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The death rays that guard life

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21–30 of 56 posts

Re: The death rays that guard life

#21
post #20
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

afaik they use it to desinfect the room after or before usage, not during

I'm intrigued. Didn't know places were trying this idea somewhat "at scale." Do you know if they have any findings from where this was deployed?

It's widely used in hospitals. They also use moving robots which enter rooms and shine UV light in them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTFH9X2YIoY

Re: The death rays that guard life

#22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued. Didn't know places were trying this idea somewhat "at scale." Do you know if they have any findings from where this was deployed?

It's widely used in hospitals. They also use moving robots which enter rooms and shine UV light in them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTFH9X2YIoY

That is awesome! I'm definitely interested to know if they have evidence showing that this leads to better outcomes.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#23
post #3

Oh yeah, why don't we put an air purifier, UV lamp box combo in each office/classroom? I've never thought about that, but it seems like such an obvious thing to do now

I would be surprised if there is no dire second order consequences to raising kids 8h per days in a sterile environment (or more if you also adopt this setup at home). The immune system needs to be used in order to work properly. Unless we want a life where we cannot step outside of the range of our UV lamps.

Maybe fewer consequences than you'd think...

https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/

"Your Immune System is Not a Muscle"

> Four main categories of pathogens that humans deal with are viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. The evidence for pathogens that may be beneficial to the immune system is almost entirely for parasitic worms and friendly (commensal) bacteria. In contrast, many viruses can even trigger the onset of autoimmune diseases or allergies.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#24
post #3

Oh yeah, why don't we put an air purifier, UV lamp box combo in each office/classroom? I've never thought about that, but it seems like such an obvious thing to do now

> Studies have shown that various immunological and autoimmune diseases are much less common in the developing world than the industrialized world and that immigrants to the industrialized world from the developing world increasingly develop immunological disorders in relation to the length of time since arrival in the industrialized world.[23] This is true for asthma and other chronic inflammatory disorders.[18] The…

From the same wikipedia page:

> The hygiene hypothesis has difficulty explaining why allergic diseases also occur in less affluent regions. Additionally, exposure to some microbial species actually increases future susceptibility to disease instead, as in the case of infection with rhinovirus (the main source of the common cold) which increases the risk of asthma

I think having a common cold infection each year does not bring any benefits, it certainly does not make anybody immune to common cold

Re: The death rays that guard life

#25
At the start of the CoViD pandemic I installed a UV lamp(turned on using a current sensor on the blower fan power wires) in the return air manifold on my furnace. My family still ended up all getting CoViD once one of us got it. But I keep it there because... why not? I'm sure it helps reduce the viral load in the air a bit.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if there is no dire second order consequences to raising kids 8h per days in a sterile environment (or more if you also adopt this setup at home). The immune system needs to be used in order to work properly. Unless we want a life where we cannot step outside of the range of our UV lamps.

Maybe fewer consequences than you'd think... https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/ "Your Immune System is Not a Muscle" > Four main categories of pathogens that humans deal with are viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. The evidence for pathogens that may be beneficial to the immune system is almost entirely for parasitic worms and friendly (commensal) bacteria. In contrast, many viruses can e…

The air outside is constantly sterilized by UV light.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#27
post #19

The most interesting application I’ve seen mentioned was a proposal to shine far-UVC light directly at a patient during surgery. The idea is that it would kill most pathogens that might end up inside the patient while still being mostly harmless to the patient even when being shined inside them.

A core part of the article is that shorter wavelengths are used that don't penetrate as far, so they only cause DNA damage in outer layer cells of the skin that do not replicate. This would not be the case with an open surgical area.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#28
This line gave me pause:

"This happened despite murine norovirus being more resistant to far-UVC than many common human respiratory viruses, likely due to its tough protein outer ‘shell’.".

Under wide spread use, would viruses simply mutate to being more resistant to far-UVC?

Re: The death rays that guard life

#29
post #3

Oh yeah, why don't we put an air purifier, UV lamp box combo in each office/classroom? I've never thought about that, but it seems like such an obvious thing to do now

I would be surprised if there is no dire second order consequences to raising kids 8h per days in a sterile environment (or more if you also adopt this setup at home). The immune system needs to be used in order to work properly. Unless we want a life where we cannot step outside of the range of our UV lamps.

I mean, we evolved in these conditions - plenty of UV rays, fresh/clean pre-industrial air, and quite a bit of built-in social distancing between ape tribes.

Putting people in a small poorly-ventilated box with a bunch of strangers (some of whom perhaps recently flew to the other side of the planet and back) is the abberant behavior, really.

Re: The death rays that guard life

#30
post #15

So in our entirely sanitized and sterilized environments we would be free from airborne and waterborne disease, but the moment we step outside of it our underdeveloped immune systems would be incapable of fighting off the common cold? That seems like a bad idea.

Outside gets plenty of ventilation and UV rays.
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