How the Demon Core Killed a Man in 9 Days

The demon core is a legendary sphere of plutonium gallium alloy that was designed to be - when encased in neutron reflectors like beryllium or tungsten - just a hair away from achieving critical mass and releasing massive amounts of radiation.

That idea of making something that is just a tiny accident away from releasing deadly anything was - in retrospect - perhaps a mistake. 

The demon core became known as such because of two deadly incidents, the second of which is retold in the above video, fictionalized in the below clip from the movie Fat Man and Little Boy, and more thoroughly examined in the third video from Kyle Hill.

Check all the videos out and maybe remember not to build a gun that shoots bullets out in every direction while giving it a hair trigger, eh?

How One Company Secretly Poisoned the Planet

At some point in my material science and chemistry courses, I speak bluntly to my students that most research suggests that man-made polymers are bad for us.

Some are worse than others, but most research on the effects of polymers on humans seems to suggest that there are bad effects from most man-made polymers. Some are minorly bad, but others - like the family of PFAS - are more obviously and persistently bad.

The video above is short and has a direct message: DuPont is bad (or has acted badly).

The longer video below - from Veritasium - is far longer but is much, much more informative.

If this sounds familiar, you might've seen a semi-recent movie about this story, Dark Waters.

Lake Nyos disaster

Now that's a mysterious introduction.

I assume that the full NatGeo documentary goes on to explain what happened near Lake Nyos that day, but the clip I embedded above - the only one I found from NatGeo on YouTube - cuts off before an explanation.

I'll let you make a guess as to what caused all the deaths before you click through to more detailed videos after the jump.

Can I lick it?

As Q-Tip once asked us...

Can I lick it?

Carl Wilhelm Scheele was likely the first person to isolate and prepare pure oxygen gas - though sadly for his historical reputation, not the first to publish his results.

Scheele also has gone down in history as a chemist known for tasting many of the chemicals that he experimented with in his laboratory.

So, can - or should - you lick the various elements? 

Some -the green ones - would probably be okay. Go ahead, for example, and lick a penny. It might be germy, but the metal itself isn't going to be a problem.

Other - the yellow ones - wouldn't be great, though they're not going to immediately kill you.

The red ones will likely immediately kill you or seriously harm you without much of a doubt.

The purple ones are radioactive and will kill you quickly.

So, can you lick it?

Maybe you can.

When Pretty Colors Were Deadly - J. V. Maranto

Better living through chemistry, eh?

Lead does make some gorgeous colors, but it's awful for us.

The lore of arsenic green has been long known in chemistry, including in Scheele's Green and Napoleon's death.

It's the Fiestware, though, that always interests me the most. I'm always tempted to buy myself a sample of the old, uranium-colored Fiestaware because I have a bunch of the modern, non-radioactive Fiestaware, and I love it.

Luca Parmitano and Chris Cassidy explain what happened during EVA 23

tl; dw - Luca almost drown in his spacesuit...but he didn't.

Water does some freaky stuff in space. Apparently, some of that freaky behavior edges toward being deadly to astronauts.

In this case, Luca Parmitano was on an extra-vehicular activity (EVA - a thing most folks might call a spacewalk) and had a small water leak into the air flow refreshing the air into his spacesuit's helmet. (Skip to 2:45 to get the explanation from astronaut Chris Cassidy) The small leak began to build up behind the plastic shield behind his head. When the water built up enough, it started to leak around the plastic shield and touched his snoopy cap. I guess the snoopy cap is hydrophilic, because the water then quickly headed forward, covering his head, filling his ears, and eventually drenching his eyes.

The next stop for the water would have been to cover and fill his mouth, leading nicely to - as all involved feared - death...in space...from drowning.

Turns out water's IMFs really matter because the molecules hold together well enough that they're hard to get off of a head in space without hands or towels - both well on the outside of the helmet.

I did appreciate seeing (at 1:30) the other astronauts (Russian, American, everybody on the ISS) at the ready to help save Luca once he got back into the airlock.

Plus seeing Karen Nyberg's hair in space is just outstanding.

Setting Fire to Glass - The "Nope" Chemical That is Chlorine Trifluoride

"Rocket scientist Dr. John D Clark famously said about the best way to deal with potential chlorine trifluoride rocket accidents, 'I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.' "

Or, just don't go in the pool in the first place.

Chlorine trifluoride sound like something I absolutely, positively do not every want to come even remote contact with.

