City Officials Almost Ban Foam Cups 1055
localhost00 writes "The city of Aliso Viejo, CA nearly banned foam cups when they learned they are produced from a substance known as 'dihydrogen monoxide.' A paralegal working for the city apparantly found a professionally designed web site put up to describe the dangerous properties of this chemical.
Apparantly, the report about Dihydrogen Monoxide was written by a then 14-year-old Nathan Zohner who was researching the gullibility of fifty ninth graders."
Google News to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)
--
Google News is fun [google.com]
You think that's dangerous! (Score:3, Informative)
Wait until you also investigate the dangers of Silicon Dioxide! Most terrorists get their start throwing the stuff.
Quite seriously, I always started the year of teaching chemistry with something much like this. My goal was to help the students become better informed.
They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:5, Informative)
The funny thing is, DHMO isn't even the right name (Score:3, Informative)
SirWired
Re:Trying to remember Chem I... (Score:3, Informative)
Not according to Star Trek (Score:2, Informative)
But didn't they refer to it as Dilithium or trilithium crystals?
Star Trek wouldn't be wrong on something so obvious, right?
*takes geek hat off, and takes a shower, NOT CLEAN!!!*
Old joke, maybe? (Score:5, Informative)
hyponatremia (Score:5, Informative)
Hyponatremia a Concern for Marathon Runners [coolrunning.com]
I know the Slashdot stereotype is that nobody *here* has to worry about such things, but actually, I bet there are people in the Slashdot community who run this far and this hard.
Re:Please allow me (Score:2, Informative)
I think, as has been noted elsewhere, that hydrogen hydroxide is more correct, but it's really only semantic. And it's been a long time since my chem lectures. Chemistry's just applied physics anyway
Re:The funny thing is, DHMO isn't even the right n (Score:5, Informative)
No, it is actually technically correct. (The best kind of correct!) [geocities.com] In chemistry naming conventions you usually use this sort of naming convention for binary nonmetal-nonmetal chemicals.
For example:
NO2 - nitrogen dioxide
N2O - dinitrogen monoxide
N2O5 - dinitrogen pentoxide
CO2 - carbon dioxide
So it does make sense to say:
H2O - dihydrogen monoxide
However the name hydrogen hydroxide is incorrect since that would indicate that the OH part of HOH (H2O ) is an ion and that the extra hydrogen is ionically bonded to it. This is not the case, in H2O both hydrogens are covalently bonded to the central oxygen atom.
You can see more about chemical naming conventions here. [widener.edu]
Re:Please allow me (Score:2, Informative)
Back off man, I'm a scientist.
The scientific term for water is water. The only time I've ever heard the term dihydrogen monoxide is in reference to making fun of people who think atoms are little balls.
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps it can be recycled well in theory, but it is rare for it to be recycled, especially when used for fast food containers.
A lot of people just throw it wherever, and once out in nature it lasts virtually forever, unlike products made from alternative materials like paper and starch.
Re:The funny thing is, DHMO isn't even the right n (Score:4, Informative)
The correct name is "dihydrogen oxide". Theres no need to put the "mono" on the oxygen. If you dont believe me, you can look at NIST's chemistry webbook...
http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Name=Dihydr
Re:Nah. The really deadly stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Just like HCl is hydrochloric acid and not Chloric Acid...
Re:Why does this surprise me it is in California? (Score:5, Informative)
With a small amount of research I'm sure you can pull up stupid laws and occurences for just about every state in the union. You want to know why people love california? Let me list some reasons without trying to sound like a tourist commercial:
- Extremely varying climates all within a relatively small area (i.e. Desert, Beach, Mountains all within a hour or so of each other)
- Strong cultural heritage throughout the state
- Southern california has some of the best weather in the US, bar-none.
- Napa Valley, Big Bear, Hollywood, Alcatraz, Catalina Island, Sea World, just to name a few
If you're looking for real reasons not to move to California, I can give you those too:
- Everything is expensive
- California traffic has been compared to a day in hell
- major metropolitan areas are very crowded.
