• Question: If there was an Infection spread in gas form if you were to heat up everything would it turn to liquid form? If so what is more dangerous and why? (I think Gas form)

    Asked by danieljohnglisson to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      A true gas has no structure, so that’d be impossible, but a mist of droplets, that works! Lots of diseases spread as droplets which are breathed in.
      The most dangerous infection by this route? Probably 1918 influenza, a real fun way to die!

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Diseases which are carried in the air are often the most contagious – it is very easy for them to get to lots of people. However, like Peter said, the infection is not actually a gas, it is in little drops of liquid suspended in the air. Heating usually turns liquids into gas, not the other way around, so heating the air wouldn’t help – it might kill some of the bacteria though! It wouldn’t be very comfortable for us to live in and it would be quite hard to achieve… Cooling the air wouldn’t help much either – viruses seem to spread better in cold air!

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Peter and Katy have done a pretty good job answering this- the airborne (gas) form would be worse, because it could spread further, unless you were a fish that is…

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