26 ms·

Leaded fuel reduced IQ of children born before 1990

• sg47 5y ago
  Explains all the Trump supporters
• 8bitsrule 5y ago
  Lengthy, detailed 20yo article: "The Secret History of Lead" (Nation, original gone) [https://web.archive.org/web/20090208070616/https://www.thenation.com/doc/20000320/kitman https://web.archive.org/web/20090208070616/https://www.thena...] The part I'll never forget reading (page 2): "For this reason, most of the estimated 7 million tons of lead burned in gasoline in the United States in the twentieth century remains--in the soil, air and water and in the bodies of living organisms. Worldwide, it is estimated that modern man's lead exposure is 300 to 500 times greater than background or natural levels."
• amai 5y ago
  Smoking and alcohol is reducing the IQ of everyone since hundreds of years.
• sul_tasto 5y ago
  the comments on this tweet are really disturbing. lead contamination is still a problem, and it’s being ignored.
  • thinkcontext 5y ago
    An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning (2017) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645046/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645046/ > As many as 500,000 US children (2.5%) under 6 years have BLLs ≥5 µg/dL. Each lead-exposed child costs an estimated $5600 in medical and special educational services.7 Lead exposure-related cognitive impairments cost an estimated $50.9 billion annually in lost US economic productivity.6
• thesausageking 5y ago
  Given all of the research in how much harm leaded gas does, it's crazy that the US still allows it for planes and race cars.
  • purple_ferret 5y ago
    Household lead paint is still allowed in much of the world. India only banned* it in 2016(it is still poorly regulated, so still widely used). China the same in 2020. *reduced to max level to 90 ppm
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      Note that concentrations matter, that there is a dose-response curve (more lead => greater impacts), and that the quantities of lead in common products such as paint were insane. Lead wasn't simply some trace component of paint, but was up to half by weight (dried), or 500,000 ppm in the US (and probably comparable if not worse elsewhere: White house paint contained up to 50% lead before 1955. Federal law lowered the amount of lead allowable in paint to 1% in 1971. In 1977, the Consumer Products Safety Commission limited the lead in most paints to 0.06% (600 ppm by dry weight). Since 2009, the lead allowable in most paints is now 0.009%. Paint for bridges and marine use may contain greater amounts of lead. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/safety_standards.html https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/safety_standards... Leaded petrol had on the order of 0.5 -- 1 g/l lead, again, not trace amounts, which were discharged directly into the air. Much settled out relatively quickly, within a few hundred metres, as lead is heavy. Still, lead permeated cities and land adjoining roadways and expressways. And still does. Remediation is expensive, natural remediation takes centuries. At 90 ppm, India's regulations seem to impose a maximum upper bound, and controls for incidental introduction. Given that total elimination is impossible, setting a maximum standard. The US standard is also 90 ppm: https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Lead/Lead-in-Paint https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Educat...
      • throwaway946513 5y ago
        Partly though, if I'm remembering correctly, is that no amount of lead is considered 'safe'. Obviously that's very difficult, and many people will be exposed to lead at some point. End goal should be to minimize, and make the ppm as near zero as possible.
• funnyflamigo 5y ago
  I'm curious how leaded fuel effected children born in the Roman empire, as they were born before 1990 and had not discovered leaded fuel gasoline yet (or combustion engines).
  • bserge 5y ago
    They used lead for everything but fuel :D
  • whoomp12342 5y ago
    primary reason the roman empire fell..
  • firebaze 5y ago
    Romans used lead obviously not as fuel, but they did use it, for example for the lining of aqueducts: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wi...
    • mywittyname 5y ago
      White paint made using lead dates back to at least 2500 years in Greece.
    • f00zz 5y ago
      Some time ago there was a link to an article here on HN about lead poisoning in ancient Rome. It mentioned how they used to boil grape juice (to concentrate its natural sugars) in lead containers. Edit: doh, should have clicked on your link. That was the article.
  • mrtranscendence 5y ago
    Wow, I went to dictionary.com and looked up "pedantic", and all it contained was a link back to this comment.
• postalrat 5y ago
  We are still discovering what lowered the IQ of children born after 1990.
  • j_walter 5y ago
    Social media
    • anthk 5y ago
      Literally. Social media and multitasking reduces your IQ several points down.
    • Tenoke 5y ago
      This is such a populist response but I doubt you have any citations backing that claim. Please post if you do.
