Magnets, how do they work? A new safe, effective treatment for oil-soaked wildlife.

[TalkingDog]

http://theprojecttv.com.au/oil-be-gone.htm

But now Phillip Island Nature Parks – home of the famous little penguins in Victoria – has completed a breakthrough research project into cleaning oily wildlife, in conjunction with Victoria and Monash Universities.

The new procedure is fast, safe, and portable, meaning that the cleaning can be done in the field. And it’s all thanks to a magnetic wand.

Magnetic micro-particles are applied to oiled plumage, effectively magnetising the oil. The wand can then be used to basically vacuum the oil off, allowing for a highly effective form of dry cleaning.

An initial rapid five-minute treatment can remove around 60-80% of the oil from an animal, which could mean the difference between life and death. Subsequent treatments can remove the oil completely.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Hot damn.....somebody gets a HUGE hand for thinking of that.

Sad, of course, that it HAD to be invented...

[longship]

2. Here's how they work.

Thank you, Gauss, Faraday, Ampere, and Maxwell.


R&K

[JHB]

3. Breaking on FOX: Scientists hate America, use Greek letters and Arabic numerals...

...obviously trying to tank the economy and bring about a worldwide caliphate!

[longship]

4. Plus that evil vector calculus!!!

Next those evil scientists will have us learning tensors, group theory, complex analysis, perturbation theory, and... Dun-Dun-Dunnnn... Feynman integrals!!!

Oh! The humanity!!

[Javaman]

5. aren't them squiggly lines terrorist codes??!!! nt

[Enrique]

8. Obama's trying to turn us into Greece!

[lunatica]

24. This kind of talk makes me fall in love

I hope you don't mind a 65 year old saying such things. But I do love me some smarts.

[DetlefK]

6. Wouldn't the magnetic particles lump together before and during application?

1. So, they are obviously not magnetic themselves (-> not ferromagnetic).
2. That leaves paramagnetism as the only other choice.
3. Metallo-organic compounds are way too expensive to use them for these kinds of shenanigans. They cost tens to hundreds of dollars per gram (and most are carcinogen and/or poisonous).

The conclusion: They rub tiny metal-flakes (e.g. iron) into the feathers of the bird. The particles get dissolved in the oil and then the whole slurry is sucked out with a strong magnet.

Nice idea, but I doubt that being rubbed with metal-dust (sorry, "metallic micro-particles&quot doesn't have negative consequences for health.




EDIT: And how do they get rid of their metallic-oily waste? Throw it in the trash-can?

[FSogol]

7. Metal trash can or plastic one?

File under, "Sounds too good to be true."

[mac56]

10. "I doubt that being rubbed with metal-dust...

... doesn't have negative consequences for health."

More negative than, say, being covered with oil?

[DetlefK]

11. The method is touted as simple, not as healthy.

You forget the detergent-method. Rubbing the birds with metallic stuff might be a quick method and better for the feathers than washing the bird, but will it kill the bird in the long term? Will the incorporated metal have negative effects on organism and offspring?
That's still unanswered.

Mercury-salts were successfully taken as medicine to cure STDs, but for some reason that practice was phased out.

[TalkingDog]

12. Waiting to hear your perfect solution. .................................

.................................................................................................


nt

[DetlefK]

13. What if there is no perfect solution?

All I'm saying is that the hype in this thread is ridiculous considering that all we have as a source is an article with next to no information on the actual method, its advantages and its disadvantages.

[backscatter712]

22. Probably less unhealthy than leaving the birds soaked in oil.

Which makes this treatment a net benefit.

[DetlefK]

23. Probably. That's the word.

What if the treatment leads to skin-cancer or damages the offspring genetically or causes the bird to grow thinner egg-shells for his eggs so they collapse when he sits on them?

Nobody knows yet and that's why you can't tell which method is better.

[backscatter712]

30. The magnetic solution would have to be pretty damned harmful.

And I'm not convinced of that. In fact, from what I've read, it's pretty safe.

Oil, on the other hand, will kill birds, so you've got to get it off!

[Duer 157099]

20. Aren't all magnets metallic anyway?

I guess the "magic dust" is non-magnetic until it is exposed to the "magic wand" which magnetizes the particles.

Disclaimer: I don't understand magnets, it's all magic to me

[DetlefK]

21. Magnets are tricky.

There are three kinds of magnetism a material can have:
- ferromagnetism: The material is a magnet, all the time, until it gets heated above the Curie-temperature, where it turns into a paramagnet.
- paramagnetism: The material turns into a magnet if a magnetic field is nearby, otherwise its non-magnetic.
- antiferromagnetism: No matter what, you can't attract that material with a magnet.

Metallo-organic compounds, like hemoglobin or the phthalocyanines (the blue color in your coolie-head's ink), contain one or more metal-atoms surrounded by organic sidegroups. Chemically they are organic, but they are nevertheless magnetic.

And btw, oxygen is also a paramagnet: You can move liquid oxygen around with a magnet.





The spellchecker offered "faithlessness" for "phthalocyanines".

[lunatica]

25. I'm curious as to when magnets are considered fatal

There are people walking around with magnetic bracelets that are supposed to help their arthritis. I don't know that it does any such thing, but they don't seem to be having any side effects.

[DetlefK]

26. Really strong magnetic fields can cause damage.

- A field of several Teslas in strength can scramble your nervous system, because those signals are transmitted by flowing ions.

- Strong magnetic fields can also scramble genetic processes and kill cells in the long term.
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0955300031000096289
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/38293/2_ftp.pdf?sequence=1

- IIRC modern MRTs (magnet-resonance-tomographs) have already crossed the safe threshold of 1 Tesla. If the magnetic field is too high, the scanning-process (specific radio-signal is sent in) causes your the hydrogen atoms inside your body not to emit just any electromagnetic signal, but ones of a problematic wavelength: microwaves. Your own body turns into a microwave-oven and cooks itself. (I don't know how long the exposure time is, before it turns critical.) That's why there are safety standards for MRTs to keep the scanning-procedure as short as possible to give the body some time to cool down.



But those are very strong fields. The normal magnets you can find in everyday-life aren't strong enough to influence the body in a recognizable way.

[caraher]

29. Those things are utterly inert as far as biological effects of magnetic fields

At best they work by the placebo effect... the fields do not penetrate in any significant strength to any appreciable depth.

[Overseas]

9. The cost should be borne by the oil companies.

[XemaSab]

14. It usually is

after a longass lawsuit.

[Overseas]

19. sigh...

[ancianita]

15. Immediate, imperfect solutions that save birds' lives are preferable to delayed perfect solutions.

This is definitely a cost that governments should make oil companies pay.

[toby jo]

16. Wonder if this can be applied to a solution? As in the oil/water mix we get

at spill time? Bet they'll try. They can vac it up in tankers and deposit it on the lawns of the ceos. I like it - innovative.

[progressoid]

17. :\

[BrotherIvan]

18. If our smart people can keep up with our greedy people we might have a chance.

[GoneFishin]

27. Agreed. But often half the smart people argue in defense of the greedy people

which keeps the other half of the smart people pretty busy, giving time for the greedy people to pick over the bones of their kill then slither away.

[BrotherIvan]

28. You got that right

Because we admire money above all else, a smart person who doesn't get paid a lot to spout the corporation's evil talking points must not be too smart, right? I mean, what college undergrad respects the professor without the nice car and huge grants? And then there are the so-call "journalists" . Large, respected institution no longer means anything (i.e. ivy league prestige) in terms of smarts, just legacies and money.