Wont micro-organisms quickly adapt and start producing UV resistant strains?
There is a giant orb in the sky that emits UV and has for billions of years.
I think the microbes are still trying to figure this one out.
Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
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Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#22Wont micro-organisms quickly adapt and start producing UV resistant strains?
The germicidal effect is a function of the DNA being directly affected by the UV rays and breaking apart. Very few organisms exist that could adapt, this would require external shells, skin etc, not typically found in microorganisms.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#23Idiotic and massively overlooks/underestimates how complex biology is.
What about beneficial and neutral but important bacteria and viruses? "Air" is actually a complex soup of all types of things. This like applying HCl to a skin infection.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#24Wont micro-organisms quickly adapt and start producing UV resistant strains?
There is a giant orb in the sky that emits UV and has for billions of years. I think the microbes are still trying to figure this one out.
You are correct, however most of the harmful rays get filtered out in the upper atmosphere. Far-UV doesn't reach Earth, only UV-A and small amounts of UV-B (if the ozone layer is more or less intact that is!).
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#25Idiotic and massively overlooks/underestimates how complex biology is. What about beneficial and neutral but important bacteria and viruses? "Air" is actually a complex soup of all types of things. This like applying HCl to a skin infection.
Studying a building's microbiome is really a new field. What happens to people if offices become boxes of sterile air and -surfaces? We don't know.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#26Wont micro-organisms quickly adapt and start producing UV resistant strains?
I also wonder about stuff like this. I think some things are just a bridge-too-far for organisms to evolve protections against. For instance, are we worried about using too much bleach? Or stepping on cockroaches?
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#27Idiotic and massively overlooks/underestimates how complex biology is. What about beneficial and neutral but important bacteria and viruses? "Air" is actually a complex soup of all types of things. This like applying HCl to a skin infection.
I would consider it unlikely that airborne germs form a significant input to our microbiomes.
For example, the gut microbiome is in flux for about the first 3 years of life, and thereafter it's mostly only the relative abundances of different microbes that shift in response to diet, you need something like antibiotics or severe diarrhea to actually induce permanent changes (usually for the worse).
Compared to that, there really aren't many microbes in the air. For children, it could very possibly be bad, but even then I'd expect most of their microbial input to come from their parents, food, and surfaces. Which are already grossly deficient compared to old-school rural settings, but I'm not sure if germicidal UV would make it worse.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#28I have worked on such systems at Signify: There are numerous barriers to wider adoption except for very high risk situations. For instance: there have yet to be lawsuits to determine the risk of exposing people to UV. As you see in the comments below, any "UV" is considered dangerous by people not aware of the biological effects of various wavelenghts. Besides this, excimer lamps have a low expected lifetime, of both…
Is there any reason why they can't just be installed inside air purifiers/ventilation?
Especially since you could probably get more mileage out of the same amount of light energy by forcing the air through a narrower passage, since only airborne particles are actually going to absorb any energy anyway, and air is mostly just empty air.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#29Idiotic and massively overlooks/underestimates how complex biology is. What about beneficial and neutral but important bacteria and viruses? "Air" is actually a complex soup of all types of things. This like applying HCl to a skin infection.
> What about beneficial and neutral but important bacteria and viruses?
Such as what? There are some located in the gut, but pretty much everything else out there is in conflict with our immune system.
Re: Germicidal UV could make airborne diseases as rare as those carried by water
#30I have worked on such systems at Signify: There are numerous barriers to wider adoption except for very high risk situations. For instance: there have yet to be lawsuits to determine the risk of exposing people to UV. As you see in the comments below, any "UV" is considered dangerous by people not aware of the biological effects of various wavelenghts. Besides this, excimer lamps have a low expected lifetime, of both…
Is there any reason why they can't just be installed inside air purifiers/ventilation? Especially since you could probably get more mileage out of the same amount of light energy by forcing the air through a narrower passage, since only airborne particles are actually going to absorb any energy anyway, and air is mostly just empty air.
That solution is actually suggested in the article. However, that still leaves the cost issue mentioned by GP, and until that is solved, this will remain something for specialized applications (operating rooms) and maybe hypochondriac millionaires...