      • irrational 5y ago
        The entire Republican party post 2016 would seem to be proof of this assertion.
      • j_walter 5y ago
        https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/ https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502424/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502424/ For instance, the Internet's digital distractions and supernormal capacities for cognitive offloading seem to create a non‐ideal environment for the refinement of higher cognitive functions in critical periods of children and adolescents’ brain development. Indeed, the first longitudinal studies on this topic have found that adverse attentional effects of digital multi‐tasking are particularly pronounced in early adolescence (even compared to older teens), and that higher frequency of Internet use over 3 years in children is linked with decreased verbal intelligence at follow‐up, along with impeded maturation of both grey and white matter regions.
        • 5y ago
• nicolas_t 5y ago
  I'm curious what was worse, leaded gasoline or Diesel? I was reading about France's phase out of leaded gasoline and saw that it happened relatively late with unleaded appearing on the market in 1990 and leaded gasoline being banned in 1995 only. But before that, it seems that Diesel had started getting popular in the 80s and 90s.
  • Scoundreller 5y ago
    Depends on what matters more: your lungs or IQ. Having said that, a lot of countries do a poor job of lead control/monitoring in plumbing/water distribution. > There is growing evidence that the scale of problems with lead in drinking water has been under-estimated in Europe, due to inadequate monitoring. Particularly in the older districts of towns and cities, where lead pipes can be common https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/Hoekstra%202010%20Technical%20Digest%20Lead.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/Hoekstra%202010... It’s quite a rabbit hole to go through. Distribution pipes, pH, corrosion control, service lines, internal piping, leaching for PVC even, interior fittings, flow rates, consumption patterns…
• selimthegrim 5y ago
  Trying to figure out where 1990 came from in the paper, it seem unclear. Something NZ specific? Cohort turning 18?
  • Xophmeister 5y ago
    Erm... People born in 1990 are in their 30s.
    • selimthegrim 5y ago
      Yes but the original paper the thread references started tracking people born in 1972-73
• TimMurnaghan 5y ago
  Nice try millenials. But the boomers grew up in times of lower car ownership and general road traffic - so while there was leaded petrol - the exposure to lead wasn't necessarilly so high. What do we call the generation of around 1980? Late Gen-X? They're probably the ones at most risk.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mrtranscendence 5y ago
    > What do we call the generation of around 1980? Late Gen-X? Xennials[1]. I've also heard "elder millennial". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials
    • handrous 5y ago
      Ah, my generation! The ones whose video games, at least during our elementary school years, were good enough to be really fun, but also bad enough that we'd eventually get bored of them and go ride bikes or hit each other with sticks or some other healthy activity, all of our own volition. I remain tentatively skeptical of "saving" features in video games. They may be one of the great social ills of our time. Going back to the beginning if you lose may have been a healthy kind of frustrating.
  • pmlnr 5y ago
    > What do we call the generation of around 1980 We call it people born around 1980.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    1883 - 1900 Lost Generation 1901 - 1927 Greatest Generation 1928 - 1945 Silent Generation 1945 - 1963 Me Generation aka. Baby Boomers 1964 - 1980 Generation X aka. Thirteeners 1980 - 1997 Generation Y aka. Millennials 1997 - 2010 Generation Z aka. Centennials
• thinkcontext 5y ago
  Millions of lives and $Ts in health damage has been done and continues to be done by lead[0]. And it was largely avoidable because the dangers were known. 99 years ago the League of Nations signed a treaty banning indoor leaded paint. The US, of course, declined to join and it took another 50 years before it took action. Concerns were raised about leaded gasoline, industry steamrolled the science. And it was just a couple of months ago that the final country (Algeria) stopped producing leaded consumer road fuel. For a good history see https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lead/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lea... [0] An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645046/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645046/ As many as 500,000 US children (2.5%) under 6 years have BLLs ≥5 µg/dL. Each lead-exposed child costs an estimated $5600 in medical and special educational services.7 Lead exposure-related cognitive impairments cost an estimated $50.9 billion annually in lost US economic productivity.6
  • adminscoffee 5y ago
    we have a similar issue going on now with hormone disrupters in basically in most hygienic products (shampoo, body wash), containers, beauty products. it's causing a lot of issues and there are studies showing this recently, it was connected to sudden deaths each year. we need an overhaul. if this was a bug or a glitch in some software it would have been fixed in a few weeks
  • selimthegrim 5y ago
    I think Algeria was using up stockpiles rather than actively producing
    • decentman 5y ago
      Per the Wikipedia article, they continued to produce it until July 2021 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#History
  • zionic 5y ago
    >industry steamrolled the science. Not only that, industry paid for "science" that hid the dangers. People today however seem to strangely think this doesn't happen anymore.
