthier environment.

Bacterial cells can "remember" brief, temporary changes to their bodies and immediate surroundings. And, although these changes are not encoded in the cell's genetics, the cell still passes memories of them to its offspring—for multiple generations.

Not only does this discovery challenge long-held assumptions of how the simplest organisms transmit and inherit physical traits, it also could be leveraged for new medical applications. For example, researchers could circumvent antibiotic resistance by subtly tweaking a pathogenic bacterium to render its offspring more sensitive to treatment for generations.

The study also suggests that other organisms have the necessary elements to exhibit non-genetic heritability.

Irreversibility in bacterial regulatory networks

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado3232

A thickness of around 65 micrometers was a paper cut sweet spot — or sore spot.

That makes dot matrix printer paper the most treacherous, the researchers say. (That paper is seldom used today — fortunately for pinkies and pointer fingers alike.) Paper from various magazines was a close second in the scientists’ tests.

The angle of slicing also played a role. Paper pressed straight down into the gelatin was less likely to cut than paper that cleaved across and down.

Rather than fighting paper’s tendency to cut, the researchers embraced it. They designed a 3-D printed tool they call the Papermachete, which, when loaded with a strip of printer paper, acts as a single-use knife. The blade can cut into cucumbers, peppers, apple and even chicken. The cutting-edge device could serve as a new type of cutlery with low-cost replacement blades.

Many of the near-term problems with wildfire smoke exposure are now well understood.

The most serious, of course, is death. A recent working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that the U.S. would see nearly 28,000 more deaths each year by 2050 due to the climate-driven rise in wildfire smoke—that's 76% higher than the average annual deaths between 2011 and 2020.

More people experience milder but still serious consequences, like worsening asthma and debilitating headaches. When smoke from Canadian wildfires wafted thousands of miles to hang over large tracts of the U.S. last summer, it led to a 17% rise in asthma-related ER visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More recently, less-obvious health issues have come to light. Multiple studies have found a connection between wildfire smoke and pregnancy complications, including preeclampsia (a form of dangerously high blood pressure) and premature births.

Recent study follows 2020 research that linked exposure to neurological disorders among Ontario miners

The medical records of Ontario miners exposed to McIntyre Powder over the years are giving up more information about the long term impact of aluminum dust on their health.

A new study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine finds a link between occupational exposure to McIntyre Powder and cardiovascular disease.

McIntyre Powder was a fine dust containing aluminum developed in Timmins that was dispersed in the air before each shift and miners told to breathe it in, as a method to coat their lungs and prevent silicosis.

It was licensed for use in mines around the world including in South America and western Australia and was used between the mid-1940s and 1979.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/study-research-mcintyre-powder-cardiovascular-disease-1.7306430?cmp=rss

New geoarchaeological research shows that metalworking in ancient Egypt led to significant contamination in a nearby port.

Adapting to Environmental Hardship

The study provided further insight into how ancient Egyptians adapted to environmental challenges. As the Nile River receded and Khufu Harbor shrank, metalworking continued. As the Nile reached its lowest level, around 2200 BCE—a period marred by civil unrest and grim rumors of cannibalism—metal contamination remained high, suggesting a resilient infrastructure and workforce.

Decarbonization of transport is underway. Here are future fuel predictions.

As the world races to decarbonize everything from the electricity grid to industry, it faces particular problems with transportation — which alone is responsible for about a quarter of our planet’s energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The fuels for transport need to be not just green, cheap and powerful, but also lightweight and safe enough to be carried around.

Every energy solution has its pros and cons. Batteries are efficient but struggle with their weight. Hydrogen — the lightest element in the universe — packs a huge energy punch, but it’s expensive to make in a “green” way and, as a gas, it takes up a lot of space. Liquid fuels that carry hydrogen can be easier to transport or drop into an existing engine, but ammonia is toxic, biofuels are in short supply, and synthetic hydrocarbons are hard to produce.

Queen guitarist Brian May has spent a decade studying the science of bovine tuberculosis, which can be carried by badgers, and has identified a new method of spread

We developed a view on how the mycobacterium responsible for TB transmits from one animal to another.  TB has classically been known as a respiratory disease, but our discovery is that a cow doesn’t contract TB by breathing in something, it contracts it by eating the pathogen from defecation from a neighbouring cow. It’s a monstrous discovery, because once you start understanding your enemy, then you can start to defeat it. Now we know that the thing is passed from cow to cow, because of poor hygiene.

• The world’s beaches face a dire future—50 percent of them could disappear by 2100 due to climate change-induced erosion.

• A new study from scientists at Northwestern proposes that mild voltages applied to these ecosystems could spur the creation of “binding” materials that may be able to make beaches more resilient to erosion.

• The idea was inspired by the shell-making biology of clams and mollusks, and the approach would be less invasive and less costly that currently proposed beach-protection methods.

“By applying a mild electric stimulation to marine soils, we systematically and mechanistically proved that it is possible to cement them by turning naturally dissolved minerals in seawater into solid mineral binders—a natural cement.”

The idea actually comes from shell-dwelling animals like mollusks that convert ions and dissolved minerals in the water into calcium carbonate, which is then used to build their shells.

Of course, the energy in an animal’s metabolism kickstarts this process, so to create a similar reaction across the entire ecosystem, you would need to apply a mild current of just 2 to 3 volts and some materials will convert into calcium carbonate.

Crank things up to 4 volts and ​​magnesium hydroxide and hydromagnesite are the ultimate outcome—both are common materials found in stones.

These substances form a kind of glue that binds sand particles together, making the coast more resilient to weathering effects.

CRP is a molecule that is an important factor in the flaring up of many diseases of various etiologies. Although CRP has been known and used for many decades to diagnose inflammation in the body, its use as a potential biomarker in the diagnosis of other disease conditions in the body is relatively new.

CRP is a plasma protein produced in the liver and released into the bloodstream as a response of the immune system, acting as a biomarker of inflammation and infection. Its level monitoring helps to diagnose even severe conditions like trauma, sepsis, ischemic necrosis and/or malignancies.

........

NFC Smartphone-Based Electrochemical Microfluidic Device Integrated with Nanobody Recognition for C-Reactive ProteinClick to copy article link

Its reliability was confirmed by the precise detection of CRP in artificial serum, plasma, and whole blood samples, eliminating the need for sample pretreatment steps. Importantly, this configuration can be potentially applied to any soluble biomarker by simply exchanging the recognition element used to capture the antigens. Thus, it offers an alternative and economically accessible method for the detection of any biomarker, particularly in settings where advanced clinical equipment is lacking.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssensors.4c00249

For some unlucky people, time in the great outdoors leads to Lyme disease, an illness causing head, joint and muscle pain, flu-like symptoms, fatigue, and sometimes a rash. Left untreated, those effects can turn debilitating and expand to include paralysis, inflammation of the brain and heart, and problems with memory, hearing and vision that can last for years.

Lyme disease, expected to affect more than 600,000 people in the U.S. this year, is caused by a spiral bacterium that spreads to humans through bites from infected deer ticks. The microbe provokes a complicated immune reaction that can resemble the response to other dangerous tick-borne bacteria, often making it harder for doctors to initiate the correct antibiotic treatment.