iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah, it’s showing a lot of promise. Like all new technologies, there’s always the push and pull of promises and deliverables. We’re working hard to be able to nail down how well far-UVC inactivates pathogens in “real-world” environments. Unfortunately, science takes a long time.

~99% will naturally decay in about an hour. If you crack the window while it’s sitting there, you should be able to get rid of it all quicker than that. Driving with the window down would clean it out even quicker.

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I'll be posting about the presentations and posters that I find interesting, so keep an eye on this space!

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Getting ready to see the latest in aerosol science (with @hairyaerosol.bsky.social)! Gonna be a good week in Xi’An, China. #IAC2026

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Great to be aboard! We'll be publishing our first research in this area later this year, looking forward to discussing the results!

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When the lamp can be sealed (ie not exposed directly to people), a higher energy lamp at 254nm is typically used. These are different approaches tackling the same issue from different (albeit similar) angles.

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UVC is more efficient than UVB at inactivating airborne pathogens (outdoors has no UVC). Our team has started researching this kind of question and will be looking to publish our first work on the subject soon. Once that is out, I'll dive more into all of this.

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Reposted by Al Haddrell

How Far-UVC "Safely" Inactivates Airborne Pathogens

Far-UVC. What is it? How does it inactivate airborne pathogens? Will it give you sunburns? If not, why not? And if they work, why aren't they everywhere? In my latest explainer video I dive into all these questions and try to make some sense of it all. youtu.be/ujHMIdI2gLs

youtu.be

YouTube video by Al Haddrell

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If you're curious as to why I've put "safely" in quotes in the title, it's because it is safe as far as we know. What still is unclear are the long term exposure effects. Everything still points to safe on that front, but some people are still wanting more confirmation.

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If you have any questions, please let me know. And if you find the video interesting, please subscribe to the channel! It realy helps to keep the motivation up. I recently just passed 1k, which is pretty nuts considering it's a channel that only discusses aerosol science....

How Far-UVC "Safely" Inactivates Airborne Pathogens

youtu.be

YouTube video by Al Haddrell

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Glad you find them useful! The next one will be out soon!

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Yeah, this is a stupid quote and demonstates a lack of understanding of the underlying processes. You're correct in that the pathogens are carried on much larger aerosol.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Yep! They like to pretend that the problem was with the execution, and not that it was a terrible idea.

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Reposted by Al Haddrell

Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

It’s been 10 years to the day since the Brexit vote. The sun is shining, where are all the Brexit parties and parades? I was told this was the UK’s “Independence Day”, what happened? Oh right, it was a total (and predictable) disaster.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Yep. Also, people get tied to old ideas that were never based on any measurement, but rather suggested in passing in a manuscript once and then repeated ad nauseam.

I think that's why people find the acid aerosol theory compelling. The aerosol cuases the virus to do something it would do in the cell, in the aerosol, which inactivates it. The problem is that over the course of 10s of minutes, the aerosol pH doesn't get that low in typical air.

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It's a technique, so there are numerous articles that report data collected with it. Here's one, but there are many: publications.ersnet.org/content/erj/...

publications.ersnet.org

These kind of fundamental oversights in this area are everywhere. It's a byproduct of the interdisciplinary nature of the field itself. Nobody knows everything, and you need a swath of expertise to fully consider all of the factos that are at play in any experiment.

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In the article cited in this paper that measured the aerostability of a pH sensitive virus, they nebulized the sample in PBS. PBS has no bicarbonate in it at all, meaning the buffering capacity of the aerosol is limited.

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This is from their first paper on the subject. If you ask the authors about it, half will say that they aren't advocating for spraying acid in the air and the other half will say they are.

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What the virus does once it deposits in the airways is beyond my remit. It's my understanding that much of how it operates on or within the cells is highly regulates by the pH within the cell (which can be acidic).

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This group is advocating people spray nitric acid to limit the spread of influenza. Beyond the oversights they are making in the science, this is the issue that I am particularly annoyed by.

