Linsey Marr

I have a lot of travel coming up, and it's that time of year, so I just got my flu and COVID shots.

Glad to have the support of Representative Morgan Griffith for our new ARPA-H BREATHE award @virginiatech.bsky.social!

morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documen...

I'm not teaching environmental chemistry. The carbonate and phosphate systems are on the whiteboard because Alex and I were mulling over their buffering role in saliva droplets. 😀

MUON

We didn't see any evidence of increased particles, either due to low ozone and/or low terpenes and/or the Dylos particle counter's inability to detect particles in the relevant size range. @osluv.bsky.social

You know Jeff Siegel is in town when he whips out deodorant to see if its terpene emissions react with ozone from my new far-UVC lamps to generate secondary aerosol.

He gave a great seminar about HVAC filter forensics!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

MUCIN

PhD Position in Atmospheric Chemistry

We have a new PhD project to study ozone formation from fires. If interested in atmospheric chemistry, fires, living in Zurich, and studying at ETH, consider applying here: jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

We're focusing on daycare centers, while one of the other teams will focus on schools.

Depends how you define "the next few years." 😉 We hope the innovations become widely available as soon as possible.

I'm laughing so hard that I'm snorting!

Others in past bees that bug me: CAVITATION, ZOONOTIC,...

Not in this project, but hopefully in another one.

BREATHE research teams kick off efforts to enhance indoor air quality to improve health, advance the future of smart buildings The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) supports transformative research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs ranging from molecular to societal to provide transformative hea...

I'm thrilled to be leading, along with AJ Prussin II, an ARPA-H BREATHE team that will integrate new biosensors, risk assessment software, and engineering controls to bring clean and healthy indoor air to more buildings.

arpah.gov/news-and-eve...

I found the answer to my question: "Sentinel pigs became infected after 1 day of exposure to the infectious aerosols (results not shown)."

Right! I wonder if some of it is resuspended from skin or the ground. I also wonder if the methods used to date, aside from this study, may underestimate viral RNA in larger particles due to sampling artifacts such as inlet losses. My big question: did pigs in isolator 3 get infected?

Now with update 🙌

Influenza A virus RNA found in airborne particles from pigs across a range of particle sizes. For reference a 10 micron particle takes ~8 minutes to settle to the ground from a height of 5 feet. That's plenty of time for it to drift around and be inhaled by others.

National Academies @health.nationalacademies.org Workshop on Personal Protective Equipment for Influenza A (H5N1) in High-Risk Farm Settings happening now at www.nationalacademies.org/event/45411_...

Glad to see the toxic fume problem being addressed. Gift link to unlocked article:

www.wsj.com/business/air...

People in conference room at the UN building

The global pledge for healthy indoor air: That clean indoor air is a fundamental human right for protecting health and safeguarding well-being

The momentum for clean indoor air continues to build. I attended the inaugural High-Level Side Event on indoor air quality at the UN General Assembly yesterday. Short remarks by Lidia Morawska @joeallenjoe.bsky.social @isiaq.bsky.social Pres. Kerry Kinney, ASHRAE, WHO, UNEP, many others.

Lots of research groups have been working on this problem for a while. My lab is not collaborating with the University of Valencia.

Good question! I don't know enough about plants, their specific emissions, and pollination to hazard a guess. Sounds like an interesting research topic for someone.

Fascinating new observations about the corpse plant, such as, "the corpse plant’s powerful emission rates can be an order of magnitude stronger than landfills – albeit only for two nights." Most-emitted compound? Methanethiol, a skunky compound.

Probably. I'm guessing that "nanobubbles" of ozone are an attempt at regular ozone disinfection, which is used for water and wastewater in treatment plants where conditions are more controlled, and other processes have been used to remove much of the solid and dissolved material.

Very cool! Congratulations!

Do we want more unknown reactions and more volatilization (thanks to bubbling)? Who knows???

Yes, ozone is used in wastewater treatment, but as the final step, after the secondary treatment where microbes break down nasty stuff and it settles out as sludge and is removed. The ozone is used to kill off any remaining bacteria.

Ozone is “chemical free” and “safe for humans and marine life”??? Except that ozone is a chemical that is toxic at high levels (www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/np...).

So...they decided that raw sewage that's not being broken down by bacteria (killed off by ozone) is better than raw sewage that's undergoing biodegradation? What could go wrong?! We rely on biological decomposition in wastewater treatment.