11–20 of 103 posts
We seem to be getting a lot of "wake up calls" but no one ever seems to answer the god damn phone.
Before getting too excited about the experimental prevention they used, IL-1B blockade, let me say that blocking the innate immune system to prevent cancer seems ill-advised. The innate immune system is with us for very good reasons. This would be roughly equivalent to preventing table saw accidents by prophylactically removing all fingers. Yes, table saw accidents are terrible, but there is a straightforward electro…
Well I read the article and got excited about eliminating internal combustion engines...
That won't necessarily solve this problem.
[edit] One more source. There are tons though. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-en/index.html?i...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other thing people don’t often talk of is PM2.5 inside their home while cooking. Lot of people have poor ventilation or insufficient air movement capacity in their kitchens.
From the food, or the fuel?
Didn’t we know this in the 1970’s?
> "However, the biological basis for how air pollution causes cancer has remained unclear. Unlike smoking or sun exposure, which directly cause DNA mutations linked to lung and skin cancer, air pollution does not cause cancer by triggering such genetic changes."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how important the raw amount of emissions is. Density should decrease at a cubic rate of distance, so being close to a small source of emissions might be worse than being somewhat far from a heavier source.
See for yourself. Propublica plotted a "cancer map" of elevated cancer risks, and you can see how it drops off as you go away from certain points. https://projects.propublica.org/toxmap/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I read the article and got excited about eliminating internal combustion engines...
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/business/145130/fine-part... That won't necessarily solve this problem. [edit] One more source. There are tons though. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-en/index.html?i...
I wanted to find an account of what the biggest sources of PM2.5 are in the US. This article discusses traffic fumes (24% of PM2.5), but I was surprised to learn that by far, the largest source of PM2.5 - 45% - is “unspecified sources of human origin.” Where does that stuff come from? Well, it’s created in the atmosphere via secondary reactions between agricultural NH3 emissions, SO2 and NOx emissions from shipping a…
The other thing people don’t often talk of is PM2.5 inside their home while cooking. Lot of people have poor ventilation or insufficient air movement capacity in their kitchens.
Didn’t we know this in the 1970’s?
This work provides a mechanism for how this happens, where air pollution promotes the transition of cells into a malignant state, without directly damaging DNA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/business/145130/fine-part... That won't necessarily solve this problem. [edit] One more source. There are tons though. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-en/index.html?i...
Exactly right, tire and brake dust are still awful with EVs, though contra the slight implication in the headline, it's no worse than the current situation with ICE vehicles. And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to regenerative braking.
So. It depends. It's sometimes slightly better, sometimes slightly worse. But it doesn't really solve the issue.
There are MULTITUDES of particles in circulation everywhere everyday. If the impact of only some these are especially dire, we should be able to triage each particle simply by: 1) looking at who suffers most from 'lung cancer of unknown etiology' and what environmental particles they were exposed to, and to a lesser extent, 2) looking at who is exposed to each type of particle and whether they suffer from it.
It'd be nice if we had some clear hypotheses in mind before charging off in all directions.