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Backyard Cyanide
31–40 of 61 posts
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#32I live in a rural area and I'm surprised at how well grazing animals intuitively avoid these poisonous plants. I see goats grazing in fields with hemlock. They'll give the hemlock a sniff and then avoid it while greedily eating everything else around it.
Growing up, I remember throwing my dog food. It was just amazing, the food would arch up, intersect with his mouth, and just... disappear.
except grapes. They would arch up, intersect with his mouth, and... hit a tongue and roll off onto the floor.
turns out grapes (and raisins) are toxic to dogs. How they figure that out during the millisecond encounter with the tongue is mind-boggling.
oh, another one: one time when young I gave my dog a corncob to chew on, my theory being it would be like gnawing on a bone. and it he just ate it. it disappeared. we monitored him, he was fine, but scared me to death.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
In NileRed’s video “Does cyanide actually smell like almonds?”[0] he purchases some bitter almonds to measure the amount of cyanide in them. He is also worried about the baseless health benefits claims. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c
I love that channel. Especially turning (I believe) nitrile gloves into hot sauce. Some of the chemistry he performs, I would never think of even existing. It's like people that say margarine is one molecule away from plastic, without understanding that all of chemistry works like that.
Wait, can we just recycle plastic into margarine? Bubble wrap marmalade?
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
My grandmother introduced us to a world of old-school delicacies, including Jordan almonds, candy-coated in a thick hard shell, and in pastel colors. On more than one occasion, I ate a box or two of those, so many that I had painful bellyaches and worse. It may not have been cyanide, but it was an instructive childhood lesson in "too much of a good thing". It's scary to think how much knowledge of poisons was in our…
Like you, I more than once ate a large amount of Jordan almonds, both times after grabbing bags left on tables after a wedding. I'm 45, but the Tylenol tampering was still alive and well in my conscious even as a teenager, and to this day. I still check the safety seal and will bring anything back to the store if it's more than a few dollars, if the seal looks broken.
It is trivial to both procure the machines as well as hone the technique to reseal those packages. Safety seals are largely security theater.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#35Stonefruit pits contain cyanide. (Including almonds.) I made apricot preserves one time and the recipe called for slivered pits to add a bit of flavor. Research it, it appears that you'd need to eat several hands full to poison yourself. And since it doesn't bioaccumulate, eating tiny bits is probably okay. (YMMV/not a doctor/don't rely on this/etc.)
"The dose makes the poison" but I'm not in a hurry to make myself a test case for no good reason. Tastier preserves might be a good enough reason.
Cody's Lab on YouTube drank 17 mg of cyanide for a video, but not surprisingly it's now private. Quotes include:
* It tastes like baking soda
* I've got a tremor [in my arm] and my breathing is slightly more rapid
Cyanide fortunately can't accumulate, so it's far less spooky than heavy metals (lead, chromium, mercury), perfluoroalkanes (PFAS), or some other strange organic molecules that might cause cancer.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like you, I more than once ate a large amount of Jordan almonds, both times after grabbing bags left on tables after a wedding. I'm 45, but the Tylenol tampering was still alive and well in my conscious even as a teenager, and to this day. I still check the safety seal and will bring anything back to the store if it's more than a few dollars, if the seal looks broken.
It is trivial to both procure the machines as well as hone the technique to reseal those packages. Safety seals are largely security theater.
Tylenol is "pain relief theater".
I've come to the conclusion that pain relief drugs are always a racket, and as my pain becomes exquisite in old age, I'm choosing to allow nature run its course, rather than go to great expense and effort to destroy my internal organs, by subscribing to them on amazon or something.
The American War on Drugs and ___ Epidemics are, in actuality, pandemics of pain, suffering, and people willing to pay any price.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#37Stonefruit pits contain cyanide. (Including almonds.) I made apricot preserves one time and the recipe called for slivered pits to add a bit of flavor. Research it, it appears that you'd need to eat several hands full to poison yourself. And since it doesn't bioaccumulate, eating tiny bits is probably okay. (YMMV/not a doctor/don't rely on this/etc.)
Seems like eating this whole bag could kill you? https://www.apricotpower.com/item/852-Turkish-Organic-Bitter...
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#38The cyanide ion is made much less toxic by complexing with iron ions, so I wonder if this plant material could be detoxified in this way.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm familiar with the smells of sulfur (at least memories from decades ago), natural gas additives (mercaptan) and having chickens that like to lay in random hidden places, rotten eggs. I don't think that there's much overlap in the scent profiles. Maybe a diluted rotten egg is similar to that smell of making black powder as a child, but not much.
> making black powder as a child Storytime, please?
[shrug]
Not much to say. Couldn't buy gunpowder as a 12-year-old, but the drug store would sell you saltpeter (KNO4?) if you said your mom was using it to cure ham and sulfur (I think it was used on wounds) and it was easy to make charcoal and grind it to a powder.
Mix the three together and stuff it into a small closed-end tube made from newspaper and scotch tape, with a piece of powder-infused cotton string for a fuze and you had yourself a rocket.
Re: Backyard Cyanide
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The dose makes the poison" but I'm not in a hurry to make myself a test case for no good reason. Tastier preserves might be a good enough reason.
Cody's Lab on YouTube drank 17 mg of cyanide for a video, but not surprisingly it's now private. Quotes include: * It tastes like baking soda * I've got a tremor [in my arm] and my breathing is slightly more rapid Cyanide fortunately can't accumulate, so it's far less spooky than heavy metals (lead, chromium, mercury), perfluoroalkanes (PFAS), or some other strange organic molecules that might cause cancer.
I have no idea how that guy is still alive after all the things he has gone out of his way to expose himself to.