Atmospheric nanoparticles impact health, weather
Interesting science; dangerous headline – but dangerous for informed debate, not human health.
Texas A&M University put out a media release with this title and Science Daily have also cut and paste it into their daily news web site. The problem is the media release is presenting large slabs of information that suggest these atmospheric nanoparticles pose dangers to human health, which they might do, but the actual scientific paper published in Nature Geoscience doesn’t mention anything about evidence that such particles will affect human health.
See the first and middle para below:
“Nanoparticles are atmospheric materials so small that they can’t be seen with the naked eye, but they can very visibly affect both weather patterns and human health all over the world – and not in a good way
Persons with breathing problems, such as those who suffer from asthma, emphysema or other lung ailments, can be at risk, he notes. “(he certainly doesn’t note it in the Nature paper…that I could see anyway.
Dangerous extrapolation
I suspect the Texas A&M journalist or communicator is trying to extrapolate or get the scientists to comment on areas outside their areas of expertise to get a better angle (and hence better publicity) for their story. If such claims are going to be made they should at least be backed up with some evidence. Speculating in this way only serves to confuse and mislead. It certainly doesn’t help the push for a rational and informed debate about nanotechnologies.
If this is picked up by the media, I hope they bother to check the Nature paper first and think critically about the info. What I got from an initial quick read of the paper (and this is not my area of scientific expertise) is that these particles have always been there, the industrial revolution served to exacerbate the issue, but the problem was trying to figure out how they formed and what affect they had on the atmosphere and climate. Despite large knowledge gaps remaining, the science presented in this paper provides clues to how these nanoparticles form, and knowledge that will help improve the modelling that simulates how these particles are formed.
Interesting stuff, but not as sexy as dangerous nanoparticles raining down on us.