Talk:Dust

Boomerang Contribution
My contribution to this page has again been removed - this time by Madchester. I thought that I had resolved all problems with Sam Blanning. Sorry if this comment is in the wrong place but the system is confusing to a novice. John Bolton MBICSc 01:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC) John E Bolton

Headline text
Somebody added the lines " dust sucks " and " say no to dust ". I cannot find these in the " edit page " fan. Could somebody please remove this vandalism?

I removed the following text:
 * Dust is a band made up of 3 young guys living right in Vancouver, B.C. The people that make up Dust are - Simon Marmorek, Anton Lipovetsky, and Koby Shuster. They have been playing in this band since May of 2002. They write all of our own music and lyrics to go along with it. Their current plans are to record some demo tracks and play lots of gigs. If you have one available, let them know at (604) 874-1153 or visit their website at Dust.i8.com.

There is an ongoing discussion on whether fame and importance should be a factor for including info in Wikipedia at Wikipedia_talk:Fame_and_importance. If you disagree with text removal, please argue here. Paranoid 18:30, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Defy the laws of physics with dust

 * The physical behavior of dust follows laws that are not always comparable with that of solid or fluid matter. For example, the pressure on a box full of dust need not be uniform.

Dust itself can be measured, the small particles whether it be organic, inorganic, enviromental, and seasonal. Enough of it together has a mass. so if dust particles from any form comes from and object wouldnt that mean that dust can make up an object.

YOU CAN ONLY DEFY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS WITH DUST IF YOUR A MONISTS. WHICH MEANS YOU ONLY BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD IS MADE UP OF ONE ELEMENT.

What is the complete distribution of house-dust sources?
If 70% of housedust comes from skin sloughing off the inhabitants, where does the other 30% come from? How much comes in the house on our clothes? How much comes in on our feet? How much comes through open windows and ventilation? Where does the rest of it come from? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 170.252.11.11 (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

Actually, 80% of dust is HUMAN skin, shed...the author of this article is implying that dust is made up mostly from pets. NOT SO. HUMANs, folks. HUMANS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.47.55.57 (talk) 16:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I would also like to see some much more detailed cites on this subject. You see, I have heard the same dust = human skin quote, but began to wonder if it is not an urban legend. You see, I have been looking at our own household dust with a digital microscope, among other things. More than 90% of it is fibrous and hence probably not skin cells. Furthermore, the claims about the mass of skin cells being shed daily only make sense if one never bathes; I strongly suspect that a very high percentage of mine get washed down the drain. Indeed, it makes no sense that there would be a constant composition; it would surely depend on the local environment, house construction, number of occupants, cultural effects, and so on. So, can someone cite some actual research? -- Securiger (talk) 11:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No mention of air cleaners
Why no mention of air cleaners or filters like HEPA or electronic ion? Do they work, and if so how effective are they. I think this article could be longer. --70.48.68.155 02:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Dead Skin Cells.
Added some references for dust material composition levels. Does anybody really use the word sloughing in daily conversation? Think the percentages listed in this article are a little off, not quite sure how to interpret the data for percentages of what's what in dust. -JasonAltenburg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.55.118 (talk) 10:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Needing cleanup
Is the 'needs cleanup' tag serious, or humourous? The page is no messier than a lot one sees - is there a specific concern?Dickpenn 17:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Composition of dust
Dust in homes, offices, and other human environments is mainly generated by the inhabitants (especially domesticated pets such as dogs, cats and birds), and mainly from their skin cells that slough off.
 * Series 'E' - episode 6 ('Everything etc.') of QI claimed that this is a myth. The cite used in the article seems particularly poor. Jooler 23:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Dust...
If dust comes mostly from human skin, why then are vacant houses often so dusty? ~ UBeR 06:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Because their is no one to disturb the dust. Also it isn,t made of just dead skin cells. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.248.245.19 (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Dubious tag on the composition paragraph
I have added a tag to the composition paragraph, where we repeat the oft-repeated myth that household dust is 90% skin cells. I realise we currently have a cite to support the claim, but that cite is from a non-peer-reviewed source which is only peripherally concerned with the detailed composition of dust; it is entirely possible that the author simply repeated the myth as a gee-whiz by-the-by factoid.

So, I have been trying to find a suitable, definitive source on the composition of household dust, but without much luck. The reason seems to be that there is no single or representative composition (see, e.g. .) Even restricting ourselves to indoors, household dust in the USA, the composition varies by region, by season, by housing construction, by heating method, and even location within the house (dust on high surfaces having a different composition to that on floors.) Typical ingredients include, but are not limited to, microscopic natural mineral particles, mineral or synthetic particles sifting from building materials, microscopic plant matter particles, soot, fungi and fungal spores, bacteria, fibres from clothing and carpets, human hair, and yes, skin cells. However the closest I could get to hard numbers for this is not a peer reviewed paper but patent applications (this one and this one) in which it seems that human skin cell contribution is a maximum of 38% and usually much lower. To the extent that we can describe a "main" component for something so variable, in fact it seems to be cotton fibres, not human skin.

