Curated playlist
IARC Group 1 carcinogens
- CadmiumCadmium was found in all 28 dark chocolate brands Consumer Reports tested in 2022.
- GasolineIn August 2021, the UN said leaded gasoline was gone worldwide. Algeria was the last country to use up its reserves.
- TobaccoChina approved the first commercial GM crop in 1993, and it was tobacco.
- OpiumTo harvest opium, a farmer scores an unripe poppy pod by hand. The plant weeps a milky fluid that dries overnight.
- BerylliumBeryllium, a metal that can kill people who breathe its dust, forms mirrors in the James Webb Space Telescope.
- ArsenicArsenic was called the inheritance powder because it was used to kill relatives for a fortune.
- AsbestosAsbestos carries a name that Pliny the Elder applied incorrectly. Its Greek name, amiantos, meant pure.
- Alcohol (drug)Alcohol works by boosting GABA, the brain's main brake pedal. The liver then breaks down most of it.
- BenzeneChemist Friedrich August Kekule said he saw benzene's ring shape in a daydream of a snake biting its tail.
- Gamma rayPaul Villard spotted gamma rays in 1900 but never named them. Ernest Rutherford named them three years later.
- Mustard gasMustard gas is a chemical weapon whose victims could not be touched. A British nurse who treated soldiers burned by it in World War I described the ward in stark terms. In her words, "They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with…
- EthanolEthanol, the molecule that makes alcoholic drinks intoxicating, turns up in the breath of healthy volunteers at an average of 196 parts per billion. It also forms an icy coating on dust grains in interstellar clouds. This one plain liquid,…
- Areca nutThe areca nut is chewed by around 600 million people, mainly of South and Southeast Asian origin. It leaves red stains on pavements from South Asia to the northern Philippines. This seed of a tropical palm, also called betel nut, acts as a…
- SunlightA photon may take 10,000 to 170,000 years to leave the Sun. Sunlight then reaches Earth in about 8.3 minutes.
- RadonRadon is an invisible gas, and in 1984 it was the hidden cause of a puzzle at the Limerick Generating Station in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Stringent radiation testing at the new plant found that a construction engineer named Stanley…