Laser or Microwave vs germs

[fredreload]

What's better at killing germs, laser or microwave?

[Silvestru]

Vodka or Wiskey

[fredreload]

1 minute ago, Silvestru said:

Vodka or Wiskey

Whiskey

[Strange]

51 minutes ago, fredreload said:

What's better at killing germs, laser or microwave?

How about a microwave laser?

[fredreload]

Just now, Strange said:

How about a microwave laser?

That's cool, gotta show me how it works

[Strange]

3 minutes ago, fredreload said:

That's cool, gotta show me how it works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser

What is even cooler, they occur naturally in interstellar space!

Edited November 20, 2017 by Strange

[swansont]

1 hour ago, fredreload said:

What's better at killing germs, laser or microwave?

It depends on the specifics.

[fredreload]

12 hours ago, swansont said:

It depends on the specifics.

For instance, when someone sneezes, disintegrate all germs and viruses in mid air. Or destroy harmful stomach or colon bacteria with precision and sterile.

 

12 hours ago, Strange said:

How about a microwave laser?

Directional microwave, I like the idea for large area disinfection. Definitely a useful tool

Edited November 21, 2017 by fredreload

[swansont]

5 hours ago, fredreload said:

For instance, when someone sneezes, disintegrate all germs and viruses in mid air. Or destroy harmful stomach or colon bacteria with precision and sterile.

I meant it depends on the specifics of what germs and the specifications of your laser or microwaves. By what mechanism are you hoping to destroy the germs? With a laser, you might be ionizing some molecule, and relying on chemistry to disrupt them, or breaking bonds between atoms. Or you might be going for a thermal solution, by "cooking" them. But that's probably not a good idea for stomach or colon bacteria.

[fredreload]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

I meant it depends on the specifics of what germs and the specifications of your laser or microwaves. By what mechanism are you hoping to destroy the germs? With a laser, you might be ionizing some molecule, and relying on chemistry to disrupt them, or breaking bonds between atoms. Or you might be going for a thermal solution, by "cooking" them. But that's probably not a good idea for stomach or colon bacteria.

That is a good question lol, and it opens to many fields, the one I found which I believe to be credible enough is here. It does it by exciting the molecules within the bacteria to kill it, not sure if it works for virus. Now I just happened to be the one that walked by and thought hey I could combine this idea with theoretical sciences to generate goodness. Of course that would theoretically keeps me and my family in good health, assuming nothing weird happens. Keep in mind this is not the only method in destroying bacteria, it will be open for other options

[DrP]

10 minutes ago, fredreload said:

 It does it by exciting the molecules within the bacteria to kill it, not sure if it works for virus.

iirc  it will excite any of the molecules it comes into contact with that vibrate with a wavelength of 21cm. Basically any bond that vibrates in that bandgap will heat up - it is otherwise non selective. Water molecules will adsorb in the microwave frequency which is why we use them for cooking. There is a lot of water in the human body, so MASERs in the vicinity of human flesh doesn't sound like a good idea as muted above.

[fredreload]

46 minutes ago, DrP said:

iirc  it will excite any of the molecules it comes into contact with that vibrate with a wavelength of 21cm. Basically any bond that vibrates in that bandgap will heat up - it is otherwise non selective. Water molecules will adsorb in the microwave frequency which is why we use them for cooking. There is a lot of water in the human body, so MASERs in the vicinity of human flesh doesn't sound like a good idea as muted above.

" But while it drives bacteria to cell suicide, it's harmless to humans and therefore can be incorporated into existing lighting systems in clinical environments to provide continuous sterilization of surfaces and air. "

Directly from the article, while not tested on human body, it is harmless to the human body. So right it is not tested on the human body. And this is not maser, alright so let's factor maser out. Laser, on the other hand, is stimulated emission. So that leaves infrared laser, anything of higher intensity might damage DNA. So this narrow down the spectrum that is harmless to human. It is an ultraviolet light. So laser is better. Thanks for clarifying the point, sir

[DrP]

3 minutes ago, fredreload said:

 Laser, on the other hand, is stimulated emission. So that leaves infrared laser, anything of higher intensity might damage DNA. So this narrow down the spectrum that is harmless to human.