- no smoking in bars or restaurants (seriously)
Obviously they did zero research on this before they had their knee-jerk reaction
I think the irony in that statement has been accurately summed up =)
Re:It MUST be true! (Score:5, Informative)
I believe this is the original. The page slashdot linked to is just someone rehashing the idea and putting up a different take on it. The person running the link I provided claims to have had their page up for a decade and on gopher for several years before that. So yes, you could say fraud for the slashdot linked website, but the original is 100% factual, and I give them the credit.
Re:Scientifically illiterate population (Score:5, Informative)
Jimmy Carter.
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nah. The really deadly stuff (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The funny thing is, DHMO isn't even the right n (Score:3, Informative)
For your amusement some other ways of naming water:
Hydrogen oxide (the isotope of hydrogen, duetrium has duetrium oxide)
dihydrogen monoxide (it is valid by one sytem which is used to name binary compounds of nonmetals. ex:
N2O5 = dinitrogen pentoxide)
Hydrohydroxic acid (in the acid system, like HCl)
hydrogen hydroxide (base nomenclature, like Sodium hydroxide)
hydroxic acid (like H2S is hydrosulfuric acid)
Hydronium hydroxide (like ammonium hydroxide)
anyhows, I think you get the point. From a practical stand point this exact problem makes it a pain to order chemicals from a catalog often times!
Re:Why does this surprise me it is in California? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Come on CA (Score:5, Informative)
Penn and Teller (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Come on CA (Score:2, Informative)
It must suck to drink anything out of the brand you use. Quick, before it breaks apart, drink up!
And I'm quite sure that Styrofoam isn't ment to break apart in water...
Old Joke (Score:3, Informative)
The Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide [circus.com] has been around a long time. There's even a song [google.com] about it to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic (aka John Brown's Body).
The DHMO song can also be found at the author's page here [std.com], but Google is probably more resistant to the Slashdot effect.
Re:They SHOULD ban styrofoam (Score:4, Informative)
Styrofoam is the polymer polystyrene in foam form, that is, with a lot of small gas bubbles. Google tells me that commonly used gases are ethylene, CFCs (not commonly anymore), and HCFCs. These gases are not particularly toxic to humans, but can be an environmental issue (i.e., the hole in the ozone layer), especially CFCs and HCFCs.
Re:Come on CA (Score:3, Informative)
Even for non-runners (Score:5, Informative)
The most common scenario where I've seen symptomatic hyponatremia in a non-athlete is in a syndrome called SIADH (AKA: Syndrome of Inappropriate Anti-Diuretic Hormone). I've rarely seen it in psychiatric patients who compulsively drink massive quantities of fluids as part of their psychosis... Believe it or not, it's actually possible to drink enough water that you dilute out your electrolytes.
Anti-Diuretic Hormone is what determines the final concentration of your urine (ie. how much free water your kidneys scavenge from the filtrate in your kidneys)... it works in the kidney's distal tubules. Interestingly, ADH is inhibited by ethanol. Ever wonder how beer seems to go through you so quickly? Well, the answer is that it really doesn't... part of that massive urination is from the alcohol inhibiting ADH secretion, your kidneys start dumping free water, and you start peeing like a racehorse. The result? You get dehydrated; one of the major contributors to the discomfort of hangovers. Heh... a bag or two of IV fluids does wonders for a hangover.
Dilutional Hyponatremia is relatively easy to fix (obviously depending on severity)... just restrict fluid intake. In the case of SIADH, you also have to hunt for the cause... some lung cancers are notorious for secreting excess Anti-Diuretic Hormone.
Note that severe hyponatremia is life-threatening... you can have refractory seizures, coma, and profound mental status changes. Fixing it too quickly is also dangerous, and can cause a nasty (and permanent) condition called Central Pontine Myelinolysis [emedicine.com]... definitely not on the top-ten-diseases-to-have list.
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Informative)
Besides, the grandparent poster short-changes those of us who do have science/math backgrounds, who are passionate about politics, and who have considered getting more involved.
Re:Come on CA (Score:2, Informative)
They only really key difference here is that most people use the term "styrofoam" to describe any injected-molded foam product, whereas Styrofoam technically only refers the polystyrene-based insulation created by Dow Chemical, Inc.
