Slashdot Mirror
Buckyballs Kill Fish
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post (free registration, not too invasive) has a disturbing article on a new study of the environmental dangers of nanotech. Buckyballs caused "severe" brain damage in largemouth bass when added to their aquariums in concentrations of 0.5 ppm, a concentration level on par with common US pollutants. They also caused die-offs of Daphnia, waterfleas that are a crucial part of the ocean food chain. "The new findings are somewhat surprising because many scientists had predicted that buckyballs would not linger in water but would quickly form clumps and sink." The findings have yet to be peer-reviewed."
I never heard about it. Some US thing no doubt. Help me out here!
You must have missed the section where it refers to the oxidizing effects of buckyballs:
But buckyballs can also steal electrons from surrounding molecules -- a process known as oxidation and a common mechanism of tissue damage.
Basically, you have a great replacement for hydrogen peroxide or chlorine. Great for disinfecting, bad for living tissues over a prolonged exposure time. The question is, are the buckyballs being consumed in the process, or are they acting as catalytic agents? If they're acting like catalytic agents, we could have the makings of another CFC fiasco on our hands. I'm thinking buckyballs have to be consumed at some point - otherwise all the buckyballs created by natural processes like fires would have killed off everything alive a long time ago.
Well, the structure and shape of things at these scales sometimes has an effect. Any one of a thousand possibilities. For example, diatomaceous earth is very finely crushed shells of fossilized microscopic creatures. It's used as an effective poison to many insect pests. There's nothing really poisonous about the substance chemically, but the nanoscale fractured edges will cut into the insects and draw out moisture, killing them. Not necessarily the same thing happening here, but it's an example of how the shape or structure of something can change its effect.
Another example: say you had a thousand lumps of metal. If you form them into cubes and throw them on the ground, they can be walked over relatively easily. If you form them into balls, it may be difficult to walk over them without stumbling. If you form them into caltrops, walking on them will cause injury. These properties are all independent of the raw effect of the metal itself.
...
From what I have read buckyballs have really neat conductive and structural properties. The article fails to state that there have been no commercially viable applications for the molecules. As long as that is true the fishes have little to worry about.
120 chars of filth!
I'm curious to find what other carbon nano-arrangements will do to sea life (or other life for that matter). What about carbon tubes? These appear to have numerous useful applications in superstrong carbon fibers. If we build a space elevator with carbon tubes, and the cable breaks, we can expect a whole lot of this carbon stuff to end up in the ocean. I remember that earlier experiments showed that carbon tubes did not pose an environmental risk, but I've never read what these experiments actually entailed.
:) I do not want to register, and adding the 'partner' thing to the URL somehow doesn't work for me.
And no, I didn't read the article
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Anyone see Cowboy Bebop the movie?
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
The laws of physics do not behave differently on a HUGE carbon 60 molecule! The article fails to show what the buckyballs do to the fish or aquatic fleas. Does anyone have insight?
Brain damage is usually caused by oxygen starvation. Could the buckyballs be absorbing the oxygen from the bloodstream? Maybe there are chemical reactions in the body that create enough heat to which causes the molecule to oxidise. The ignition properties of nanotubes were discussed in a previous slashdot article.
Human beings have odd beliefs about what happens when you disintegrate something.
The ______ Agenda
According to the article I read last night -- which I can't remember the newspaper or find in google news -- the buckyballs were destroying lipids in the fish's brain. Which is bad, because that gives no reason to think it wouldn't do the same thing in humans -- lipids are just fats.
I was going to try to find the link, but then I realized why bother? Until these findings have undergone peer review, there's not a lot of point in trying to figure out what it means.
The enemies of Democracy are
I remember hearing somewhere that the black exhaust you typically get from a diesel truck as it goes through the first few gears after a dead stop is composed mostly of incomplete fullerines.
Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball!
Maybe if the nanoparticles were even smaller, they would just pass right through the aquatica and not hurt them.
You mean bacteria? If we make self-replicating nanomachines, they'll just have to compete with already existing microorganisms, which have had a long, long time to perfect what they do.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
according to quantum mechanics, you're wrong.
