Buckyballs found to protect livers in Mice & Rats

Interesting find here, according Fathi Moussa’s research group the toxocology tests done on C60 molecules did not have any toxic effects on the mice and rats involved in the study and it actually gave the subjects increased ability to resist the toxic effects of carbon tetrachloride.

www.softmachines.org...
The paper is not reticent in its criticism of the earlier work; it ascribes the apparent toxic effects previously observed to the fact that the C60 was prepared in an organic solvent, THF, which was not completely removed when a water-suspension of C60 was prepared. In short, it was the toxic effects of THF that were affecting the unfortunate fish, not those of C60.

I always felt the dangers of C60 molecules were blown waay out of proportion. Will this paper find its way into the MSM? I doubt it. It takes what like 20 pieces of good news to make it into the paper while all it takes to start the storm of critism is one article regardless of the scientific validity or followup field trials(eg Simulations are getting TOO much attention).

I should stress that I’m not advocating that Soft Machines readers should immediately consume a large quantity of C60 and then start abusing solvents, nor should we now assume that fullerenes are entirely safe and without potential environmental problems. But there are a couple of lessons we should draw from this. Firstly, toxicology is not necessarily easy to get right. But perhaps the most important lesson is that learning about science from press releases is very misleading. What appear to be the big breakthroughs at the time get lots of coverage, but the follow-up work, which can modify or even completely contradict the initial big story, barely gets noticed.

[edit on 2-1-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 2-1-2006 by sardion2000]

Great find sardion.

Of course, I do want to see the results replicated.