14 | New Scientist | 15 February 2020
News
STEAMBOAT Springs, Colorado, was
briefly home to the world’s largest
firework on 8 February. Weighing
around 1270 kilograms, roughly
the same as a small car, the
150-centimetre shell travelled at
more than 480 kilometres per hour
from a steel tube embedded in the
nearby Emerald mountain.
The firework rose around
670 metres into the air before
exploding, painting the night sky a
vivid red and showering spectators
with sparks. An attendee from
Guinness World Records confirmed
the new record. It had previously
been held by a 1080 kilogram shell.
The four-person team behind
the firework was led by Tim Borden,
a local fireworks enthusiast.
The group has been building
progressively larger fireworks
for seven years in an effort to beat
the world record. It took the team
a month to create the firework’s
sturdy shell casing out of more than
1600 metres of packing tape. ❚ExplosivesBethan AckerleyWorld’s largest firework
Heavyweight shell breaks world record in Colorado
STEAMBOAT FIREWORKSBLASTING the skin with liquid
Botox at high pressure could
be a new way to help people
with extremely sweaty palms
and armpits.
Severe sweating that is usually
unrelated to exercise or heat can
disrupt day-to-day life and affects
about 5 per cent of people. It can
hinder relationships and work
due to feelings of embarrassment,
not wanting to shake hands or
socialise, difficulty holding objects
and the need to change clothes
often, says Samantha Eisman at
Sinclair Dermatology, a skin clinic
in Melbourne, Australia.
Conventional treatments for
the condition, such as surgery,medication and prescription
antiperspirants, often don’t work
or have unwanted side effects. For
example, surgery to stop sweating
from the palms and armpits can
lead to sweating from other areas
of the body instead.
Injecting botulinum toxin, sold
under the trade name Botox, into
the skin to block the nerves that
are responsible for sweating is a
popular alternative that works
relatively well. But a big drawback
is that the procedure requires
many injections and can be
extremely painful, even when
anaesthetic is used.
Hyoung Moon Kim at Maylin
clinic in South Korea and hiscolleagues have invented a needle-
free alternative that shoots liquid
Botox into the skin with a high-
pressure jet nozzle. They tested it
on 20 people with severe palm or
armpit sweating, or both.
It successfully delivered Botox
into the skin. One month later,the participants said their
sweating had mostly stopped
on their palms and armpits
(Skin and Research Technology,
doi.org/dk8x). This was confirmedby chemical tests of their skin.
The study didn’t compare the
new device with conventional
Botox injections, but Kim says the
new method was less painful. The
participants’ average pain rating
was 16 out of 100 when the device
was used on their armpits and
33 out of 100 on their palms.
There were no other side effects.
We still need a bigger study
to compare conventional Botox
injections with the new method to
confirm it is less painful and works
as well as needles, says Eisman. “It
certainly looks like an encouraging
option if a larger study confirms
its efficacy,” she says. ❚DermatologyBotox jet spray may help extreme sweaters
“Severe sweating can
hinder relationships,
work performance and
the ability to socialise”Alice Klein