36 year old fandom geek, angry but practicing Catholic, Whovian, RPer, fanfic writer, and lover of odd, random things. Will be blogging literary quotes, Whoniverse GIF-sets, Catholic memes, Jane Austen stuff, RP blithering, or whatever catches my attention at the moment. Best to brace yourself for the unexpected on here, because it can and will turn up
The proof-of-concept device was created by researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine at Washington University…
The results are contained in a July 10 publication in Nature Communications that provides details about how the technology works.
The device holds promise as a breakthrough that - when commercially available - could be used in hospitals and health care facilities, schools, congregate living quarters, and other public places to help detect not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but other respiratory virus aerosol such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as well.
“There is nothing at the moment that tells us how safe a room is,” Cirrito said, in the university’s news release. “If you are in a room with 100 people, you don’t want to find out five days later whether you could be sick or not. The idea with this device is that you can know essentially in real time, or every 5 minutes, if there is a live virus in the air.”
How It Works
The team combined expertise in biosensing with knowhow in designing instruments that measure the toxicity of air. The resulting device is an air sampler that operates based on what’s called “wet cyclone technology.” Air is sucked into the sampler at very high speeds and is then mixed centrifugally with a fluid containing a nanobody that recognizes the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That fluid, which lines the walls of the sampler, creates a surface vortex that traps the virus aerosols. The wet cyclone sampler has a pump that collects the fluid and sends it to the biosensor for detection of the virus using electrochemistry.
The success of the instrument is linked to the extremely high velocity it generates - the monitor has a flow rate of about 1,000 liters per minute - allowing it to sample a much larger volume of air over a 5-minute collection period than what is possible with currently available commercial samplers. It’s also compact - about one foot wide and 10 inches tall - and lights up when a virus is detected, alerting users to increase airflow or circulation in the room.
Testing the Monitor
To test the monitor, the team placed it in the apartments of two Covid-positive patients. The real-time air samples from the bedrooms were then compared with air samples collected from a virus-free control room. The device detected the RNA of the virus in the air samples from the bedrooms but did not detect any in the control air samples.
In laboratory experiments that aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 into a room-sized chamber, the wet cyclone and biosensor were able to detect varying levels of airborne virus concentrations after only a few minutes of sampling, according to the study.
“We are starting with SARS-CoV-2, but there are plans to also measure influenza, RSV, rhinovirus and other top pathogens that routinely infect people,” Cirrito said. “In a hospital setting, the monitor could be used to measure for staph or strep, which cause all kinds of complications for patients. This could really have a major impact on people’s health.”
The Washington University team is now working to commercialize the air quality monitor.”
-via Forbes, July 11, 2023
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Holy shit. I know it’s still early in the technology and more testing will inevitably be needed but holy shit.
Literally, if it bears out, this could revolutionize medicine. And maybe let immunocompromised people fucking go places again
Also, for those who don’t know, Nature Communications is a very prestigious scientific journal that focuses on Pretty Big Deal research. Their review process is incredibly rigorous. This is an absolutely HUGE credibility boost to this research and prototype
Hi Mr. Gaiman, I'm not sure if you'll read this in time but I thought I'd try anyways. I'm not sure how familiar you are with US government and bills, but there's one that Congress is looking to pass that is only bad news.
It's called KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) and the basis is that it's censorship and for people to use social media sites they will have to upload their government ID or drivers license to shows that they are over 18.
It gives the government unprecedented control over the internet. I'm sure you can see the consequences of this as it would endanger kids trying to escape unsafe environments, identify theft would skyrocket because all of this sensitive data can be accessed easily, this bill would also allow parents of minors to see everything the kid does online which is obviously not good and can be deadly for the child.
This bill would also affect people globally since any company from the US would have to Comply or be sued, so this isn't just a problem for people in the US.
Also fun fact! Tumblr is a US company.
I thought I'd try reaching out to you since you can reach more people than I can and I really admire you. With that being said, sorry if I made your day worse with this news.
I just feel like not enough people know about it. I've also included 2 links, one is a petition to stop KOSA which you can sign even if you're not in the US or are a minor. The other is a link to Bad Internet Bills, which provides more information on KOSA and other bad internet bills. The second link provides much more information, so you can understand it better. Also sorry if the links don't work, Tumblr didn't want them to be links.
I hope you have a wonderful day or night or whatever time you're reading this. Also how are doing? And do you have any advice on editing a piece of writing? For context I'm used to writing shorter pieces but I wrote a long one and I'm editing it but I'm not sure how to go about it since it's a long piece for me and I get stressed every time I try to edit it.
P.S. - Please ignore my bad grammar and sentence structure.
What they don’t tell you about storytelling is that it becomes an instinct over time. You learn how to kind of … intuitively chain events together over time. That doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk, or that you never get stuck on plotbeats, but you have a better time walking yourself out of corners that you as a less experienced writer would have been tempted to abandon your story over. Because you’ve been stuck in similar corners before; you know how you get out now.
I know its frustrating to keep hitting dead ends, but you got this. You’ll learn a little from every roadblock you hit.
When my kiddo finally decided (at age 20) that it was time for (most of) his enormous Lego collection to go, it was a gut-wrenching moment for me (goodbye childhood!). However, we used this service, which was simple and hassle-free.
Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.
I know Ruby. She’s a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don’t they know how lovely she is?
I really wish people would just give things a chance more often. At least, not hate on it without ever watching it or reading it. Most of my favorite things were things I’d initially only checked out ‘cause I thought they’d be dumb and wanted to see HOW dumb it would be, and I ended up unironically loving them. I’m not saying that will always happen, and of course people don’t have to spend time on something they won’t enjoy, but maybe at least take a look into it yourself to see what you actually think of it without just buying into whatever online hatedom loves to meme on it for being terrible. Why deny yourself potential enjoyment or fun just 'cause it’s the unpopular thing right now?
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