Nothing like arguing semantics on
Wait a minute (Score:5, Informative)
Ecstasy (MDMA) is chemically related to the amphetamine family, and has many of the same effects. One of the side-effects of Ecstasy is hyperthermia... an elevation of body temperature that can lead to rhabdomyolysis (mass breakdown of muscle tissue, often leading to kidney failure), brain damage, and death.
Ecstasy acts primarily on the serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons in the CNS, and appears to irreversably harm the former (documented pathologically in animal studies, and observationally in humans). Interestingly, Prozac and some of the SSRI drugs seem to partially antagonize the effects of Ecstasy (but if you're planning on stopping your anti-depressant so you can get a better buzz on the weekend, you need serious help).
There's another problem: you never know what you're getting when you buy street drugs. Unless you have a degree in organic chemistry and are making your own (which can be done), it pays to be cautious.
Maybe you've taken ecstasy hundreds of times and had no problem... good for you. But ecstasy is not harmless... I've seen it go wrong, and it's not pretty.
Wrong name.... (Score:5, Informative)
There is such a thing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You have you facts confused (Score:4, Informative)
Just because a molecule can dissociate that does not mean that it is bonded ionically. Each hydrogen in H2O is bonded equally to the oxygen atom in what is called a sp^3 hybrid orbital, where the 2s orbital of the oxygen atom combines with the three 2p orbitals of the same atom in order to form four sp^3 hybrid orbitals. Two of those orbitals are taken up with unbonded electron pairs and each of the other two orbitals are covalently bonded to a hydrogen atom. You can see more about this on this web site. [boisestate.edu]
Electronegativity really does not enter the picture here. Yes, oxygen is highly electronegative and it will tend to "pull" the electrons toward itself but that only means that the water molecule will be highly polar (and only because the charge separation is not symmetrical about all of the axis of the molecule). It is true that more highly electronegative atoms tend to form more ionic compounds than less highly electronegative atoms, but there are other factors at work here. For example, if you look at this web page [wikipedia.org] you will see that the difference between the Pauling elecronegativities of hydrogen and oxygen is 3.5 - 2.1 = 1.4. By most definitions an ionic compound should have a difference in elecronegativity of at least 2.0. So water is a covalent molecule even by that definition.
By the way, IAAC (I Am A Chemist)
Hoax (Score:1, Informative)
Re:CA environmental stuff is wayyyy over the top (Score:3, Informative)
The 85% HTP is a completely different animal, provided you keep it cool (below about 70C) and free from catalytic contaminants it's very stable. But it doesn't take much encouragement at all to turn into steam so you'd just catalyticaly decompose it on site to safely dispose of it.
Actually, its not a bad ordinance (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe i missed something... (Score:2, Informative)
As a heads up, Prozac use often tags people with seratonin imbalances. Seratonin is in the MDMA equation and intensifies positive and negative effects of the drug on these people
Excuse me... what? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here... In the animal studies currently available, Prozac has not been shown to intensify the effects of MDMA... in fact, the opposite is true. The mechanism [nih.gov] has even been elucidated. Prozac can reportedly intensify some neurotransmitter effects of other amphetamines, but I've never seen research to suggest that effect exists with ecstasy.
Lastly, ecstacy tablets bought on the street are almost never ever pure and are often cut with speed,cocaine,heroin,DXM (this causes major overheating),drano or other nasties which are responsible for ER visits, imho.
Street drugs are often misrepresented... a point I made in my initial post. Even so, it an incredible stretch to blame the deleterious effects of ecstasy on adulterants. The adulterants you mentioned are harmful, but that hardly evidence that ecstasy is harmless.
Urban Myth Alert (Score:3, Informative)
VERY VERY few birds run into windmills. no more or less than any other man made object. This is bunk.
Myth: Wind farms pose a serious threat to birds.