So is a MASER stimulated emission, same as LASER but for Microwaves instead of light waves - it's in the name/acronym.  Light (or Microwave) Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (LASER/MASER).

As for being harmless to humans I would think it would depend on the intensity/power of the LASER. They don't put warnings on lasers for fun.  

[swansont]

3 hours ago, fredreload said:

" But while it drives bacteria to cell suicide, it's harmless to humans and therefore can be incorporated into existing lighting systems in clinical environments to provide continuous sterilization of surfaces and air. "

Directly from the article, while not tested on human body, it is harmless to the human body. So right it is not tested on the human body. And this is not maser, alright so let's factor maser out. Laser, on the other hand, is stimulated emission. So that leaves infrared laser, anything of higher intensity might damage DNA. So this narrow down the spectrum that is harmless to human. It is an ultraviolet light. So laser is better. Thanks for clarifying the point, sir

Damage to DNA is more an issue of whether it's ionizing radiation or not. An issue of frequency (or wavelength) rather than intensity.

[John Cuthber]

Fundamentally, human cells are very much like bacterial cells.

Things that kill one will generally kill the other.

Lasers and microwaves are not going to discriminate well between the two cell types.

[swansont]

5 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Fundamentally, human cells are very much like bacterial cells.

Things that kill one will generally kill the other.

Lasers and microwaves are not going to discriminate well between the two cell types.

It's possible that the light, used as described, won't be much of an issue for humans because it would primarily only affect the top layer of skin

 

The light has varying levels of effectiveness against bacteria

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2012/137805/

[John Cuthber]

It's also possible that it won't.

Bacteria, like humans,  have defences against UV.

https://www.biotecharticles.com/Applications-Article/Colorful-Bacteria-612.html
Someone has exploited this in an interesting way.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/n-12302488

 

[fredreload]

"Light-based sterilization is nothing new – ultraviolet light can do a number on pathogens, though it also does damage to humans – but the new method uses a narrow spectrum of visible, harmless light wavelengths known as HINS (High Intensity, Narrow Spectrum) light to do the trick. HINS light excites molecules within bacteria such that they produce a chemically lethal response, in essence pushing bacteria to kill themselves. "

Alright, this is directly quoted from the article. It targets certain molecules within the bacteria. My guess? An enzyme. That's how Penicillin destroys bacteria, by destroying the bacterial wall enzyme builder. But for an intensity this high, I doubt it'll pass through the skin. We'd be shifting the light intensity back and forth all day microwave->ultraviolet.

 

New theory, like how neuron works, modify the bacterial cell membrane's polarity with microwave or lower wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, thereby destroying it. As for viruses, I have no idea, I'll have to study its casket structure. I'll check the rest of the posts tomorrow, but thanks for posting here

[CharonY]

Most of the bacterial inactivation outside UV are based on exciting porphyrins which then can react with oxygen to form reactive oxygen species, which ultimately kills the cells. It is also cytotoxic for eukaryotic cells (including human) but the light does not have a lot of penetration (and we are covered by dead cells).

[fredreload]

How about this? Using light to run on and off gene expression. I speculate, haven't read into it. But it's from NCBI =/. They are notorious for having high detailed on topic information

[fredreload]

Executed by AI, I don't expect to hand pick bacteria and DNA strands

[fredreload]

Then add in machine learning, so the thing scans and learn

[CharonY]

These words, together in that order. No sense they make.

[Endy0816]

On 11/25/2017 at 6:49 AM, fredreload said:

How about this? Using light to run on and off gene expression. I speculate, haven't read into it. But it's from NCBI =/. They are notorious for having high detailed on topic information

Assuming you meant "turn" instead of "run", I believe that this method requires a mutant or modified species.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics

...and yeah, took a bit of rereading to figure out what you meant.

 

[fredreload]

6 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

Assuming you meant "turn" instead of "run", I believe that this method requires a mutant or modified species.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics

...and yeah, took a bit of rereading to figure out what you meant.

 

Thanks for the clarification. If you could combine Artificial Intelligence with Optogenetics and machine learning. The idea about this laser is that it would scan and learn as it goes, not just focus on one person. It could treat a wide range of patients on a vast population. I dunno where they could get research funding though =/

Edited November 29, 2017 by fredreload