Ah , that fresh smell just after it rain down . It brings a horse sense of calm air to the earth . But did you know that it could kill you ? That ’s right , rain launching ( mostly harmless ) bacterium into the air travel and in rare cases it can circularise disease . scientist did n’t fully sympathize how the process works until now .
A group of mechanically skillful engineers issue a paper inNaturetoday that explains how that earthy smell contend to get from the land to your nose .
A chemical calledgeosminis responsible for the aroma that follows rainfall and is also part of the reason beet taste the fashion they do . That has been understood for a while . But scientist did not know how it was scattered through the air by petite drops of rain . NPRreports :
Using eminent - speed cameras and fluorescent dye , the researchers film dip of water as they fall on unlike types of soil infused with bacterium . They watched as the drops finely sling the microbes into the melodic line .
When a raindrop pip the solid ground at the good hurrying , it entrap air guggle beneath it , each one no wider than a human hair .
Like an aura house of cards stay under a container at the bottom of a pool , those bubbles then rise , burst when they pass the open .
As the bubbles explode , they send a spray of lilliputian water jets into the air , sometimes carrying bacterium with them .
The squad find that one drib of rain sprayed hundred of low droplets that each carry chiliad of resilient bacteria . The bacterium is able-bodied to subsist in the almost inconspicuous droplet for around an hour . Once airborne , the bacterium is deport by the hint . Cullen Buie , one of the researchers on the task , says that the next step will be to find out how far the bacteria can go .
The bacteria is no big deal . It ’s not run to ache you . But the reason Buie and her partners began this study is because they were contacted by a British scientist who was concerned about the spread ofmelioidosisduring the rainy time of year in Southeast Asia and northern Australia . The infectious disease is treatable but without right antibiotic it can have a 90 % death rate pace .
These researcher are n’t the first to connect the cattle farm melioidosis to precipitation but they ’re impart to our understanding . And they want to accentuate that you should n’t care about this extremely rarefied disease . For almost everyone , it should be all right to breathe deep after the rain .
[ NPR ]
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