this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I can ingest nearly 10g of uranium and not die?

Interesting.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Depends on the isotope, of course. There are different ways it can hurt you.

  • If you put together a critical mass of ²³⁵U, it undergoes fission and you die in seconds without needing to ingest it.
  • Naturally ocurring uranium (²³³U-²³⁸U, mostly ²³⁸U) has a half-life of billions of years, so it's very weakly radioactive. It would take a lot of it to harm you from decay radiation. Or very little if you pick a very unstable synthetic isotope outside the 233-238 range (but every element "has" such radioactive isotopes, though not in nature).
  • Uranium is chemically toxic, which is whal will kill you if you ingest a small amount of a common isotope.
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Tylenol is easier to overdose on than NSAIDs. I really don't think this guide is accurate. I'm really questioning the placement of cocaine and especially ketamine. Vitamin D from the sun? Lethal? I don't believe black widows are that venomous, either. How are they even measuring this? Cocaine will give you a heart attack, Tylenol will shut down your liver, venom acts like an infection... are they basing lethal dose on how much it takes to cause some kind of fatal reaction, or under a controlled administration with a defined "fatal dose" based on a specific measurement, like damage to a human cell?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

LD50 is usually determined using rodent studies. How much Vitamin D causes an overdose in half of a population of mice?

The dose makes the poison.

And with drug safety, in practice LD50 is less important than how close a therapeutic dose is to a lethal one. If a drug takes 2g/kg to kill you but you need 1g/kg to work, that's way more dangerous than one that takes .02g/kg to kill you but only needs .0002g/kg to work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Yes, that's basically how it works, see my other comment

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

It really takes that much gasoline to be lethal? You mean to tell me less THC is needed to kill you than drinking gasoline? It's almost 10 times as much!

I am incredulous.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I assume this is talking about pure gasoline. The stuff that you get out of the pump is anything but pure. It contains benzene, hexanes, and other really nasty chemicals that will kill you quickly and slowly (e.g. cancer)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Fuckin A, I only drink the good shit.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No love for the Puffer fish. 🐡

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Typical deathworlder win. Crazy earthlings who drink the solvent known as dihydrogen monoxide

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Challenge accepted

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (8 children)

What's the denominator here? Like water is toxic at 90g/1kg, what's the other 910g? Because I definitely drink over a litre of water a day and I'm doing fine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And like you said, in what period of time?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's complicated. Short version, over a small amount of time.

In the case of water, how it kills you is by diluting your blood, basically. Your kidneys will be working extremely hard (and quickly) to empty out the excess water, so for the most part, you've got to drink much faster than your kidneys can work.

That said, it's not just speed - other stuff gets cleaned out with your urine, like certain vitamins and such. Drinking excess water over a long time, but significantly more than what's on the chart, will drain you of certain nutrients / electrolytes, and that'll screw you, too.

Drinking sports drinks in that quantity could actually sidestep that particular problem, drastically raising the amount of water you can take in.

One way or another, though, while it's possible to hurt or kill yourself from drinking too much water, you have to bring it to some serious extremes and your body should be vehemently complaining during this process.

If ever you think you're doing something extreme and might possibly be slightly risky in this regard, just drink some electrolyte heavy stuff instead for a while - Gatorade, Powerade, etc. Then your only risk is basically outrunning your kidneys and your stomach should really be making you throw up if you try that.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Huh, so a nuke is more poisonous than arsenic.

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