Nanotubes Found in Lungs of French Kids

Nanotubes Found in Lungs of French Kids
A pupil arrives in the courtyard of the Abbe de l'Epee elementary school on September 3, 2013 in Marseille, southern France, prior to enter her classroom on the first day of school. More than 12 million pupils went back to school today in France.ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images
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Cells taken from the airways of Parisian children with asthma contained man-made carbon nanotubes—just like the kind found in the exhaust pipes of vehicles in Paris.

The researchers report in the journal EBioMedicine that these samples align with what has been found elsewhere in U.S. cities, in spider webs in India, and in ice cores.

The research in no way ascribes the children’s conditions to the nanotubes, says Rice University chemist Lon Wilson, a corresponding author of a new paper describing the work. But the nanotubes’s apparent ubiquity should be the focus of further investigation, he adds.

“We know that carbon nanoparticles are found in nature,” Wilson says, noting that round fullerene molecules like those discovered at Rice are commonly produced by volcanoes, forest fires, and other combustion of carbon materials. “All you need is a little catalysis to make carbon nanotubes instead of fullerenes.”

Carbon nanotubes (the long rods) and nanoparticles (the black clumps) appear in vehicle exhaust taken from the tailpipes of cars in Paris. (Courtesy of Fathi Moussa/Paris-Saclay University)
Carbon nanotubes (the long rods) and nanoparticles (the black clumps) appear in vehicle exhaust taken from the tailpipes of cars in Paris. Courtesy of Fathi Moussa/Paris-Saclay University