WEBVTT - Anti-Pathogen Architecture 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.120 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:13.600 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.680 podcast that looks at the future and says, go ask 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.240 Alice when she's ten ft tall. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.600 Lauren Volcan, and I'm Joe McCormick. I was rather surprised 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.759 by that one, Johnathan, Well, you know who that's by, right, Jefferson. 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.760 It's Airplane. It's from the n album fun Fact, y'all. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:38.040 I have seen Starship in concert, yeah, at the Riverbend 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.920 festival in Chattanooga, which likes to bring lots of fans 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.720 that used to be rather big, that used to be good. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.400 I don't know if it's a Starship used to be good. 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.400 I don't know. I guess Starship used to be Jefferson Airplane, 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.040 which was used to be good. Yeah. So this episode 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.800 is not about Jefferson Airplane, but we will be talking 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.400 about airplanes quite a bit. Sure. We wanted to talk 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.760 about a sort of different way of addressing the how 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.360 can we live a healthier future question today? So on 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.720 this podcast we talked about all kinds of vaccines, medical treatments, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.440 weird new surgeries, bug venoms you can take to cure 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.080 your diseases. But one thing we haven't talked about much 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:27.360 is environmental engineering for better health, trying to make a 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.520 space that a lot of people are sharing for any 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.000 given amount of time as pathogen free as possible, right, 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.640 because we cannot all be hermits as often as we 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.119 want to. I mean, we feel the stress of this sometimes. 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.520 Working in an open office as we do, there perhaps 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.320 not as many walls, dividers, barriers and so forth as 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.040 we might like. We have a we have a very 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:57.559 uh proactive manager who is is keen to send people 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.000 home should they exhibit any sign ins or symptoms of illness. Uh. 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:06.280 Sadly she is not in our Atlanta office anymore. So 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.920 I worry about what flu season is going to be 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.520 like next year. Oh man, there was a while back 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.960 I was I had a cough and I felt so 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:15.840 bad being in the office, but I had stuff I 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.880 had to do. Uh, everybody's looking at me, and I 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.320 was like, yeah, I know, I'm sorry. And on top 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.040 of that, we're going to talk about environments like airplanes 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.280 or even trains, things things where you've got a lot 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.240 of people in an enclosed space, and what can you 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.280 do or what can be done to make those uh, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.280 you know, cleaner safer for people less likely to spread 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.400 a disease. Should someone who is infected with something get 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.720 on that that or get in that enclosure? Sure, because 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.000 it's not just common sense that these you know, tubes 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:57.079 of mass transit are going to probably have some some 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.799 bugs flying around him. Yeah, um, they're is plenty of 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.119 actual evidence of this, oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, back 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.080 in two thousand two, Now the numbers vary. I've seen 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.799 as low as sixteen and as high as twenty two, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.880 but around twenty or so people aboard an international flight 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:18.040 were infected by a single passenger who had STARS. And 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.920 that's that's a serious issue there. In fact, it's in 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.760 the name. It's a very dangerous condition to a disease 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.320 to contract. And I think ultimately sixteen people also came 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.480 down with stars, but there were as high as twenty 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.080 two were infected in some way, and a lot of 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.119 people pointed to that to say, here's a way how 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.760 where air travel can end up being a vector for 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.200 a disease to spread very rapidly, because then you you 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.560 expand that not just to the people who are on 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.400 board the flight, but then the folks they come into 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.440 contact with after the flight is over, and this also 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.800 becomes a starting point for every zombie outbreak movie you 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.040 have ever seen or the novel you've ever read. Sure, Yeah, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.640 a long overseas flight. It's almost like a sort of 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.600 like culture dish. Yeah, human one, and you hear about 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.160 things like recycled air. We'll talk about that in a 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.760 little bit. Uh. You know, it sounds like you're seated 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.360 next to people for most of the flight, you aren't 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.560 really able to move around, You can't really separate yourself 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.839 from everybody else. So it's it's a prime candidate for 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.760 UH disease to spread from person to person. So we'll 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.440 talk a little bit about that. But in order to 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.080 understand all of this, we really need to kind of 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.160 lay a foundation. So we usually do that on this show. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.720 We like to start from the ground and work our 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.400 way up. So I thought it'd be important for us 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.320 to actually talk about what pathogens are sure, So this 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.080 is going to mean that we're limiting the discussion today 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.360 to communicable diseases, not diseases like not how to engineer 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.000 environments to prevent you from getting back pain or something 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:04.839 right to to stop the spread of bacteria and viruses germs. Right, So, pathogens, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.680 most of the pathogens will be talking about in this 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.240 episode fall into one of two categories that they are 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.520 biological agents that cause disease or illness to a host. 