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Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#321

Post by Open-Sourcery »

graeme wrote: post #158

I have two of these. They seem pretty accurate, and respond quickly to breathing on them, window opening, etc https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Autopilot-Desktop-Monitor-L... Can anyone confirm if they are actually measuring co2 directly? Some people in this thread say actual co2 sensors are more expensive than this.

That price seems about right. Many "CO2" sensors are actually measuring VOC levels then extrapolating what the CO2 level probably is rather than measuring it directly. You can see in the specs that this sensor uses NDIR (Non Dispersive Infrared ) to measure the CO2. NDIR fires an infrared laser at a specific frequency of light which falls into the absorption spectrum of the C-O bond of CO2, this scatters the light; This dispersion is measured and then turned into a PPM measurement of CO2. This sensor says it uses this NDIR technique and so is probably measuring the CO2 directly.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#322

Post by graeme »

phonypc wrote: post #270
graeme wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....did you actually test if breathing rate changes? If not, on what basis can you say you're correct?

It is known in physiology that respiration rate is more or less determined by concentration of CO2 in the blood. Probably doesn't need to be independently tested.

You’d still want to test. And if it was increased, the next thing to test would be whether a 10% increase in baseline respiratory rate was benign. It’s not obvious that it would be, since breath is so tightly regulated.

OP spoke with rather more certainty than warranted.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#323

Post by Double_a_92 »

Diederich wrote: post #315
Double_a_92 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China it's much more common to take antibiotica for minor reasons. Also big (area wise) skin wounds can get infected even if they are not bleeding.

Correct me if I'm wrong: I think that a wound that is bleeding is a wound that's, at least in part, being protected from infection by 'internal positive pressure'. My grandpa taught me that; to let wounds bleed freely for a while, if possible, to reduce the chance of infection. I wonder how valid that is.

Sounds plausible. At the very least it's a mechanical cleaning. Small pieces of dirt get washed away by the liquid blood.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#324

Post by deepsun »

inetknght wrote: post #218
Klathmon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the study I read, and I'll re-link it here, it is eye opening to say the least! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15893291

Is there a link for the Elsevier-disabled people?

SciHub has it

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#325

Post by HocusLocus »

1. It is not enough to win. Someone else must lose.

2. Learn the distinct odor of fear. Pinpoint the source.

3. Ask everyone to pull their own fingers before the meeting begins.

4. If you have a video whiteboard, train the camera on it with a bit of zoom and give your presentation in front of it so your moving form is surrounded by a throbbing infinity of fractal shapes.

5. Place a slow incrementing digital up-counter on the table and say it's a CO2 sensor.

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#326

Post by gwern »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #286
gwern wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The question of CO2 and the difficulty reconciling Satish with practically all other CO2 studies has been a question of interest to ggreer & me since it was first raised on LW years ago: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nk0/what_is_up_with_car...

Was just reading that through and idly wondering, if that was the only experiment getting such a result, and there is nothing obviously wrong with the methodology, was there anything else by accident in the tank or gas lines they used for the CO2?

Not the first explanation I would reach for. (What would have to be in those tanks? Nitrogen would be very noticeable and wouldn't do anything, oxygen would presumably help rather than harm, and so on.)

Re: Is Conference Room Air Making Us Dumber?

#327

Post by calvinbhai »

Klathmon wrote: post #19
Mistletoe wrote: post #5

I own a CO2 monitor and it is shocking how high it can get in a house with two people just existing. 800 ppm or more. Outside air is 410. In a car with air on recirculate, it was getting to >1220 ppm, a level that impairs decision making and lowers brain function. I try to drive with air on fresh from now on. I don’t doubt the air in our conference room with 20 people gets super high in CO2 as the meeting goes on, an…

I picked up a CO2 monitor a while ago myself, and the biggest surprise was having it on in the morning in our bedroom with the doors closed. It was easily over 1000ppm IIRC. Ever since then I've made sure to set my AC system to run the "house fan" for 15 minutes or so every hour at night just to circulate the air in the house, and while the numbers went down significantly, anecdotally I swear that I wake up easier in…

As a full face helmet proponent and user (since I started riding motorcycles in India), your comment really makes sense.

This is something I used to do almost on instinct,usually at lower speeds (because the helmet had a sort of an intake and a vent that worked well at higher speeds).

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