• troyvit 5y ago
  Thanks for the excuse. Adding to my LinkedIn profile (hey I was born before 1990 you know) now.
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    History - Grade D (due to leaded petrol).
    • nescioquid 5y ago
      And we tut-tut the Romans for their plumbing.
• 0xbadc0de5 5y ago
  Fun fact, the inventor of leaded gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., also invented chloroflourocarbons (CFC's). See: https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley-jr-the-man-who-harmed-the-world-the-most https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley-jr-the-man...
  • zionic 5y ago
    He was also strangled to death by his own bed-hoist invention.
    • datavirtue 5y ago
      That is awesome
      • tgtweak 5y ago
        Are you in the celebrating death camp or not?
        • oats 5y ago
          There's a certain level of bastardhood at which it becomes hard to feel sympathy for someone's demise. I don't know which side of the line Thomas Midgley Jr. is on, but he's reeeaaal close to it.
          • tgtweak 5y ago
            Do you think he intentionally invented it to harm people? I don't think you can logically position that it is good for a person to die but not those which they indirectly (and likely involuntarily) harmed. CFCs are a pretty important invention even today and leaded paint and fuel probably seemed like a good idea at the time since no evidence suggested otherwise for a long while after it's introduction and commercialization. Unless he concealed information about known dangers, I think it's illogical to fault him to the point of celebrating his untimely death due to it.
      • 5y ago
• vr46 5y ago
  I am a member of my old school's alumni orgnization and at our meetups, nearly all the other alumni are 17-25 years younger than me, and frighteningly intelligent, and I am very much hoping that lead poisoning accounts for this...
• Tagbert 5y ago
  Small airplanes still use a leaded aviation fuel known as Avgas. I think of that every time I drive by the airport in the middle of Renton, WA right next to the lake. https://generalaviationnews.com/2019/06/06/the-future-of-unleaded-avgas/ https://generalaviationnews.com/2019/06/06/the-future-of-unl...
  • __turbobrew__ 5y ago
    The first unleaded avgas was approved by the FAA this year: https://gami.com/g100ul/G100UL_Oshkosh_Press_Release.pdf https://gami.com/g100ul/G100UL_Oshkosh_Press_Release.pdf
    • lutorm 5y ago
      This is awesome. However, since it appears every certified airplane needs an STC to be able to use it, it doesn't seem likely that I'll be able to use it in our experimental aircraft any time soon. I can't imagine that our small FBO will switch from 100LL to G100UL as long as there are any airplanes around that can't use it.
    • jeffbee 5y ago
      No. Unleaded aviation fuels have been available forever. That certification helps people convert obsolete aircraft to unleaded at lower cost, a thing which should be a non-goal of national policy. The federal government should outlaw leaded aviation fuels immediately and let the hobby aviation community figure out how to proceed from there.
      • outworlder 5y ago
        > Unleaded aviation fuels have been available forever True. But irrelevant if most aircraft cannot use it. > That certification helps people convert obsolete aircraft Obsolete? Is a Cirrus SR-22 obsolete? > The federal government should outlaw leaded aviation fuels immediately and let the hobby aviation community figure out how to proceed from there. The government also uses planes. Whole industries use piston planes. And helicopters. Why are you singling out 'hobby' aircraft? Mind you, experimental aircraft have been able to use unleaded fuels (including automotive gasoline) for a while now. The reason most can't is that there were no fuels certified for use in their aircraft. Certification requirements come from the government, so the government has to fix it.
• anovikov 5y ago
  Conclusion 2: there is disappearingly little connection between IQ and socioeconomic status :) Something that doing custom development proves with every new client...
  • bpodgursky 5y ago
    What? This is wildly untrue.
