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Why is that question important? It's interesting from a scientific point-of-view, but the answer doesn't change the fact that it is there. The answer might help us predict where to find much or little of it, though.
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They also knew it was toxic, but deliberately put on displays claiming that it wasn’t, even midgley would pour it over his hands despite knowing the danger and intentionally avoiding it in all other cases. They also used medical testing to mislead: showing people could consume it and lead wouldn’t be detected in their urine. Apparently that showed it was safe, and no one said “then where did the lead go?”. Happily he…
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/ says
> There is no such level of lead that appears to be necessary or beneficial to the body and no “safe” level of exposure to lead has been found.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poison... says
> There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.
> The body stores lead in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time. Lead stored in bone may be released into the blood during pregnancy, thus exposing the fetus. Undernourished children are more susceptible to lead because their bodies absorb more lead if other nutrients, such as calcium or iron, are lacking.
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This is nonsense. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/ says > There is no such level of lead that appears to be necessary or beneficial to the body and no “safe” level of exposure to lead has been found. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poison... says > There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects. > The body stores lead in the teeth and bones…
Lead activates the proteins it supoosedly poisons: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12425341_Inorganic_...
Yes, teeth and bones use most of the lead that you consume. But why is there lead in the teeth of neandethals? https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2018/250000-year-o...
Yes, iron overload seems to interfere with lead. Calcium not so much, it seems it rather makes lead used for building more bone. Licking lead causes cravings for calcium rich food.
This Cautionary Tales podcast episode talks about him [0]. Both were invented in the service of DuPont. CFC at least helped making refrigeration safer and helped getting it to the masses. Leaded gasoline on the other hand was always known as a bad idea. In both cases though, DuPont fought back hard to prevent bans of these solutions. They rather kill the planet than their profits. Suitably enough he killed himself wi…
Polio was absolutely terrible for those who had it. I wouldn’t blame him for having it. Or for ending it. However, for other reasons, I agree with you. http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v...
I just meant to say that his solution to his mobility problems came with significant tech debt that came to hang him later.
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Wrong in so many ways, there was, of course, extensive study and dedicated satellite instrumentation looking into all the issues you raised. eg: > Nobody explained why the hole was in Antarctica despite almost all the CFC being produced and used in the northern hemisphere. There is both an Artic and Antartic ozone hole, as gases eventually circulate globally both poles receive nearly the same volume of (man made) pre…
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Amazing, you can't even get monopoly right
I wrote about this fellow back in 2007[1]. In 1935 he was asked to make predictions about what chemistry/science will accomplish by 2035. Some are pretty wild, but others are spot-on, such as: • Interplanetary travel, involving the production of a substance that will produce more energy per pound than is required to lift that pound out of the Earth’s gravitational field. • The end of visiting; people will stay at hom…
Arthur C. Clarke had some words to say about this persistent idea in The Promise Of Space.
You don't actually want to lift your pound of fuel , that would be useless. You actually want to burn it as early as possible to lift a pound of something else (preferably cargo).
Every second you burn it sooner, the less high you need to lift it. Ideally you'd burn all your fuel on the ground in second 0. Sadly, releasing that much energy all at once tends to lead to Rapid Undesired Disassembly. Hence space rockets burn for a little longer (but still as quickly as possible).
Not so one-sided, Fritz Haber [0] is another very interesting chemist. Got a Nobel prize for the process to synthesize ammonia (modern fertilizer production), but then also got side tracked with the 1st world war and became the father of chemical warfare [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber
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Nuclear weapons were not a mistake.
Mistake was anti-proliferation. If every country had nukes wold would be much more peaceful place. Would Iraq or Afganistan got involved if they had capability to deliver nuke to fight enemy combatants in NYC or DC?
That's a very stupid idea if you think about it for more than 5 seconds.
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Why is that question important? It's interesting from a scientific point-of-view, but the answer doesn't change the fact that it is there. The answer might help us predict where to find much or little of it, though.
The fact that it has always been there casts a great doubt on the claims about its toxicity. It can be found through the ages in human remains and in geological remains that clearly predate people.