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.599 Usually we talk about multicellular organisms being the host, although 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.080 there are unicellular pathogens as well, or pathogens that can 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.719 affect unicellar cellular organisms that is, but we're not unicellular, 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.000 so we're not really concerned about that in this episode. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.880 You don't care if the bacteria on your skin gets sick. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.159 You might you might need to depending upon what the 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.880 bacteria are supposed to do, but at any rate, um 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.200 the two types we're really going to be talking about 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.719 our bacteria and viruses, and so we need to explain 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.480 the difference between those. And the differences are many between 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.840 the two. Although we often if you know, if you're 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.640 not if you're not keen on your science, like you 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.360 haven't really studied biology very much, you know, it's it's 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.440 easy to mix up the two, you know, or get 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:08.200 confused over which which ones are treated by antibiotics versus vaccinations, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.560 that kind of thing, right, especially because in a lot 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.400 of the common types of diseases that they cause. The 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.800 symptoms tend to be really similar, right, Yeah, The symptoms 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.080 for diseases that are caused by bacterial infection or a 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.200 viral infection can be very similar, and so they can 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.680 be a little confusing. Which are the ones that cause 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.040 the zombie outbreaks? It's typically a virus, but you know 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.960 it's well, and these are modern times, I mean there's 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.960 a lot more fear of viruses. I think therefore also 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:40.040 random radiation that can also and I guess you could 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.240 say that viruses are sort of zombies themselves, both living 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.840 and not. Yeah. Yeah, So let's start with bacteria. Bacteria 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.600 single cell micro organisms. They're prokaryotes, meaning that they lack 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.280 a membrane, any membrane bound organelles, including the nucleus. They 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.760 don't have a nucleus. They are small, just a little 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.480 sup of stuff inside, Yeah, a little soup pill, duff 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.360 soup pill, soup pill there. They are usually only a 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.279 few micrometers in length. They tend to affect the body 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.800 in a localized infection as opposed to a systemic infection. 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.680 So like if you get a wound that gets infected, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.520 that's typically going to be a bacterial infection rather than 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.440 a viral right, and and now that can end up 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.840 developing into a blood infection, which can spread through the 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.200 rest of your body, and that's very dangerous obviously, infect infections. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.280 One of those big dangers of of wounds is that 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.080 if if you don't bleed out, the next big danger 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.480 is infection. Um. They're typically treated with anybody, so anybodys 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.200 kill bacteria. They can sometimes kill both good and bad bacteria. 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.480 We've talked about how our bodies are veritable bacteria cities 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.240 Metropolis is oh yeah, yeah, they out number our own 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.800 human cells tend to one within our bodies. So uh. 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.640 And not all the bacteria that's in our bodies is 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.920 actually harmful. Oh yeah, Lots of it is either harm 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.800 less or or helpful. Yeah, and uh. In fact, there 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.200 was a really interesting study about hospitals that looked at 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.720 different types of bacteria, some of which were incredibly helpful. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.080 I'll mention that a little bit later in the episode 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:18.720 as well. Bacteria can survive and thrive even on non 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.200 living surfaces. In other words, you could end up having 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.920 a batch of bacteria sitting on all sorts of stuff, 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.520 and you could end up, you know, coming into contact 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.480 with that and getting bacteria on you as a result. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.120 It's one of the things that makes bacteria pretty tricky 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:38.840 stuff because it's not like it's it's not like it'll 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.319 immediately die outside of the body. It doesn't. It's it 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.200 can survive, can hang out in especially moisture, anything that 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:50.280 has water on it or in it baia. A lot 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.360 of them can even multiply in that in that case, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.520 not just inside a body. When they infect another organism. 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:02.240 They survived between cells. In other words, they aren't inhabiting cells. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.880 They're surviving with you, between all the different cells, so 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.800 they are inter cellular. Then we have viruses, which are 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:14.000 small protein structures that contain either DNA or RNA. Whether 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.120 they are a form of life or not is a 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:20.720 matter of debate because they exhibit some aspects that we 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.839 associate with living things and they lack other things. So 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.880 they do replicate, but they replicate by infecting a host cell. 