[spsful]

> About a decade ago, Columbia University scientists proposed that a different type of UVC light, known as far-UVC light, would be just as efficient at destroying bacteria and viruses but without the safety concerns of conventional germicidal UVC.

Why does everyone keep calling this "new"? I've seen it published in articles seemingly everywhere within the past few days. It's not a new technology; Boeing was prototyping this in their fleet several years ago[1].

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeings-self-cleaning-lavatory-...

[helsinkiandrew]

I think what's new is that they can add 'kills COVID' and it will be republished on news sites with little thought.

[upofadown]

The US patent office thought it was new:

>David J. Brenner and co-inventors have been granted a U.S. patent titled "Apparatus, method and system for selectively affecting and/or killing a virus" (US1078019B2).

For what that counts...

[ceejayoz]

I don't think that counts for much.

Swinging on a swingset was patented (on a lark: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-...) in 2000.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6368227B1/en

[IanCal]

The study looks like it's about the efficacy of putting commercially available lights in real world rooms. Really it's just the headline that says "new type".

I think in a colloquial sense, this is fair I think. They are pretty new. If it's something some people have been trialling within the last few years, that's pretty new to me. Especially in the context of "a light".

[Angostura]

It's new compared to the older type and isn't currently widely deployed.

Take out the words 'new type' and you are left with the idea that more conventional UV lamps have these effects.

[_nalply]

Why?

Probably this makes advertisement more successful.

[ianai]

Wow, a simple search on Amazon even pulled up far uvc lamps.

[ceejayoz]

Be very careful with those; retinas are particularly susceptible to UVC, as the atmosphere blocks all of it; we've never evolutionarily had to deal with it before. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/doctors-warn-abou...

[pdonis]

So wouldn't that apply to the lights described in the article this thread is about? How can the article say those are safe?

[ceejayoz]

The article describes "far-UVC" light, which they say is new.

> Far-UVC light has a shorter wavelength than conventional germicidal UVC, so it can’t penetrate into living human skin cells or eye cells. But it is equally efficient at killing bacteria and viruses, which are much smaller than human cells.

The UVC lights on Amazon are presumably plain old eye-destroying UVC.

(If you want to use UVC, get it installed in your air ducts, where eyes don't go.)

[ahahahahah]

Except the comment explicitly said that amazon has "far uvc lamps".

[bongoman37]

It is like Hacker News articles. Sometimes an article will have an upvote or two and few comments and sink from news, and then it gets reposted a couple of years later and there's hundreds of votes and tons of discussions.