Accepting the 2024 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences is #NASmember Kimberly A. Prather of UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography for her pioneering research on aerosols. #chemistry #NAS161 #NASaward

Watch live: ow.ly/pWZk50RqemO

Congratulations to Kimberly A. Prather, Kimberly Prather, Ph.D., of UC San Diego, winner of the 2024 National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences for her pioneering research on aerosols! Watch her accept the award at the 161st NAS Annual Meeting, National Academy of Sciences. #NASaward #academia #chemistry

If you have been following the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, then you will surely agree that Alan Bates would make a positive contribution to the House of Lords.
Please join us in signing the petition. Change.org UK
#PostOfficeScandal
chng.it/nJnNxSf48F

'To be clear, the rapid early decay in infectivity of aerosolized #SARSCoV2 reported here, as well as previously, does not contradict the consensus opinion that airborne transmission prevails as the dominant mode of transmission.'
#COVIDisAIRBORNE
nature.com/articles/s4146…

'The National Audit Office has revealed that the UK govt has agreed to pay Rwanda almost £500,000,000 for accepting 300 asylum seekers, plus £20,000 per person relocated. And, the Home Office will pay up to £151,000 per head to cover processing and operational costs.'
statista.com/chart/32169/uk…

To read the full study, follow the link below.

Differences in airborne stability of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern is impacted by alkalinity of surrogates of respiratory aerosol | Journal of The Royal Society Interface royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

This research was funded by BBSRC, EPSRC, and MRC.

I am very proud of our teams years of hard work on this project (Mara, Henry and Robert).

If anyone has any questions, I would be more than happy to (try to) answer them.

Thanks!

This research furthers our understanding of the environmental conditions that affect the transmission of respiratory viruses. It also directly links how the conditions that drive #climatechange also increase transmission risk.

The results of this study reinforce the importance of both #ventilation and masks in limiting the transmission of respiratory viruses.

The slow decay phase measured using the CELEBS is similar to the decay rate measured using other techniques, such as rotating drums.

Conversely, CO2 concentration has a small effect on the Lag Phase and a massive effect on the Slow Decay Phase. Thus, the concentration of CO2 would be expected to affect long distance transmission of the virus and have only a minor effect on short distance transmission.

For example, the Lag Period is highly affected by humidity, while the Slow decay region is not. Meaning that humidity would be expected to affect short range transmission and not long-distance transmission.

Collectively, the triphasic decay profile of respiratory viruses affords new insights into how conditions affect transmission. It provides a framework to discuss how environmental factors such as humidity and acids will affect transmission through their collective effect on decay

Slow Decay Phase:

In the Slow Decay phase, the conditions in the droplet are becoming less toxic to the virus, where the pH is slowly being reduced by the trace amount of acid in the air. The rate of loss in this region is highly dependent on the acid content of the air (CO2).

Dynamic Phase:

In the Dynamic Phase, the conditions in the droplet have begun to become toxic to the virus. During this phase, a large fraction of the virus is inactivated over a short period. At high humidity the pH is climbing, causing the droplet to be more toxic to the virus

Lag Phase:

At high humidity, the length of time of the Lag Phase is dependent on the pH resilience of the virus and may go on for minutes.

Lag Phase:

In the Lag Phase the conditions in the droplet are not yet toxic to the virus. The length of the Lag Phase is dependent on humidity. At low humidity, the particle will crystallizes, causing about half of the virus to be inactivated.

There are 3 distinct phases that we’ve termed:

Lag Phase
Dynamic Phase
Slow Decay Phase

The environmental parameters that affect the loss of viral decay in each phase is different. Knowing these differences will help to estimate the odds of short and long-distance transmission