Combustion-derived nanoparticles in Alzheimer disease development: study | Hacker News Reader

Combustion-derived nanoparticles in Alzheimer disease development: study

medicalxpress.com

61 pointsokket21 comments

I guess fine Particulate Matter (PM) is the lead of the 21st century. Hopefully findings like these (and those linking it to cardiovascular issues) will prompt legislators to action.

Or, in the case of the US, it will cause politicians to neuter the EPA and do everything possible to avoid studying problems like this. It's only a problem if we know about it, right?

Happens all around the world, unfortunately.

Where I live, a small city was called out in a radio show for having the worst air quality in the region. The mayor of that city decided to fix the problem quickly and efficiently - by shutting down the air monitoring station.

Fine particulate matter was the lede of last century too. Asbestos (mesothelioma), talcum powder (ovarian cancer), titanium dioxide (it's in everything), plastic microbeads (voluntarily discontinued), 9/11 cleanup crew issues, Doritos flavor dust (I saw an article on this somewhere...)

How do we solve particulate getting in your brain though? Nanorobots for removal?

I think Tharkun mean "lead" as in leaded gasoline and lead paint.

Good one, thanks. In that case I would expand lead to be heavy metals generally (lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic etc)

Ah yes, sorry about the confusion. I was indeed talking about lead (Pb), or rather tetramethyllead as it was added to gasoline as an anti-knocking agent last century. It's something that was suspected to be bad early on, but the scale of it wasn't realized until much later. Of course, political nonsense and corruption came into play as well.

Just like now.

Edit: probably doesn't count as fine particulate matter, but I would also consider fluorocarbons (PFCs etc) as a contender. They are in everything from clothing to carpet to food packaging and are emerging as a pretty bad thing for humans and the environment.

On leaded gasoline (TEL), there were strongly-correlations between state-by-state lock-step reduction in crime and reduced lead pollution, ie, introduction of catalytic converters and outlawing TEL for most uses. [0]

There might be a need to equip vehicle exhaust systems with nanoparticle traps to prevent pollution in the first place, if the risk to public health QALY is demonstrably significant. Also, it underscores the need to move to a mostly EV society.

0: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure...

Magnetic air filters for the home, anyone? Its an untouched market!

Not to mention magnetic filters for motorcyclists. Asia is full of motorcyclists who use dust masks. Adding a "magnetic filter", even one barely effective, might be very popular in Hanoi and Saigon, for example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=motorcyclists+in+saigon+wear...

Finally, an application for old disk drive magnets!8-)): grind them up into coarse domain-sized grains at low temperature (so they don't lose their magnetism) and then toss them into the paper/fiber pulp mixture used to make masks. You should get a mask that filters the usual particles and also captures iron nanoparticles.

Add a few billboards on major highways depicting nursing-home residents with Alzheimers' disease and saying "Don't end up like this!" and those masks will be flying off the shelves. Profit!

This sounds like a pretty brilliant idea to me, why isn't it already on the market? The article specifically calls the problematic particles "airborne iron-rich strongly magnetic combustion-derived nanoparticles (CDNPs)".

It _has_ been discussed before: I just found a 2007 paper about dust problems in lunar living environments; the suggested solution is a magnetic air filter. Their solution is different of course (I was simply brainstorming about the powdered domains solution - there are many ways to magnetically filter particles from the air):

"DUST MITIGATION: LUNAR AIR FILTRATION WITH A PERMANENT-MAGNET SYSTEM " http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/1654.pdf

There are probably many more such ideas published.

"combustion-derived nanoparticles" they mean car exhaust right? airborne pollutants from burning things. seems like just another reason to get rid of fire based energy.

FWIW, particulate matter comes not just from exhaust, but also from road wear etc. that EVs will actually be worse at (since they're heavier).

I don't recall the split off-hand, but here's a paper that should have some numbers:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231013...

The article cited combustion-derived particulates, not concrete/tar. They specifically point to strongly magnetic nanoparticles containing Fe. EVs will certainly not release these, though the power plant used to charge them might.

It seems they could be pretty easy to filter since they're strongly magnetic.

[0] Estimate about half of the particulate emissions comes from non-combustion sources (brake wear, tire/road wear, dust re-suspension). Interestingly 16-55% of these particle emissions in city-areas comes from brake wear, which should be significantly lower for EV's since they mostly slow down by regenerating. This might offset the weight-related increase for EV's.

[0] http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR...

I'm not sure if it has been looked into yet, but once EVs are abundant it would make sense to look into ways of reducing pollution from road wear. Right now it's not worth it as much, since pollution from the cars themselves dominate. But once road wear is the dominant source it'll make sense to look into it.

Automated cleaning trucks which sweep the road for dust every day maybe? New materials for roads and tyres?

New materials might be tricky. Roads are very abundant, and in some places of the world they're a convenient way of disposing of the leftovers of incinerated waste.

"A Look Into the Dramatic Rise in Alzheimer’s Cases" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-j-hall/alzheimers_b_51789...

I'm guessing this is a time bomb that will be with us for some time.

Well then I guess switching from combustion engines to electric engines will reduce this contamination. But how much new stuff that uses nano particles for all sorts of things is going to mess up our bodies and cause other health problems they will be dealing in the next century if we're still around.

Oddly enough this sounds like Stephen King's The Running Man ...

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