Nanotubes turn up in children’s lungs
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029305
New Scientist : Since nanotubes were discovered 20 years ago, health officials have worried about their impact on human health. Due to their small size, they can easily breach the skin or the blood wall that protects the brain (see Physics Today, February 2014, page 22 ). Now Fathi Moussa and colleagues at the University of Paris-Saclay for the first time have discovered carbon nanotubes in the lung fluid of 64 asthmatic Parisian children. In five of those children, the nanotubes also appeared in the immune cells that move unwanted particles out of the lungs. How the nanotubes got there remains unclear, although the research team found similar structures in the dust and vehicle exhaust in the local environment. Moussa told New Scientist‘s Sam Wong that the implications for asthmatic children are uncertain, but even if the nanotubes aren’t toxic, they may still help pollutants get embedded directly into the lungs.
More about the authors
Paul Guinnessy, pguinnes@aip.org
