Well said Herbert, > The lungs have tiny fingers called "cilia" which effectively sweep out > debris. A snippet of frog's throat will climb up a glass jar (or so I've > heard). Without these little sweepers, one's lungs would become as dusty > as the floor under a refrigerator or a table top in the attic.
Yup, you got it (and I know you are a physicist, like my late father). One's lungs do sweep the garbage out, I feel it every morning as the smoking residue comes up. > > Asbestos dust is special in that it embeds itself into tissue (by being > sharp and barbed) and lasts forever, sometimes causing cancer for unknown > reasons. Correct again, except that most asbestos isn't sharp and barbed. There are two forms (call them isotopes in your milieu, although they are molecular rather than elemental). The sharp molecules are relatively rare in the general population, but their depradations on the lungs are now called on all asbestos. Bad science can be quite expensive to the general population. Best, Jon
