4 ms·
pure carbon is, counter-intuitively, carcinogenic.
by ythl 10y ago
pure carbon is, counter-intuitively, carcinogenic.
- agumonkey 10y agoIndeed, I naively assumed that being a carbon based organism, more carbon couldn't do much harm.
- pkhagah 10y agoBreathing pure oxygen is also harmful.
- jcoffland 10y agoOr drinking too much water.
- snuxoll 10y agoThe Adam Ruins Everything segment on this was great, it takes a large deal of water to poison yourself but somehow people manage to do it because of myths about hydration.
- BurningFrog 10y agoEverything is toxic in too large amount. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison
- agumonkey 10y agoI was recently reading about the blood / kidney salt balance too. Same for pH. Interesting how our body spends time in a balancing act.
- ekianjo 10y agoCarbon based expression is misleading as usual. Organic based life (i.e. based on carbon structure chemistry) is more accurate.
- hinkley 10y agoCyanide is carbon based. Kills you quick. Aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene will kill you slower. It's like the "all natural" misnomer. Coral snake venom is all natural, but I don't want any, thank you.
- ekianjo 10y agoSO what? Most of the life on earth is still carbon-based, as in with carbons at the centre of all essential molecules in biology. What kills you is irrelevant to make that statement true or false.