Buckyballs have been shown to form diffraction patterns in slit experiments, see:
"Wave-particle duality of C60"
Markus Arndt , Olaf Nairz, Julian Voss-Andreae, Claudia Keller, Gerbrand van der Zouw,
and Anton Zeilinger
Nature 401, 680-682, 14.October 1999
The buckyball can withstand slamming into a stainless steel plate at 15,000 mph, merely bouncing back, unharmed.
Hmmm... you don't see any commercial potential here?
That's right. They had such a long time perfecting what they do, that they never kill their host specie. Bacteria may kill individuals, but any parasitic bacteria that killed their entire host species killed themselves.
Besides, to compete, they must have similar needs in food or habitat or other limited resources. I don't clearly see how nanomachines might have the same needs as bacteria.
Brain damage is usually caused by oxygen starvation. Could the buckyballs be absorbing the oxygen from the bloodstream?
The biggest and quickkest damage doesn't come from the oxygen starvation itself, but by the return of blood flow.
Brain cells metabolism is oxygen based and produces lots of free radicals - toxic by-products that are produced by oxagen metabolism. Normally that isn't a problem for our cells, because they also have the tools to control free-radicals production and degradation (with help of anti-oxydizer and well controlled reactions...)
When blood flow is cut, cells are suffering from the lack of oxygen but are still managing to survive for a short period in some way (brain cells aren't as good at fermentation....)
During this period they may undergo some damage but are still viable (DNA and basic protein synthesis tools may be still intact). The problem is : part of this damage can happen on metabolic tools that are intended to control free-radicals. During this period, it doesn't matter, because as the cell doesn't recieve oxygen, it doesn't produce free radicals
The problems arises when blood flow comes back : some cell (the less damaged from the lack of blood) survive, some other, although viable get killed because oxygen metabolism restarts and free-radicals are produced again... but the cells aren't able to cope with them anymore !
This phenomenon is called Reperfusion Damage, and lot of research is currently done to find way to minimise it (example : using anti-oxidizers).
[HINT : google this keywords for more information on the subjet]
To get back to the main subjet : as this buckyballs are known to be good oxidiser, it's very probable that their oxydizing propreties are exceeding brain's capacity of handling free radicals
other typical damage of free radicals : cataract (I wonder if they found it too on the fishes ?)
other tissus like muscles are less prone to free-radical damage, because it's easier for them to divide and replace damaged cells with new clean one.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think there might have been a post along this line in regards to nanotubes, and a portion of this link has some information on conflicting research on health risks. Given the nightmare that asbestos turned out to be, it seems to me (a big supporter of science and technology) that we need a 'go slow' approach with this stuff. There is no earth shattering compelling need for anything made of nanotubes or buckyballs today that can't wait a few years for accurate and conclusive testing.
I have a 70 gal aquarium indoors and a 3800 gal "aquarium" outdoor, and when someone tells me that they are keeping large-mouth bass in a 10 L aquarium and the fish suffered brain damage with-in 48 hours my first thought is what did you expect? and how did you keep the control group so healthy?.
I'm hoping that these guys research is totaly wacked because fullerenes aren't that hard to make and if they are realy that toxic, the implications are a bit staggering given the amount of genocidal activity in the world today.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The article does not mention that buckyballs are present in soot, and are already in the environment. What is the present level of buckyballs outdoors? What is it after natural wildfires?
I'd consider 48 hours still pretty short-term. Also, I would consider it cold comfort if the buckyballs didn't decompose but accumulated the sediment. Well, maybe buckyballs need the equivalent of condensation nuclei to quickly precipitate. I didn't see a detailed experimental procedure when I read the article, but it wouldn't be surprising if the water was relatively clean when the buckyballs were added. It would be ironic if it were simply too clean, and buckyballs didn't pose much of a threat in dirtier water.
Alternately, if the buckyballs are toxic because of oxidative power, perhaps in dirtier water they would be reduced to harmless byproducts by oxidizing material in the water.
However, these are just possibilities, and the prospect of buckyballs acting as biologically-active catalysts is a bit disturbing. I'm starting graduate study in physical chemistry this fall, so I hope to read more extensive toxicity studies before I decide what research area to pursue.