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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday May 08 2018, @07:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the breathing-dust-is-bad-for-you dept.

Breathing Lunar Dust Could Give Astronauts Bronchitis and Even Lung Cancer

[In] a recent study, a team of pharmacologists, geneticists and geoscientists consider how being exposed to lunar dust could have a serious effect on future astronauts' lungs.

[...] Previous research has also shown that dust can cause damage to cells' DNA, which can cause mutations and eventually lead to cancer. For these reasons, Caston and her colleagues were well-motivated to see what harmful effects lunar soil could have on the human body. For the sake of their study, the team exposed human lung cells and mouse brain cells to samples of simulated lunar soil.

These simulants were created by using dust samples from Earth that resemble soil found on the Moon's lunar highlands and volcanic plains, which were then ground to a fine powder. What they found was that up to 90% of human lung cells and mouse neurons died when exposed to the dust samples. The simulants also caused significant DNA damage to mouse neurons, and the human lung cells were so effectively damaged that it was impossible to measure any damage to the cells' DNA.

Assessing Toxicity and Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Damage Caused by Exposure of Mammalian Cells to Lunar Regolith Simulants (open, DOI: 10.1002/2017GH000125) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 08 2018, @01:54PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @01:54PM (#677015)

    Why was this study needed? It's been well-known that lunar regolith is nasty stuff for decades now; it's like breathing powdered asbestos, and probably worse. You don't need an expensive study to tell you this: I could have told you before this that any work on the Moon's surface needs to be treated like it's a giant asbestos-mediation project, with workers going through some sort of airlocks (which is needed because of the lack of atmosphere obviously) where they're not exposed to the outer parts of their suits at all and dust that adheres to their suits isn't allowed inside the decontaminated areas.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday May 08 2018, @08:37PM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @08:37PM (#677174) Journal

    Well maybe you would like to use your vast knowledge on the subject to explain just how that stuff is going to be filtered.

    One asbestos tile found in a ceiling is enough to shut down entire buildings these days.

    There are just about no filter systems that can remove stuff this fine. (Its all about the size and irregular shape of these dust particles). All the water has to be filtered. All the air. All the suits and boots.

    I suspect the best bet is get everything wet as soon as possible and try to hold onto the dust with water (maybe treated something that adheres to the dust). Then deal with the water somehow.

    But unlike you, I've never been to the moon, and so I just have to guess.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 08 2018, @10:25PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @10:25PM (#677207)

      I never claimed to have a ready answer for exactly how to deal with moon dust, I only claimed to already know that the stuff is horribly toxic and does terrible stuff to your lungs. It's not just me, this has been common knowledge for decades now. I'm questioning why they needed to do a study now, in 2018, on human and mice cells to tell them this; we've had real moon dust since around 1970 and have examined it very thoroughly, and we already knew this stuff was really bad, just like we know asbestos dust is really bad.

      Were they trying to figure out if it's "not that bad" and they don't need serious filtration systems? This stuff is obviously worse than asbestos even, so that shouldn't have even been a consideration. As you pointed out, just a little bit of asbestos is treated like a biohazard these days, and for good reason (it never gets out of your lungs).