this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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TIL asbestos is a naturally-occurring substance (I always thought it was synthetic!)
Yeah, it's a crystal structure and it's really a shame that it causes so many health issues because it's kind of an amazing material otherwise. It's lightweight and strong enough to make bricks with but you can also make flexible fabric out of it, and it can hold up to really impressive amounts of heat. As the poster above said, it is still in use in some industrial applications because in some situations there is no effective alternative.
Of course the problem is that if you damage an asbestos brick or bend an asbestos fabric you get lots of tiny little asbestos fibers that come loose. My understanding is that the fibers are so small that they pierce cell walls and damage DNA strands, hence the cancer.
They're not small enough to directly damage DNA, they get trapped in your tissues and are impossible for your body to remove, and they cause inflammation and scarring. The long term inflammation and scarring is what increases cancer susceptibility
Here we go, found it in the Health Impacts article:
And here in MECHANISMS OF ASBESTOS-INDUCED CARCINOGENESIS
So not quite down to the DNA level, but basically chromosomes can get wrapped around asbestos fibers during cell division.
TIL, thank you!
Oh so like microplastics. Great :/
And asbestos is just one form of silica. Silica dust from many sources can cause serious lung problems, e.g. breathing in the dust from cutting granite countertops (which contain silica as quartz) or volcanic dust.
Heck just concrete dust will accumulate and cause chronic health issues. Something I hate knowing when I drive by a construction site and see a bunch of guys cutting foundations with saws, huge plumes of concrete dust, they're just breathing it unfiltered. But no one is playing up the health risks to these folks, and they aren't thinking about how bad it will be at 60 to be on oxygen or dead.
Wood dust also does this. In fact, any little soluble, hard particles of a certain shape and size can get stuck in your lungs and do damage there. They act in a biophysical and not in a biochemical way. Which is why, in several countries, you're required to wear PPE when handling such, or any, powders or dusts.
Yeah this sucked getting back into woodworking, they basically tell you now, if you can smell the sawdust and wood (my favorite part), you're in danger so get a mask on.
Makes one susceptible to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Forbidden floof
And it's been used pretty much forever... in pottery, in garments... Charlemagne had an asbestos shirt he'd throw in the fire to clean stains off in order to amaze his visitors.