Short answers, pulled from the story.
Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, making it impossible to detect without instruments or a detector. It is the most common type of fatal air poisoning in many countries, produced by malfunctioning stoves, heating systems with blocked flues, and fuel-burning appliances. Chronic low-level exposure causes headaches, lethargy, and neuropsychological damage before more acute exposure leads to unconsciousness, coma, and death.
The triple bond in carbon monoxide has a bond-dissociation energy of 1072 kilojoules per mole, the strongest chemical bond known. It exceeds the bond in molecular nitrogen, which measures 942 kilojoules per mole. The bond spans 112.8 picometres between the carbon and oxygen atoms.
William Cruickshank identified carbon monoxide as a compound containing carbon and oxygen in 1800. Earlier researchers including Joseph Priestley in 1772, Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1773, and Torbern Bergman in 1775 had isolated the gas, and a French chemist produced it in 1776 but mistook it for hydrogen.
Carbon monoxide is a naturally produced gasotransmitter in the human body and was first confirmed as a neurotransmitter in 1993. At low concentrations it acts as an anti-inflammatory, vasodilator, and promoter of new blood vessel growth. Controlled clinical trials have evaluated its potential in treating conditions including ischemia reperfusion injury, transplant rejection, severe sepsis, and autoimmune disease.
Carbon monoxide is used in modified atmosphere packaging for fresh meat products such as beef, pork, and fish in the United States. It combines with myoglobin to form carboxymyoglobin, a bright-cherry-red pigment that is more stable than oxymyoglobin, keeping meat looking fresh longer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted it GRAS status in 2002 and approved it as a primary packaging method in 2004, though the process is unauthorized in Japan, Singapore, and the European Union.
Carbon monoxide is detected in interstellar space using radio telescopes, which first observed it there in 1970. Its asymmetric structure produces far brighter spectral lines than molecular hydrogen, making it the most commonly used tracer for mapping molecular clouds where stars form. Molecular hydrogen can only be detected using ultraviolet light requiring space telescopes.