Largest mass extinction linked to 21st century lung cancer epidemic

The geologic conditions that very nearly annihilated life 250 million years ago are still killing people today. Parts of Xuan Wei County in Yunnan Province in China have the world"€ s highest known death rates from lung cancer in non-smoking women. For thirty years the region, which uses locally mined coal for domestic cooking and heating, has been the focus of intense scientific research to establish a cause. Now a team of experts led by The University of Nottingham have discovered that high concentrations of fine grained silica found in the coal which is produced from the uppermost Permian coal seam, correlate directly with lung cancer mortality rates. The results of their two year study, funded by UK Office of Science and Innovation through the Royal Society, have been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Dr David Large from the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering said: "Our work is a major break-through that points to a new research direction and a new way of addressing the problem. Our discovery does not, in itself, solve the problem — that is for future work.