I love the concept of storing chlorine trifluoride inside a steel container that's been already fully oxidized with fluorine gas. In chemistry class, I mention the storage of fluorine gas similarly and use the analogy of asking the fat kid to hold onto - but not eat - your pan of brownies. The only way to do that safely is to already feed him brownies until he's sick to his stomach of brownies. Yeah, you've lost a whole bunch of brownies along the way, but your final pan of brownies is gonna be safe.



If the little dalliance in the middle of the video about hydrofluoric acid intrigues you, check out this post of mine from a few years back about hydrofluoric acid treatment.

Morbid Monday: The Man Who Dissolved His Wife

Breaking Bad might've used hydrofluoric acid to dispose of a human body, but in reality, bases are much more effective.

Take, for example, the story of Adolph Luetgert, a Chicago sausage maker who grew tired of his wife and eventually 'dissolved' her in a vat of potash (a mixture of potassium hydroxide and potassium carbonate).

During a search of Luetgert’s factory on May 15th, a watchman suggested they look in a steam vat in the cellar that was used to dip sausages. The police looked inside, and found that the vat was filled halfway with a putrid-smelling, reddish-brown liquid. When the police pulled a plug near the bottom of the vat, on the outside, the slimy liquid and small pieces of bone fell out. Inside the cauldron, police found a gold ring with L.L. engraved on the inside. Near the vat, investigators discovered a strand of hair, pieces of clothing, and half of a false tooth.

Luetgert is one of many folks who have used acids and bases to dispose of human bodies. In fact, it seems that a process called alkaline hydrolysis is being used in some mortuaries in the US now.

History's deadliest colors - J.V. Maranto

I love the animation of the Ted talks.

I also love the weird chemistry of the past, things we didn't know back in the day would kill us but that we totally know about now.

Weirdly, I'd read about the wallpaper-Napoleon connection before.

And I love Fiestaware, though I only have the modern, non-uranium version.

Litvinenko poisoning: polonium explained

It's not necessarily a happy thing that we often use interesting deaths as scientific opportunities to learn about the human body, but it's true.

Alexander Litvinenko's death due to polonium-210 taught scientists about death due to alpha radiation poisoning. Luckily, Litvinenko, a former agent for the Russian and Soviet spy agencies, was dosed - twice, it seems - with polonium-210. After the second dosing, Litvinenko died three weeks to the day after his ingestion of the polonium-210 on November 1, 2006.

The science of how we found out it was polonium-210 and of what happened to Litvinenko are fascination.

The most dangerous foods in the world

There certainly are some foods that you really should steer clear of.

Admittedly, I've only tried two of the 'magic' twenty-one up there: hot dogs and red kidney beans.

I've slowly been building up an immunity to both of those, and I've been wise enough to steer clear of fugu.

Very Fast Death Factor

That's a brilliant name for a chemical.

It's absolutely marvelous, really.

And I want nothing to do with it...ever...

Most Dangerous Chemical?

This is one of the pretty standard questions that I'm guessing most every chemistry or chemistry teacher gets both used to and tired of answering.

I can say that my most dangerous chemical ever handled was dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) - which doesn't come any where close to being nearly as dangerous as the stuff discussed in this video.

I totally have a new respect for SO₃, a compound that I've written and of which I've drawn the bonding probably a few hundred times over the year. Turns out to be pretty nasty stuff.

Things I Won't Work With

Man, the number of times I've been asked a variation on 'what's the most deadly [whatever]' over my twenty years of teaching has to be incalculable.

I, honestly, have absolutely know idea what the worst acid is (hydrofluoric scares the pee out of me, admittedly). I don't know what chemical I have that's the most flammable (maybe methanol). I don't care which chemical is the most deadly in my stockroom.

I do know, however, that anything that scares a professional scientist - especially one with the respected pedigree of Derek Lowe - scares me.

But I do like reading about dangerous stuff, so I'm glad that Dr Lowe's In the Pipeline blog (now on Science magazine's site) has a tag called "Things I Won't Work With."

I particularly recommend his articles on peroxide peroxides ("Colloquially, I would imagine that the compound is known as “Oh, @#&!”, substituted with the most heartfelt word available when you realize that you’ve actually made the stuff") and azidoazide azides ("Never forget, the biggest accomplishment in such work is not blowing out the lab windows.").

Honestly, though, all of the posts are enlightening and hilarious.