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.160 Typically it's a specific type of host cell for that 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.640 particular virus. They tend to have these old protein markers 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.200 that have them seek out specific types of cells and 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.680 latch on and then inject a bunch of their DNA 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.960 or RNA, whichever the case may be, into that host cell, 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.880 and they turn the host cell into virus making machine 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.840 until the host cell is essentially consumed from within and 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.000 bursts and with all the new little viral bits. Yeah, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.240 and they all go launching off looking for other cells 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:03.280 and so on and so fourth. Uh So that's horrifying. Yeah, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.880 pretty nasty stuff. Uh. They require a living host to multiply. 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.360 They don't multiply outside of a host because they need 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.400 that cell to infect. They cannot replicate on their own. Uh. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.120 They are intracellular because they infiltrate cells. Now, they are 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.000 much smaller than bacteria. Said, bacteria tend to be a 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:25.040 few micrometers in size. Viruses tend to be between twenty 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:29.880 and four hundred nanometers in size. One thousand nanometers is 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.520 one micrometer, So they are much smaller than bacteria are. 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.120 And a viral infection is systemic rather than localized. It 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.920 can be treated with anti viral medications, but this typically 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.320 slows down the viruses replication. It doesn't necessarily stop it. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.840 It gives your bodies immune system enough time to deal 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.760 with the virus itself. Uh. You can also get vaccinated 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.520 vaccinations typically involve in get an injection of a dead 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:04.000 virus of whatever type you are immuni immunizing yourself against, 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.560 and then you have an immunity to that particular strain 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.520 of the virus, not necessarily all strains of that virus, right, right, 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.760 but it lets your body recognize that certain type of 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.480 virus and fight it off in the future, right, just 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.280 say no way, mr and and turn it away. So, uh, yeah, 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.559 that those are the major differences between the bacteria and 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.040 the viruses. Uh. You know, you mentioned Joe that that 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.480 wounds are really you know, if you have an infection 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.520 with a wound, it tends to be a bacterial infection, 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.520 which is absolutely true. Virus can enter through a wound. 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.360 Oh sure. Your your skin is really your body's very 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.920 best defense against viruses and bacteria and other pathogens as well. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.920 Your your skin is designed to be this terrific uh wall, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.600 like like a giant fortress wall against that kind of stuff. 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.679 But but these things can get in either through cuts 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.840 in your skin or through your mucous membranes around your eyes, 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.840 your nose, your mouth, et cetera. And then of course 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:03.880 there are plenty of other types of parasites they can 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.840 get at you, such as malaria. Neither a virus nor bacteria. Sure, 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.439 there's also UH fungi. There toxins that are also pathogens. 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.720 So there are other types, but the two were mainly 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.160 concerned with our viruses and bacteria. Those are the two 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.839 that tend to be passed from a person who is 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.839 infected to a person who is not UH, and so 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.000 we wanted to specifically focus on that. And also in 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.200 order to talk about how to make places, especially things 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.920 like airplanes and trains that sort of stuff safe, we 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.960 have to look at how are these these various pathogens 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.080 passed from infected to healthy. Sure, so ever since the 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.640 early sixteenth century, we've known that diseases are mostly spread 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.400 by evil night vapors. When you check your humors to 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.320 see if they are in balance, and you know there's 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.120 an imbalance of humors, you know you had a case 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.400 in the vapors. You know, we do still have kind 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.960 of a well. Another popular theory, of course, used to 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.040 be the miasma theory. You know that it was like 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.599 there's something in the air and well, you know, you 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.120 would have a foul smell. You would associate the foul 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.280 smell with some sort of disease and then therefore the 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.960 smell was what was causing the disease, right, And we 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.240 know that's not true scientifically now, but it does still 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.320 sort of have a very strong intuitive appeal, like the 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.000 idea that there's just sort of like some bad air 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.760 around somewhere and it's like, I don't want to be 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.839 near that. Yeah. Yeah, Well it's it's not entirely inaccurate technically, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.000 because some bacteria and viruses can spread through the air. 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.480 That's true. Sure, you can have airborne contact to contractive 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.199 virus or bacteria like a thing that can be expelled 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:51.400 in droplets when somebody coughs or sneezes, right, Yeah, sneezing 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.520 in particular is pretty nasty because it's like a bazooka 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.800 blast of pathogens from someone who is who is actually 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.280 infected with some form of illness, whether it's the flu 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.320 or the common cold or something similar. Uh, and they 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.240 expelled droplets containing the pathogen, which if you come into 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.160 contact with them, if you breathe them in, or you 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.959 otherwise are touching surfaces, if it's a bacteria, and you're 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.199 touching surfaces that have been affected by this and then 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.480 touching your eyes or anything like or you eat or 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.560 anything like that, you could be introducing that same pathogen 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.040 into your body. Uh. There's also some that can be 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:32.080 passed through direct contact. That's like your scary door knob yep, yeah, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.480 that would be more like that. Or or even say 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.320 you you get on the plane. Everyone on your plane, everybody, 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.400 every single other person that is getting on the plane 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.960 perfectly healthy, not a problem. Person who got on the 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.680 flight before you, very sick, sat in the same seat. 