One peer reviewed study which did give hard data is this one, but it is for (Danish) office dust, not household dust. Not too surprisingly paper dust figured very highly in the organic fraction there, but more surprising was that the total organic fraction was only 33% by mass: 2/3 of Danish office dust is inorganic! (If this was a household dust study it would thoroughly debunk the myth, however one could quite reasonably claim that offices would have a lower skin cell fraction than homes due to a) reduced occupancy times; b) different cleaning methods; and c) personal grooming -- which tends to shed skin cells -- mainly occurs at home.)

These sources are not good enough, in my opinion, to rewrite the section but I do believe they cast grave doubt on it as it is written, hence I am adding the tag. -- Securiger (talk) 04:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I was the one who added the quotation, about a month ago. I found it on Google book search.. Although it is only a secondary source, the author does cite primary sources for the information. Specifically, the two references for the claim that house and office dust is 70-90% human skin are these two:
 * Clark, R P and Cox, R N, "The Generation of Aerosols from the Human Body", Article 95 in "Airborne Transmission and Airborne Infection", Eds., J F P Hers and K C Winkler, Oosthoek Publishing Co., Utrecht, the Netherlands, pp 413-426, 1973.
 * Clark, R P, "Skin Scales Among Airborne Particles", Journal of Hygiene (Cambridge), Vol. 72, pp 47-51, 1974.
 * So the authors certainly weren't just repeating a myth, but it would be nice to see a proper analysis from some primary sources to back up this information. Singinglemon (talk) 02:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've replaced the quotation with an alternative which seems to better reflect the highly variable nature of domestic dust. This article is still a long way from being half-decent. It needs a lot more analysis and references. And it badly needs a subsection on atmospheric dust. Singinglemon (talk) 01:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Trivia
I just added the "trivia" tag. IMO few of the fictional references are noteworthy and that whole section could go if no one disagrees. The religious section is a little better where it explains the religious significance of dust, as long as it's not just a list of quotes. JRocketeer (talk) 04:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
Yes, Ndenison, the irony of needing to cleanup an article on dust was not missed. Anyway, I tried to do a bit of a cleanup of the domestic dust section. A bit of moving sentences around to make it more coherent, and bullet points. In doing so I noticed some dubious unrefenced claims which I've queried, if anyone can come up with some references that might be good. The sentences about maintaining a throughflow of air in the house I've left alone, but does it really belong in a wikpedia article? I haven't deleted anything, but the whole idea of dust being a universally hazardous thing that needs to be eliminated still seems to permeate this section, it would be good to see somee more balanced perspectives, if anyone can reference them. What we have here looks like it has been written by people with dust allergies, OCD, and hygiene industry marketeers. SeventhHell (talk) 04:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I nested content under a subtitle. Feel free to revise further. Refimprove is necessary in all sections. gl. Dust and noise3 (talk) 05:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, feel free to delete unreferenced things, rather move it to here in talk page asking for citation. regards, Dust and noise3 (talk) 05:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Great reference! I added a sentence in domestic for balance.SeventhHell (talk) 05:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Big vandalism happened overnight, was corrected. I am noticing that the current flow of the article is illogical - it starts of talking about atmospheric dust, veers into domestic dust and control of domestic dust, then goes back to control of atmospheric dust. So I'm going to re-order that, which brings up the question: which comes first - atmospheric dust or domestic dust? (and yes, "who cares?" (I do)). I thinks its a bit of an arbitrary decision, but the fact that most of the comments on this discussion page pertain to domestic dust, I think that's as close an indication we are going to get at this stage of why people navigate to the dust article. So I'm going to put domestic dust first, if anyone thinks otherwise feel free to change, ta. SeventhHell (talk) 02:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, splitting domestic dust into subsections was a good cleanup. I moved dust control under single subsection. Still, subtitles need revisions. In talk page discussions are sorted by date, so i took this section to bottom. Dust and noise3 (talk) 04:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Added U.S.
I added english/U.S. equivalents to the size requirement. Now those who don't know what a µm is can understand it. The link will say its value compared to the Inch and not the `Meter` so we can get an idea of the size. 75.118.187.114 (talk) 00:16, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

What About Test Dust?
There are companies that actually produce dust according to ISO, ASHRAE and other standards for testing of filtering systems. Particles in the air, water, oil and other fluids are not only hazardous to humans, but create problems for machines, hence automobile filters. Test dust is manufactured out of various organic and inorganic materials and to very precise sizes for use in testing various filtration systems. Would this be an appropriate addition to the article on dust? --Sedona Dama (talk) 23:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Moon Dust
I found a couple of links that might be worthwhile for this article:

 

