• Question: which rare substances can potentially harm us do you know of? how can it be used safely?

    Asked by jellybean11 to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      This jellybean is Andrew M’s bread and butter. i suspect he might want to tell you about nanotechnology which is a very interesting field of research which he is a (highly paid) expert in.

      I believe adamantium is very rare. As an indestructible metal it seems like a good idea but when some deranged scientist grafts it to your bones it can really mess with your head. Just ask Wolverine. I’d suggest not grafting it to your bones. This is of course fictional (adamantium aint real!).

      How about a meteorite strike from space? See this from wikipedia:

      the first known modern case of a human hit by a space rock occurred on 30 November 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama. There a 4 kg stone chondrite crashed through a roof and hit Ann Hodges in her living room after it bounced off her radio. She was badly bruised. The Hodges meteorite, or Sylacauga meteorite, is currently on exhibit at the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

      I’d suggest investing in a flat-screen telly instead of a radio as I think it less likely that a meteorite would successfully bounce off it and hit you. Plus you’d be looking at the TV so you’d see the meteorite and have a chance to move.

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi jellybean11,

      There are bags of rare substances that are really dangerous – sometimes the rarer they are the more dangerous they are because we haven’t had the chance to evolve to handle them. A really good example is Caesium-137, which is a by-product of nuclear power stations, and is very harmful if it gets inside your body. A very different example is a relatively new material – carbon nanotubes – which in some forms might be dangerous if they are inhaled. Scientists are just learning how to make and use these very thin, long tubes of carbon atoms, so it’s not a material that our bodies have been exposed to in large quantities in the past.

      In both of these cases, safety is all about making sure no-one is exposed to the stuff, or that if they are, they are not exposed to enough stuff to cause harm. In the case of Caesium-137, it can be used safely in small quantities if there is no chance of it being released into the environment, inhaled or ingested. The same goes for carbon nanotubes, although in this case it is possible that our bodies can handle small quantities of the material. Luckily, carbon nanotubes love to stick together and to other things, so it should be reasonably easy to use it safely without much chance of someone breathing it in.

Comments