Why is 90% less effective...ok couple things here. One no water no gradient to drive dehydration.
some bacteria and maybe virus. Don’t know when exposed to really serious attacks form seriotypes that don’t kill the organisium. It just hides till better conditions. An example is the Lform. When you use strong bleach the outer membrane is charred. The inside remains. When better conditions return it rebuilds the membrane and moves on. Can that occur in virus...maybe. If the rna survives sure. I think it’sthe dehydration denaturing in this case. This is a guess.....
This is really cool, I’m an IRL virologist so it’s fun having a thread I can contribute to! You’re correct about the water gradient driving dehydration, but in the case of viruses, no they don’t have the ability to “sporulate” - viruses rely on their hosts, outside of a host cell they’re a dormant particle. If you destroy or damage the viral envelope, they’ll be unable to enter a new host which would be necessary for them to “repair” the envelope (if that were even possible). Viruses sometimes seem kind of spore like because they’re extremely tough - a good way to think about it is that bacteria that form spores are trying to behave like viruses as much as they can; shutting off active function and being dormant.
As for the main post of this thread: awesome concept! But as other astute commenters have pointed out, there are a couple practicality issues. I’m on my phone so I can’t see them as I type, so there will definitely be redundancy:
a)Effectiveness <MOST IMPORTANT>: UV light is totally anti microbial and CAN inactivate viruses. But the way UV light works to damage microbes is by causing a reaction between adjacent thiamine bases (the T in the ATCG code of DNA) to form “thiamine dimers” that are a form of genetic damage. However, coronaviruses are RNA viruses, which do not have thiamine, instead, they have uracil. Uracil CAN still form dimers, but only in the case of double stranded RNA (dsRNA) and coronavirus has single stranded RNA (ssRNA) which would make UV light MUCH less effective.
b) Efficiency: viruses are really really REALLY small. Electron microscope small. (The “laser microscopes” from my name are for looking at infected cells, can’t see the virus directly!) and as such, you’re better off hitting a large area with sterilization. The unique qualities of lasers aren’t so suitable here, a bank of LEDs would work better. Imagine a laser is a scalpel, LED’s are lawnmowers and your job is to cut the grass
c)General: I love that people here think to use UV light as an anti-microbial. I use it at my lab all the time and I’m one of the biggest proponents of using it. The issue is that these things take time. As explained above, the UV light is initiating a chemical reaction, and more powerful light only speeds that up to a point. The key is TIME. Long exposures to the UV. That’s why at my lab I use UV lights to sanitize hoods before and after I use them to make sure there are no bacteria contaminating my workspace, and this works because I can turn on the UV lamp and leave it on while I get other things ready.
TL;DR: great idea, but UV light isn’t the best answer here for physics and biochemistry reasons. That said, send in the 60% alcohol drone army and I will accept my new robot overlords with open arms.
Awesome thread! Stay healthy everyone, soap, sanitizer and social distancing!