Jndrline (talk) 19:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

lol so dumb
Where's the mentioning that some people believe mankind was born from dust because people actually believe that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.160.98.143 (talk) 06:14, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Image
A user added an image with this edit. I submit that the picture is unnecessary, since there are already images that show dust. I also find the caption for the image ("Really dusty plastic, you can see it's not clean") quite inappropriate and unencyclopedic. Wikipedia articles do not address readers or refer to "you". ImprovingWiki (talk) 00:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it was a marginal picture that didn't improve the article. Reify-tech (talk) 13:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. The background is confusing...as is the caption. I have reluctantly undone the revert. ```Buster Seven   Talk  14:16, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The Dusty Fan Image creator has reverted me. I am not interested in getting into either an edit war about dust or a conversation about the merits (or demerits) of the image. ```Buster Seven   Talk  16:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This is a sockpuppet of banned User:David Beals, whose MO is posting pictures of ceiling fans and links to videos of ceiling fans. NawlinWiki (talk) 21:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Dust. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20131029201819/http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/10/27/stories/2007102759600100.htm to http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/10/27/stories/2007102759600100.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 05:06, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Lifespan of dust
Out of curiosity - how long could dust theoretically survive in the atmosphere (before it settles etc)? Jackiespeel (talk) 11:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

expand-section
There is currently a section on "Coal".

The current wording and the fact Coal dust is the only specific form of dust getting its own section makes it look like coal dust is some unique form of dust, which makes no sense. Either expand this to cover all Wiki articles on "dust made out of ..." (gold dust, diamond dust, bone dust, saw dust and so on...) or expand it to cover dust health hazards in general (dust pneumonia, radioactive dust, asbestos and so on... ). CapnZapp (talk) 09:03, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

And sprey ..
Придумали мощные пылесосы. Копейки вышли из оборота. Логично. Следовательно. Для обмоток. Далее ..

Теперь "версии" (или "гипотезы"). Типа "Декларации о независимостях".

1$:1Руб - 100:1. (по ранешнему курсу). US - не SU. Нуу.. ии.. шо??

Рубли карманы рвут. Золотыми делать нельзя. Бумажные мнутца, а магнитные то намагничиваютца, то размагничиваютца. Как ключи от домофона.. Есть автомобильные брелки. Но они светятца..

Итого - всё как всегда. Туманно всё .. А в SIM картах толи кристалл трескаетца, толи статическим электричеством пробиваетца. Што будет от спрейя "Антистатик"? Я протёр экран смартфона "Мистером Мускулом". Экран - сполз.. ??

176.59.204.2 (talk) 12:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Almost advertisement
"Products like Pledge and Swiffer are specifically made for removing dust by trapping it with sticky chemicals." I think this line sounds too much like an advertisement to be included on the page. I'm sorry if I am posting this wrong as I do not really know how talk pages work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trtbasnbi (talk • contribs) 23:57, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

road dust
hello, could someone make a link in the 'Dust' article, in the subheading 'Roads', to mention the method of spraying calciumchloride on the road. This can be found, with picture, in the article CalciumChloride, subheading 'Road Surfacing'. I don't seems to be able to pull this off myself. Thanks.EdwardDh (talk) 21:48, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Not exactly sure what you want to add to the article, give it a try, here's how to link to that section of Calcium Chloride: put double brackets around this: Calcium_chloride#Road_surfacing|Calcium Chloride like this: Calcium Chloride Raquel Baranow (talk) 01:50, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the help, feel free to view/destroy my (minor) edit.EdwardDh (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

RE: Dead Skin Cells
The main article has a line in the first paragraph that reads "Dust in homes is composed of about 50% dead skin cells." The statistic used in this line does not exactly match what is described in the statistic's citation. The citation implies that the larger the dust particles you are looking at, the lower the composition of dead skin cells, and the 50% number used on the main article only represent what is described for sizes between 0–100μm. A more accurate statistic would look something like "...about 20%–50% dead skin cells." Swaggerding (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Troposphere
Yes 2409:4089:AE1C:B450:EDBF:D6C7:8B03:3EB7 (talk) 07:40, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Gold dust
Dust 174.52.108.151 (talk) 06:30, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

As well as the wiki link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palynology, which is the "study of dust". That the dust entry does not have a mention of this is an absurd oversight in the "See Also" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.251.64.194 (talk) 17:43, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

"House dust mites did not become a problem until humans began to use textiles, such as western style blankets and clothing"
The source on this seems to state this significantly less strongly. From the text:

"Unfortunately, almost nothing is known of the mite fauna either of ancient bedding or that of present-day nomads. Research on mites associated with the tents and textiles of the few remaining nomadic tribes would provide an interesting and challenging field of study, not least because the very existence of this lifestyle is threatened" "It is important to note at this point that we know virtually nothing about the mites associated with ancient textiles, simply because researchers have not thought to look for them, nor question why they may possibly be of any significance."

The references to "western-style" in the source text are specifically referring to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, Amazonians and Australian Aboriginal communities. I'd therefore vote to remove the reference to "western style"; it is apparently Eurocentric and not supported by the source. In addition, the use of "western" in this context is ambiguous: Is "Egypt" (referenced in the source text) a "western" country? 89.37.69.41 (talk) 08:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)