Savory Stories About Salt
What do these articles have in common?
Sodium chloride, a common substance
with wide application.
Packing structure of sodium chloride (NaCl, common table salt)
Two poisonous elements: an explosive solid and a toxic gas, when combined, make one of the most useful and ubiquitous substances we know: sodium chloride, or salt.
Just add salt: Researcher discovers a safe, simple way to make disinfectants work better (University of Alberta, 23 Oct 2023). This team found that disinfectants are more effective with salt.
Adding salt to the mix in quantities above 2.5 per cent weight per volume can make a huge difference. But it has nothing to do with the chemical properties of the salt itself, says Choi. Rather, as the alcohol and water in the disinfectant evaporate, the salt recrystallizes and grows, physically destroying the cell walls of pathogens.
“By adding salt, we can add another mechanism — physical destruction — to the chemical destruction, and we can cause the rapid inactivation of pathogens faster and more efficiently, without any concern about mutations or structural difference.”
Desert plant collects water from air by excreting salt on its leaves (New Scientist, 30 Oct 2023). A tamarisk plant that grows in the Middle East uses salt to collect water.
Naumov says this suggests the plant may have two mechanisms for getting water from salty soils, first taking in water through its roots during the hotter, drier day, then using the excreted salts to absorb water through its leaves during the cooler, more humid nights. “They work in synergy, day and night,” he says.
There’s bioinspiration in this story for engineering, notes Phys.org‘s coverage about New York University’s discovery.
Rare lungs cells reveal another surprise with implications for cystic fibrosis (University of Iowa, 23 Oct 2023).
A new study by University of Iowa researchers finds that rare lung cells known as pulmonary ionocytes facilitate the absorption of water and salt from the airway surface. This function is exactly the opposite of what was expected of these cells and may have implications for cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease.
Analysis Finds Diversity on the Smallest Scales in Sulfur-Cycling Salt Marsh Microbes (University of Chicago, 23 Oct 2023). Organisms that can thrive in salty environments are called halophiles. The ones living in salt marshes have special adaptations for the high salt content.
At the surface, salt marshes and their windswept grasses can look deceptively simple. But those marshes are teeming with biodiversity, from the insects and migrating birds in the air all the way down to the microbes that live in the soil. Scientists from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have discovered that even among the sulfur-cycling microbes that are responsible for the “rotten egg gas” smell in salt marsh air, diversity extends all the way to genomes and even to individual nucleotides.
Date palm farm beside the Dead Sea, over 1,000 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies on earth.
The Solar System’s biggest moon is spattered with salt (Nature, 30 Oct 2023).
Salts and Organics Observed on Ganymede’s Surface by NASA’s Juno (NASA, 31 Oct 2023). The Juno spacecraft is discovering amazing things about Jupiter’s moons. Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest which beats Titan for size by a bit, is now found to have salt on its surface. Don’t be confused by NASA’s term “organics” — it just means molecules containing carbon, not substances associated with life.
The JIRAM data of Ganymede obtained during the flyby achieved an unprecedented spatial resolution for infrared spectroscopy – better than 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel. With it, Juno scientists were able to detect and analyze the unique spectral features of non-water-ice materials, including hydrated sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and possibly aliphatic aldehydes.
Watch for news in February 2024 about the scheduled close-up flyby of Io by Juno. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. The results should have implications for the age of Jupiter and solar system.
Jesus said, “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50). Go forth and live like the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13).
Mt Sedom (Sodom) on the southwest Dead Sea, is almost pure salt. (Photos by David Coppedge, 2006)