Fact: Any tall structure presents a risk to birds, but the threat from wind turbines is not only very small, it is also one of the most intensively studied of all risks to birds. To put this risk into perspective, US bird experts Curry and Kerlinger have estimated that 100 million bird deaths a year can be attributed to domestic cats, compared to an estimated 5 to 10 thousand killed by turbines - meaning cats' risk to birds is at least 10,000 times greater than that posed by wind turbines in the US. The Exxon Valdez oil spill alone is estimated to have killed up to 500,000 birds. New research at operational Australian wind farms indicates that risk to birds may be even less than first expected, and well below the predicted levels from models that were run as part of the approvals process. The research found not a single mortality for rare or significant bird species
From here [216.239.41.104]
Re:It MUST be true! (Score:2, Informative)
Bzzt. The original site is:
http://www.circus.com/~no_dhmo/index.html [circus.com]
The joke was originally come up with by two UC Santa Cruz students, Eric Lechner and Lars Norpchen, in the spring of 1988, while they were residents at the Santa Cruz Geek House [geek.org] The House.
The Circus page links to the organization's leadership [circus.com], who were many of the various people who helped elaborate on it (about half of it is original to Eric and Lars prior to anyone else contributing).
The joke is now roughly old enough to get a drivers license in California.
One of the problems is that this has circulated so widely without attribution that people tend to believe that it has no copyright or attributable origin. But that's not true; Eric and Lars came up with the idea. They're the ones that sat up on campus at UC Santa Cruz handing out fliers with the info on it, to see how people reacted.
-george william herbert
Treasurer, Coalition to Ban DHMO
Re:Why does this surprise me it is in California? (Score:3, Informative)
I'd recommend strongly against doing this experiment. A lit match (or just about anything else hot) will burn explosively in one atmosphere of pure oxygen. Metals will burn in an oxygen atmosphere. You'll be lucky to get your hand back if you try what the parent post suggests.
That said, if you do manage to remove the fuel (match, whatever) from the oxygen jet, you'll find that the match will continue to burn but there will be no flame from the oxygen.
Oxygen doesn't burn. It is the oxidizer which when combined with a fuel allows combustion to take place.
Is there anybody in our audience who does oxy-acetylene welding, or is a professional glassblower? In both professions, you supply a torch with both a fuel gas and oxygen. Turn on both gas valves; spark to ignite. You get a nice hot flame. You can cut metal and melt glass.
If you turn off the fuel gas, the flame goes out. No burning takes place. You get a nice, cool jet of oxygen. End of story. Energy doesn't come from nowhere--if the parent post can tell me what material in air the oxygen gas is supposed to be reacting with to generate heat and flame, I'll be pleased to retract my statement.
By the way, IIAC (I Am A Chemist).
Its funny to me that if you replaced all the Oxygens in this statement with another gas, say Hydrogen, and preformed the same experiment, you wouldn't have seen the complaints.
That's because hydrogen burns. If you had made the same claims about helium, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or argon, we'd still be arguing with you.
Dihydrogen Oxide can be dangerous! (Score:2, Informative)
Primary Route of Exposure
Eye X Skin X Inhalation X Ingestion
Effects of Overexposure
Acute:
Inhalation: Vapors or mist, in excess of permissible concentrations, or in unusually high concentrations generated from spraying, heating the material or as from exposure in poorly ventilated areas or confined spaces, may cause irritation of the nose and throat, headache, nausea, and drowsiness.
Skin: May cause irritation with discomfort, and seen as local redness and possible swelling.
Prolonged contact may cause more severe irritation and discomfort.
Other than the potential skin irritation effects noted above, acute (short term) adverse effects
are not expected from brief skin contact; see other effects, below, and Section 11 for
Eyes: May cause irritation, experienced as discomfort or pain, and seen as excess redness and
swelling of the eye, and possible injury to the cornea.
Ingestion: If more than several mouthfuls are swallowed, abdominal discomfort, nausea, and diarrhea may occur. Aspiration may occur during swallowing or vomiting resulting in lung damage.
May cause irritation with discomfort, and seen as local redness and possible swelling.
Scary!
(see http://www.msdsonline.com)
Sunscreen (Score:2, Informative)
Live in "New York City" once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in "Northern California" once, but leave before it makes you soft.
I also liked this part:
Accept certain inalienable truths:
Prices will rise.
Politicians will philander.
You, too, will get old.
And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young,
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble,
and children respected their elders.