Some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco.. The reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yes, that stuff they used to kill Litven

Some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco.. The reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yes, that stuff they used to kill Litvenchenko. The reason for the presence of polonium 210 is flavour. Truly. It sounds far fetched, but, while the polonium is thought to contaminate the plant from the environment. Tobacco plants have lots of sticky little hairs which attract particles. It could be washed out of the product, but manufacturers found that the harsh cleaning required, ruined the flavour profile of the end product. This was thought to be a disservice to the customer. So the highly radioactive polonium 210 remains... For Flavour! Another ingredient you may be surprised at is urea。 Pig Urine. But this one is not natural. No pigs are strolling tobacco fields and making no1 on the crops. This one is intentional, and in fact is probably the main flavour you pick up from a smoke. This history of this particular flavour enhancer is very interesting. They no longer use real pig urine in stuff any more, but a synthesized version. This synthesis was invented in the late 19th century (you can relax now). But the paper that introduced urea synthesis to world is regarded as the beginning of the field of chemistry, and an important moment in history. That paper is now part of the western literary canon, and is often required reading for numerous academic fields. If I get time, I will add sources, but maybe some HN people already know about this?