  • SquibblesRedux 5y ago
    Just throwing this out there: "Specifically, children from low SES families scored on average 6 IQ points lower at age 2 than children from high SES backgrounds; by age 16, this difference had almost tripled. ... Overall, SES was shown to be associated with individual differences in intercepts as well as slopes of intelligence. However, this finding does not warrant causal interpretations of the relationship between SES and the development of intelligence." [1] [1] Socioeconomic status and the growth of intelligence from infancy through adolescence https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641149/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641149/
    • anovikov 5y ago
      Well, i commented based on the picture itself. Decline in IQ is obvious, decline in SES is barely noticeable. I actually think this is because leaded gasoline makes people not (just) dumber, but also somewhat sociopathic and prone to crime, which should compensate to a degree for their lower IQ.
• Clubber 5y ago
  How does this square with the Flynn effect? https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence
  • djur 5y ago
    Improved childhood nutrition outstrips the negative effect of lead poisoning. IQs may have been lower than their potential but still higher than in previous generations. Also, the impacts of lead contamination are not evenly distributed through populations.
• cjensen 5y ago
  Post hoc ergo propter hoc
• throwaway59553 5y ago
  I guess today IQ is real and not fake science.
  • RandallBrown 5y ago
    I think IQ is one of those measures that's okay for the general population but pretty bad for individuals. A lowering trend of IQs over the years means a lot more than one random person taking a test.
  • coolspot 5y ago
    IQ tests are still banned in California for certain kids. https://www.kqed.org/news/11781032/a-landmark-lawsuit-aimed-to-fix-special-ed-for-californias-black-students-it-didnt https://www.kqed.org/news/11781032/a-landmark-lawsuit-aimed-...
    • throwaway59553 5y ago
      >Based on the test results, black students statewide — young Darryl included — wound up categorized as “educable mentally retarded” at disproportionate rates: 27% labeled that way in 1968 were black — even though black students made up less than 9% of the student body. So there are differences in the distribution of IQ among all the people in a Planet with very different environments? Rubbish racist pseudo-science. We all know evolution stopped at the neck line.
    • ravenstine 5y ago
      California's education system is also below average, so evidence that their children are also reduced in IQ as a result would be pretty unflattering.
  • dang 5y ago
    We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments and using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of ideology, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• intrasight 5y ago
  There is still a great deal of lead in the soil of urban residential homes.
• dukeofdoom 5y ago
  I think most people are not aware how bad it used to be. I went to India a couple years ago, and could taste the air pollution from the traffic on the tip of my tongue. Its horrendous. Give you headaches bad. I don't think they use catalytic converters over there on majority of cars and motorcycles. Once electric goes mainstream, it will seriously boost and extend the quality of life of billions of people.
  • azinman2 5y ago
    It still is bad in many parts of India.
• tonymet 5y ago
  I thought the science had been settled
  • mitigating 5y ago
    That's not how science works, nothing is ever settled.
• uncertainrhymes 5y ago
  The inventor repeatedly suffered lead poisoning, and many of the workers died at the plant developing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
• ewhanley 5y ago
  There is a great recent episode of Radiolab that discusses how pervasive lead is in the environment. tl;dr the background level is so high that calibrated measurement of specific samples is challenging. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/heavy-metal https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/heavy...
  • leoc 5y ago
    This MentalFloss article (via https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=heymijo https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=heymijo ) is good: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...
• bloomper123 5y ago
  Reduced intelligence is always a “problem” with almost any generation. I’ve just seen a statistic that for the first time since 1970, youth math scores have dropped. Most of this is not a big problem
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  It's ok. We would have been too powerful otherwise
• datavirtue 5y ago
  I demand reparations. My intellect is my most valuable asset.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    ...or would have been.
• shadowtree 5y ago
  Some secluded tribes in the Amazon hence have the smartest kids.
• scionthefly 5y ago
  If it hadn't been for leaded fuel, lead paint, football / TBI, my parents smoking, and getting rolled off a changing table as a baby, I could have been intelligent. sigh
  • mrtranscendence 5y ago
    My eldest brother always joked that he lost IQ points when the doctors used forceps on him during birth. Jokes on him, the lead and the maternal smoking would've done him in anyway.
• tgtweak 5y ago
  There is so many other factors at play here than lead levels. Lead levels are tied to calendar - many MANY other things changed with the calendar in line with that which could have affected measured IQ. This feels like a millenial/boomer rally tweet masquerading as science.
• AnonMessiah 5y ago
  We continue to see capitalism choose profit over the health and wellbeing of _every_ living thing on the planet. Industries suppressing anything that paints them in a bad light, lobbying to get laws favoring them passed, and ignoring and actively lying about the long term harm that they perpetuate so they can have _number go up_ in their bank statements.
