A study has shown, for the first time, that an invisible mist of air-cleaning molecules is produced in human bodies when ozone in the air reacts with the oil produced by our skin. Short-lived molecules called OH radicals make up the aura and are known to neutralize toxic molecules when they are produced by sunlight outside, earning the nickname “atmosphere detergents.” But the discovery of the aura, technically known as the oxidation field, around humans shows for the first time that OH radicals are also produced by human bodies. However, experts do not know whether the field is a force for good or evil because the effect of the aura remains unknown.
The compound could ‘become toxic’
“[The field] it may be cleaning the air before I breathe, but we don’t know,” Professor Jonathan Williams, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and lead author of the study, told the Telegraph. He said: “The other possibility, which is more worrying, is perhaps a compound thought to be harmless could become more toxic than its precursor when oxidized in the OH field. Now we’ve discovered this, more research needs to be done.” Professor Williams and his team put four people in a sterile room with oxygen masks and measured the level of OH radicals in the air. They then added ozone to the room and saw a dramatic rise in the level of the chemicals and made images of the data showing the oxidation fields. The chemical silhouette, Professor Williams said, looks a bit like the glow of green radiation around a barrel of nuclear waste in a cartoon. Closer analysis revealed that squalene, a chemical that keeps skin elastic, reacts with ozone and produces the OH oxidation field through a series of complex chemical reactions. “When I breathe, a chemistry happens, which changes the emissions from the couch I’m sitting on into other compounds,” Professor Williams said. “We just don’t know if these compounds are more or less harmful than sofa emissions. “There is a direct impact on health [to this research]. We need to study them and not just measure what a sofa emits. We need to measure what a sofa and a person make together, as the interaction of emissions with our field is more important.”
Another formation mechanism
Air-cleaning chemicals OH were previously thought to form only outside in sunlight, but the new finding points to another mechanism for their formation. “Roots are extremely ephemeral and are created in the air in sunlight,” said Professor Williams. “Then they react like kamikaze pilots and immediately attack any complex around them. They are like snarling lions, hideous beasts that only want to grab a hydrogen atom from anything else to turn into water and become solid. “We should erect statues to this radical,” he said. “In every city there should be a monument to the radical OH because he keeps us from being poisoned every day.” The findings are detailed in the journal Science, and the team is now looking to see if similar auras exist around other animals, especially dogs.
