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November 29 2011
The Greatest Threats to da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”: Milan’s Dirty Air & Visitors’ Oily Skin
Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” has survived since the late 1400s on a wall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie Church in Milan, weathering centuries of change and intrigue, such as a World War II bombing. Worried about soiling from air pollution in the city, one of Western Europe’s most heavily polluted, curators installed a ventilation and filtration system to protect it in 2009. The system worked well at reducing levels of fine and coarse particulate matter within the church (according to a new study), which should save the painting from worst effects of air pollution.But a significant threat remains: fatty lipids and organic compounds, such as those emitted from the skin of the 1,000 people that visit the painting each day.
Researchers found elevated levels of lipids and organic compounds (including squalane) inside the chapel, compared to outside. These compounds can combine with soot and stick to and soil the painting, says University of Southern California researcher Nancy Daher. These organic compounds come from visitor’s skin, fire retardants, cleaners, and even wax used in earlier restorations of the painting itself. The researchers recommend finding a way to reduce airborne levels of these chemicals, ...
May 17 2011
An Underappreciated Weapon Against Air Pollution: Our Dead Skin
We humans have a whole lotta skin: The average adult human body has about 22 square feet of it. If you could step out of your skin and plop it on a scale (kids, don’t try this at home), it would weigh 8 pounds. And every minute, 40,000 of your dead skin cells flake off your body and join their brethren among the dust that accumulates in your home. Knowing how much dead skin we slough off, some scientists decided to test what that skin is up to, discovering that the oils in dead skin cells actually help reduce indoor air pollution.
The idea of linking skin cells with air pollution doesn’t take too much of a mental leap: Past research has shown that the natural organic compound known as squalene, which is found in human skin, hair, and clothing, chemically reacts with ozone and neutralizes it. “More than half of the ozone removal measured in a simulated aircraft cabin was found to be a consequence of ozone reacting with exposed, skin, hair, and clothing of passengers,” according to the American Chemical Society.
In this ...
June 29 2010
German Bees Report for Duty as Pollution Inspectors
Would you eat honey called Dulles Delight? LAX Natural? LaGuardia Lip-Smackers? Some Germans are enjoying Düsseldorf Natural, honey made from airport-dwelling bees. The Düsseldorf International Airport and 7 other airports have employed bees as “biodetectives”: inspectors test the bees’ honey for pollutants as an indirect way to monitor airport air quality.
As The New York Times reports, these bees come from a long line of other insect inspectors–including aquatic bugs for testing water quality. Though the airports still use more-traditional sensors to test for air pollutants, in 2006 they added these buzzing mini-inspectors to their testing fleet.
The German Orga Lab tests the honey, made from around 200,000 bees, twice a year for contaminants such as hydrocarbons and heavy metals. They hope to monitor changes over long stretches of time to see if the bees can pick up air quality differences.
Martin Bunkowski, an environmental engineer for the Association of German Airports, told The New York Times that the project is appealing because the insects’ job seems clear.
“It’s a very clear message for the public because it is easy to understand,” Bunkowski said.
Currently, the Düsseldorf honey is looking good–contaminants were far below official limits, and the honey was comparable in quality to that harvested in more scenic locales. Most importantly, since the local bee club gives the honey out for no charge, the sweet stuff is effectively duty free.
Related content:
80beats: How Ancient Beekeepers Made Israel the Land of (Milk and) Honey: Imported Bees
80beats: Honeybees Get High on Cocaine And Dance, Dance, Dance
DISCOVER: The Baffling Bee Die-Off Continues
DISCOVER: Who Killed All Those Honeybees? We Did
DISCOVER: The Alluring and Alien Sights of a Bee in Ultra Close-up (photo gallery)
Image: flickr /cygnus921
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