• 988747 5y ago
  I guess I was lucky to be born in a communist country, where cars were pretty rare...
• young_unixer 5y ago
  > Millennials are the first to be born with unleaded gas. Nope. Many developing countries still had it by 2001, and only started banning after international campaign from the UN [1]. [1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1098792 https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1098792
• NoGravitas 5y ago
  This explains why I belong to DENSA, the low-IQ society.
• dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Millennials are the first to be born with unleaded gas Leaded fuel for passenger cars was banned in the US in 1996; the usual birth year range for millenials is 1981-1996. Gen Z were the first to be born, in the US, with unleaded gas.
• skyde 5y ago
  « environmental lead levels from leaded gasoline are still around in cities today, and cause continued neurotoxicity.« Can someone explain how you can be exposed to lead from « leaded gasoline » even if they are not used anymore? Is it contaminating the city water or something like that?
  • tgtweak 5y ago
    Lead is heavy, even in trace quantities and after being initially airborne. It will deposit in soil, stream beds and sewers, particularly near roadways or transit systems. You will also find platinum-group metals accumulated in the same areas due to persistent catalytic converter atomization of running vehicles. Disturbing the soils (wind, rain, driving, construction, etc) will redistribute the tiny lead particles into the atmosphere, despite their relative weight. > The lead content in that study was measured in particles collected either at the roadside or at rooftop height. The chemical fingerprint closely matched that of road dust and top soils, suggesting that contaminated soil is acting as a reservoir for 20-year old lead pollution, which is continually returned to the atmosphere when disturbed. The fact that lead found at street and building height shared the same chemical signature suggests airborne lead pollution is fairly well mixed across London.
    • skyde 5y ago
      so if I understand correctly because of Water Cycle, we get rain that contain lead. But unless I eat dirt from the side of the road or drink rain water I should be fine ?
      • tgtweak 5y ago
        You still have measurable lead levels in the air. Essentially the rain and gravity brings it down to the ground - mostly concentrated near roadways - where it mixes with other dust and soil. From there it can then get cycled again into the air by agitation. It is unlike CFC gasses that tend to float up and are no longer present at ground level shortly after they stop being introduced. In this regard you still have lead present in the air in varying degrees 20 years after it stopped being introduced. The report cites 2% of 1990 levels nearly 20 years after it was outlawed.
• KoftaBob 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if we find out something similar a decade or two from now about phthalates in plastics and personal care products, except for their effects on hormone levels rather than IQ.
• mythrwy 5y ago
  And plastics messed up the hormones of those born after? But of course all this is dependent on the amount of exposure which is individual.
• aaron695 5y ago
  This tweet and it's following thread is a lie. It has no sources just random journal articles about lead.... so as fucking expected and totally HN, just believe random stuff, wank wank. Can't be challenged because there's nothing to challenge. And the dig at NASCAR is pretty on topic for HN, no one with an average IQ or better would believe a NASCAR track would actually make a difference and you couldn't starkly see it in other places. But whatever, hahaha NASCAR people are stupid and science proved it. Millennial's in the West actually have average IQ's, what's concerning is they had less of many things we know lower IQs so something big hammered them to stop these gains. No one is sure what. There is evidence removing lead from fuel harmed Millennials. Micro dosing through leaded fuel didn't reduce IQs but it might have increased impulsiveness. It's no joke the Millennials onwards might be boring. It is very existential, boring people are happier. But it still feels depressing we now have 30 years of boring people and soon it will just be humans as a species.... boring.
• davidw 5y ago
  As someone born in the 1970ies, all I can say is "ugh. bad."
  • mrweasel 5y ago
    I’m born in the early 1980ies. I could been an f-ing genius, well actually I was lucky enough to grow up far outside any city. One has to wonder if that has made any difference.
• leoc 5y ago
  I recommend this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28502232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28502232 by https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=heymijo https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=heymijo from the recent HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500508 of this Smithsonian article on leaded gasoline https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-invented-180961368/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-... . The MentalFloss article about Clair Patterson is especially good. Pasting the comment in full (again, this is heymijo's work not mine): > Two beliefs became entrenched: 1. that lead is natural to the human body, and 2. that a poisoning threshold for lead existed Robert Kehoe, working for GM, was the chief advocate for leaded gasoline, and really the only person/lab doing research on lead until Clair Patterson stumbled into it while measuring the age of the earth. [0,1] A modern equivalent might be if Facebook was the only organization researching social media's impact on society, while being able to set the paradigm/assumptions about said safety for half a century. So even when Patterson's research was published in 1965, it took time to change the paradigm, and more time to phase out lead's use. Should anyone want to read a narrative about the intertwined lives of Midgley, Patterson, Kehoe and lead, then this Mental Floss article is a good read. [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Campai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Campai... [2] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...
