Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
livescience.com
Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
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Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#2The article quotes seem inconsistent:
"University of Ottawa tested the samples and found that only 87% contained pure epinephrine, while the other 13% had been 'transformed into extremely poisonous benzoic acid derivatives'"
against
"In fact, no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples"
If it's the former, you probably want to use a different EpiPen if you have a choice, but it might still save your life, whereas if it's the latter it's completely useless.
Also they were only flown under a high altitude balloon or on a sounding rocket, so probably didn't get a very high dose of radiation for very long. If you're a pilot and carry an EpiPen on many long-haul flights, wont your EpiPen will get similar exposure?
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#31. They didn't go into space. They went on a high altitude balloon.
2. If this were actually true, people's epipens would be getting destroyed in transport whenever people fly on aircraft. There's even cosmic radiation on the ground.
3. Maybe don't automatically trust elementary schoolers to do good science.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#41. They didn't go into space. They went on a high altitude balloon. 2. If this were actually true, people's epipens would be getting destroyed in transport whenever people fly on aircraft. There's even cosmic radiation on the ground. 3. Maybe don't automatically trust elementary schoolers to do good science.
>Maybe don't automatically trust elementary schoolers to do good science.
We obviously need to get other elementary schoolers to perform a peer review.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#5Looks like the ISS crews could be in trouble if there is an invasion of space bees.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#6The article quotes seem inconsistent: "University of Ottawa tested the samples and found that only 87% contained pure epinephrine, while the other 13% had been 'transformed into extremely poisonous benzoic acid derivatives'" against "In fact, no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples" If it's the former, you probably want to use a different EpiPen if you have a choice, but it might still save yo…
I believe they are saying that any of the epipens that were turned were turned completely.
Like, there wasn't an epipen with 87% epinephrine that came back to earth.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#71. They didn't go into space. They went on a high altitude balloon. 2. If this were actually true, people's epipens would be getting destroyed in transport whenever people fly on aircraft. There's even cosmic radiation on the ground. 3. Maybe don't automatically trust elementary schoolers to do good science.
I think you're being a little bit hard on them...
There's no single definition of what we consider space. Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane.
You're making a lot of assumptions on your second point. How do you know that EpiPens won't degrade when flying? There are some conflicting statements in the article, but it seems like you could make a good case for that assumption, based on their findings. If radiation from space transforms epinephrine we probably want to know about it so we can adjust recommendations for storage.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#8Epinephrine goes bad on earth too. Its not a very stable molecule.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#9The article quotes seem inconsistent: "University of Ottawa tested the samples and found that only 87% contained pure epinephrine, while the other 13% had been 'transformed into extremely poisonous benzoic acid derivatives'" against "In fact, no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples" If it's the former, you probably want to use a different EpiPen if you have a choice, but it might still save yo…
I believe they are saying that any of the epipens that were turned were turned completely. Like, there wasn't an epipen with 87% epinephrine that came back to earth.
Yes, you could read it that way too. If the results are binary like that, it seems like it would need some form of chain reaction to convert all the epinephrine in 13% of the samples, leaving pure ephinephrine in the others.
Re: Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space
#101. They didn't go into space. They went on a high altitude balloon. 2. If this were actually true, people's epipens would be getting destroyed in transport whenever people fly on aircraft. There's even cosmic radiation on the ground. 3. Maybe don't automatically trust elementary schoolers to do good science.
I think you're being a little bit hard on them... There's no single definition of what we consider space. Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane. You're making a lot of assumptions on your second point. How do you know that EpiPens won't…
> Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane.
It's 18-37km for balloons, with the record being 53km. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon
In the end, any discussion on this turned rough the moment the article started with 'Elementary school students in Canada recently schooled NASA scientists'. It makes everything suddenly a students vs scientists thing, and the details in the article are lacking or inconsistent.
In my eyes, it should just be removed from Hacker News. We don't need this clickbait here.