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When people actually measure the pH of exhaled aerosol using a technique called exhaled breath condensate, they find that exhaled aerosol is always alkaline. Note that in the data below, the exhaled aerosol is dissolved in water, meaning that the pH of the aerosol is actually much higher.

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Environmental aerosol is almost (if not all) acidic or highly acidic. For this reason, the assumption was made that exhaled aerosol would be the same. This of course fails to consider the initial composition of the aerosol itself. The pH of respiratory fluids is governed by the initial buffer concs

People shouldn’t be spraying acid in the air in a vain attempt to lower viral infectivity based on a model system that is wildly different than real respiratory fluids. It’s dangerous and will cause more harm than good.

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There are loads of solutions used as proxies for respiratory aerosol. This is the only group I know of that uses HBSS. In doing so, their aerosol becomes acidic rather than becoming alkaline. In the timescales relevant for airborne transmission (10s of minutes), exhaled aerosol won’t be acidic.

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Reposted by Al Haddrell

While the virology in this article is interesting, there are fundamental issues in the underlying assuptions made by the authors. This research group believes that deep lung fluid is identical to Hanks Balanced Salt Solution. What this means is that the pH dynamics of the aerosol are incorrect.

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Even with this oversight, their pH estimates of the aerosol that they make with their model are still off. Either that, or need to you believe influenza, a virus that is notoriously sensitive to acidic pH, can survive in a fluid at a pH <3 for 10s of minutes.

To be clear, this is like mopping a dirty floor with soapy water, then analyzing the liquid in the mop and concluding that the floor was covered in soap. I've talked to this group about this glaring oversight and they don't care. It's frustrating as it leads to loads of confusion.

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They cite a PhD thesis for their HBSS theory. In that thesis, the student used HBSS to flush proteins out of the deep lung. They then analysed the fluid they collected and reported that as deep lung fluid. This worked for the thesis since they only cared about the protein content and nothing else.

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The pH of exhaled aerosol is largely dictated by the initial bicarbonate concentration of bodily fluids. HBSS has almost no bicarbonate. Indeed, it's an engineered solution designed to not be affected by CO2.

Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

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Needs to wait until the sun beam goes away.

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Reposted by Al Haddrell

Over the past decade, vaping has become a popular alternative to smoking, with many teenagers picking it up. The thought being that vaping is less harmful, if harmful at all. The question is, are they? What happens when you vape? In my latest explainer video I dive into this.

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If you have any questions, please let me know.

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How Air Pollution Causes Heart Attacks and Strokes

If you find this subject interesting, you may find my video on how particulate air pollution affects human health interesting as well. In many ways, the mechnism of harm caused by smoking is similar to that of cigarette smoking. youtu.be/idddJ-JsV_o

youtu.be

YouTube video by Al Haddrell

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

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Unfortunately not this year. I’ll add it to my calendar for 2027.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

These are the accounts that Elon promotes over on X. This is why the discourse on that app has gone down the tubes, he’s turned the place into the Mos Eisley Cantina.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

The overall aim of the this work is to develop cost effective mitigation strategies that can be employed in the unique environment of a farm setting to limit the damage to farming (and humans) by bird flu.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

This is a 3 year grant that will utilise next generation technologies developed at the two institutions (@umich.edu and @bristoluni.bsky.social) to study airborne viruses. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Airborne disease transmission doesn't just affect human populations. In collaboration with Herek Clack at the University of Michigan, my team has been funded $2M to study mechanisms of bird flu decay in the air, and to explore novel mitigation strategies. www.news-medical.net/news/2026032...

news-medical.net

Study explores airborne bird flu decay in livestock environments

Discovering how the bird flu virus degrades in the air around livestock and how engineering solutions can effect that degradation quickly and efficiently are core aims of a new University of Michigan ...

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

That’s our team’s work. Given the circumstances, we’re going to try to get our paper out sooner than later.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Depends on the microbe. SARS-CoV-2 and E. coli, no, influenza, yes.

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Al Haddrell @ukhadds.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Anyway, those are some my thoughts on our latest publication. If you have any questions, let me know.