  • leoc 5y ago
    This BBC article is also pretty good: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 . In this discussion ewhanley also linked a podcast episode which exceprts an interview with Patterson: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/heavy-metal https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/heavy...
• twistedpair 5y ago
  Watched my neighbor powersand lead paint off his house yesterday. He wasn't even wearing a mask. Makes you wonder how many decades until we don't have as much lead in the environment? 50 years?
  • conamearth 5y ago
    This is illegal and can get both local and federal authorities involved. Not disclosing hazard to occupants can get you into even more trouble. https://foiaonline.gov/foiaonline/action/public/submissionDetails?trackingNumber=EPA-R9-2021-000592&type=Request https://foiaonline.gov/foiaonline/action/public/submissionDe... https://oaklandca.nextrequest.com/requests/20-7783 https://oaklandca.nextrequest.com/requests/20-7783
• nazgulnarsil 5y ago
  An even bigger contamination bombshell might be in the cards: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/10/19/a-chemical-hunger-interlude-h-well-well-well/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/10/19/a-chemical-hunger-i...
• JabavuAdams 5y ago
  What about shooting ranges? Heard hickock45 on Youtube crunching as he walked and realized that the gravel I was seeing was actually spent casings. Maybe another reason not to take the kids to the range. Do COVID-mitigation factors help with lead dust/aerosols?
  • paulmd 5y ago
    Yes, gunsmoke does contain lead and it's not something you want to breathe in. Surgical masks will do very little, N99 or respirators will do better. However it's best practice to always wash your hands and preferably shower after shooting. This also applies to handling or reloading ammo. Primers are lead-based compounds (generally lead styphnate) and most bullets are either soft lead or jacketed lead. If you are handling ammo, bullets, or spent casings, wash your hands after. There is obviously a continuum of exposure and different routes of exposure here. Lead on your hands isn't ideal but if you don't touch your face or eat with dirty hands, kinda whatever. With smoke, you breathe it in simply by being there. You definitely want to look at the airflow on an indoor range, there should be a considerable amount of "whoosh" and palpable airflow, and even then it's probably still a low or moderate amount of exposure. Outdoors ranges will have even less exposure, but probably still not zero, you're still right near the breech. And yeah generally kids are more susceptible to lead exposure than adults. Not that it's great for adults but it will truly mess up your development to get significant exposure as a child. "orange lava soap" with the pumice in it is also better than just regular hand soap, as it's more abrasive and will do a better job scraping the lead off.
    • JabavuAdams 5y ago
      All good, but what about the lead leaching into the ground and water at outdoor ranges? Is there any requirement to test if e.g. you shoot on private property? In Canada you could be licenced to shoot outdoors on your own property (e.g. PAL + non-restricted firearm), but not be allowed to use the area habitually, or repeatedly as that would make it a shooting range. It seems like having a shooting gallery or plinking spot with persistent targets would fail the test.
• k__ 5y ago
  I read burning stuff is generally considered harmful. So, while electric cars might not be the perfect ecological solution, it might at bring us direct health benefits in the long run.
  • loa_in_ 5y ago
    Electric cars are helping in two ways: they move the carbon emissions from our playgrounds to the powerplants, and also said powerplants will have better filtering and efficiency than a mobile unit optimised for weight and dimensions.
    • k__ 5y ago
      With renewable energy they potentially even moving carbon emission out of the country.
• tediousdemise 5y ago
  This is highly tangential, but abuse of a fetus needs to be a federal crime. My mother drank caffeine and smoked while pregnant, and I will live with the consequences for the rest of my life. It is unforgiveable.
  • bobmaxup 5y ago
    You wouldn't even exist if your mother didn't nurse you into being. Maybe one thing outweighs the other?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Angostura 5y ago
  Imagine how intelligent I could have been
• truthwhisperer 5y ago
  and in the 00 it will be mass immigration of people who are according local standard tests regarded as retarded.