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.920 You are in direct contact with that seat that they 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.000 have had contact with they were in a very long flight. 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.600 You could potentially pick something up that way. Planes generally 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:03.000 are disinfected in between in between flights. Yeah, sure, well, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.040 that's why. That's one of the reasons why when a 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.440 plane has been deplaned everyone has left, there's still a 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:15.120 at least a half hour, usually half hour more between 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.440 then and when the people are allowed to board the plane, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.440 because the plane actually does have to be serviced, and 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.960 by that it means lots of stuff, including disinfecting surfaces. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.800 Those loose potato chips that you find in your airplane 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.760 seats are a gift to you from the airplane nomes 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.600 and you should definitely eat them. Okay, what about the 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:37.080 types of diseases you get from kissing people like mono? Okay, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.000 that's oral transmission. You can have oral transmission or just 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.600 spitting in each other's mouth, that would again be oral transmission, 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.680 also known as the smoochy smoochy sickness. Um. That that's 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.160 one method. Uh. There are a lot of other ways 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.320 of getting very sick through oral transmission, including very unpleasant 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:02.280 ones the oral fecal transmissions not pleasant to think about. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.280 It does happen not as frequently in developed nations as 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.840 in other places where sanitation is not as as uh 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.240 strong water supply issues. Yes, that was a common way 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.200 that polio was spread, right, Yeah, it was through people 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.400 like swimming in water where there was a fetal to 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:22.080 oral transmission route. So it's it's definitely one of those 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.120 things that can happen. It's less likely to happen, but 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.000 it can mean depending again on the hygiene of the 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.760 people who are also around you. So there are a 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.880 lot of these means of transmitting diseases, but these are 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.360 the main ones we would focus on for public spaces. Obviously, 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.600 there are other methods. I mean there's sexually transmitted diseases, 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.520 but we're talking about airplanes and trains, so for the 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.880 large portion of the people actually using these, that's not 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.240 going to be a factor. Put your genitals on the 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:59.120 public transportation, please don't. I've seen it happen. So, speaking 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.240 of all these different of transmission, the ones that were 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.720 specifically looking at oral and airborne in direct contact, that 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.000 tells you, all right, well, here are the main ways 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.280 that a disease can be transmitted. Airborne's probably the the 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.880 the actually the one that's most frequent in at least 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.520 in the case of a lot of people in an 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.199 enclosed space. So with that in mind, how can we 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.800 perhaps design environments to better protect against that sort of thing? Yeah, 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.560 because it seems like if we know what the vectors 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.520 are like, if you know the routes that these diseases 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.000 are trying to exploit in order to infect new people, 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:37.760 you should be able to put up barriers to those vectors, right, Yeah, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.240 I mean you you at least can take it into 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.560 account and say what sort of design elements can we 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.639 put in place that are best going to protect people 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.440 while not negatively impacting their experience. While you know you 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.440 don't want to have a little isolation tubes descend and 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.920 and surround each person. Oh actually, I totally want that. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.520 There's no space on an airplane already that you wanted 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.359 to be further confined with an isolation too, Yeah, that's fine, 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.160 just pump the air. You don't need as much leg 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:13.639 room as well. In general, what we're talking about is 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.199 sort of mechanical methods of protection from disease. An analogy 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.879 would be if you're talking about malaria. One way that 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.600 people have found is very effective in treating malaria rather 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.920 than you know, medications and things, is just mosquito nuts. 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.560 The prevention just having a barrier in place that prevents 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.080 the infection vector from getting to you. Yeah. So one 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.119 thing we can do, and and people actually will do, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.840 is look at hospitals and say, what are the most 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:48.600 effective means of preventing transmission of disease in a hospital environment? 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.920 Because as you would imagine hospitals, clearly there are two 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:54.879 big things come along with it. One, you've got a 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:56.480 lot of sick people there, so there's a lot of 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.920 opportunity for disease to pass from one person to the next. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.120 Is where the sick people go. Yeah, and the other 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.240 one is that you've got people who are in very 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.159 delicate states. They may have compromised immune systems, so you 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.480 have to be very good about preventing that from happening. Yeah, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.000 you also have a high traffic population of lots of 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.000 people coming and going, lots of nursing staff changing over 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:23.199 exciting plane basically right. And you've got you've got various 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.720 staff visiting multiple patients. So that means there's another potential 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.760 means of transferring a disease from one person to another, 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.560 whether it's from one patient to another, or a patient 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.359 to a member of staff, or whatever it might be. 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.360 So there are a lot of things that we can 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:41.959 learn by looking at effective methods and policies and hospitals. 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.840 And uh I actually saw a really cool video and 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.240 read up on a project that I thought was pretty interesting. 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.159 It's called the Hospital Microbiome Project. And they look at 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.040 hospitals as ecosystems. They almost think of it as a living, 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.639 breathing entity because it has its own They think of 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.760 the So, who are the apex predators at the hospital? 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.800 That would that would probably be insurance companies, But at 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.840 any your rate, uh, at any rate, the uh SO 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.320 the hospitals there, their respiratory system would be the like 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.520 the HVAC system, right, the air filtration system that would 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.440 be part of it. And they talk about how it's 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.880 a very complex system. You've got different air pressures built 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.359 up in different rooms. Right. Not all the rooms have 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.840 doors that are open, so there's actually differences in air pressure, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.760 which means that directs the flow of air whether it's 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:33.880 coming into the room or out of the room. Uh, 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.520 the filtration system has to have a really good air 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.680 filter in order to catch as many pathogens as possible 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.280 to prevent them from spreading throughout the facility. Um, you know, 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.680 it's it's a complex system. They started looking at all 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.080 sorts of different factors to try and determine which ones 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:56.479 are most important, which ones correlate with the spreading of pathogens. So, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.720 for example, they started looking at things like patients the 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.920 temperature of the patient's room. Now, patients generally have control 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.760 over that for their comfort, right, they can set the 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.600 thermostat to higher or lower, And so they wanted to 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.480 make sure that the room temperature was not going to 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.000 be correlated with the spread of pathogens because of it 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.040 is then maybe you have to take the control away 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.280 from the patients. They found that there was no real 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.560 correlation between room temperature and the spread of pathogens. But 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.920 they did find that and this is no surprise because 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.760 what Lauren had said earlier, humidity is a factor. Ah. Yes, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.320 if you've got more water droplets in the air, then 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.760 you have a better chance of stuff like bacteria transmitting 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:44.080 through them. Yeah, so humidity control could actually be an 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.600 effective means of limiting pathogens spreading in a hospital. So 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.439 it's one of those things that the project recommends is 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.600 installing equipment that would allow for the control of humidity 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.359 to limit that kind of of spread. So that was 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.040 really interest sting, uh, and they looked at lots of 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.800 other things too. They included r f I D tags 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.720 with staff so that they could track who goes where, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:12.160 They had different bio sensors to really look at all 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.440 sorts of of criteria to kind of judge what is important, 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.439 and they even went so far as to uh measure 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.920 the bacteria in the hospital before it opened. They used 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.159 a hospital in Chicago that had not yet opened, so 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.280 they were evaluating the hospital before any patients were in it, 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.400 and they took a sample of the various bacterial cultures 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:38.520 that were inside the hospital before it even opened. Then 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.640 they started measuring the new bacteria that came in once 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.760 patients were admitted to the hospital, and they have a 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.200 real time kind of graph that shows the different populations 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:53.280 and how closely related they are. And they realized that 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.520 the bacterial uh populations that were already in the hospital, 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.200 one we're not harmful, they weren't pathogens, and two we're 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:06.720 limiting the spread of pathogen bacteria. So they were almost 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:10.440 acting like bodyguards in a way. And so they said, 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.040 this is really interesting stuff in may tell us more 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:17.800 about the kinds of bacteria we might want to intentionally 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.600 cultivate cultivate in hospitals to help prevent the spread of pathogens, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:27.080 because again, bacteria is not a blanket term for bad stuff. 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:30.879 And I found it really interesting. So I'm hoping to 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.040 be able to look into more about this particular project 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.840 because it seemed like such a cool way of addressing 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:40.720 the thing, the the issue, and also could potentially apply 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.560