[Beowulf] Re: Earthquakes and raised floors...

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Gerry Creager N5JXS wrote:

> By now, I suspect RGB has checked with his local physician to refute most of 
> these claims...  We certainly know he won't sit silently!

Not me.  My favorite physician (my wife) isn't going to know anything
about zinc-dust problems without hitting medline.  Hitting medline
myself, mice HAVE been fed diets of "industrial metal dust" including
zinc but also including lead, cadmium and so on and of course with a
nice toxic mix chromosome damage is observed after a while.  I haven't
found (or looked that hard for:-) articles that studied "only" zinc
dust because I think...

> Off hand, my advice if you're working under-floor is "wear a mask" (do as I 
> say...).  Oh, and don't take up cigarettes either.  That's much more likely 
> to get you than incidental network maintenance in the raised floor environs.

is just PEACHY advice:-).  Especially about those cadmium and arsenic
laden cigarettes.  If you're really worried, take some good
antioxidants, e.g. alpha lipoic acid, a multivitamin, n-acetyl cysteine,
milk thistle.  Eat lots of onions and garlic (thiol rich foods).
Glutathione and other thiols are your body's chelating defenses against
heavy metals (which bind to a dangling thiol group and can then be
pulled out of the body and be eliminated, with luck).

    rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu