this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 153 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Imagine using something dangerous to generate power or heat for a home. Something that if it leaks into your home could suffocate you overnight or explode, or that in normal use can give children respiratory issues or cause cancer. Thank goodness we're too smart to use something like that unlike the absolute imbeciles in this comic

[–] NotBillMurray@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Not only that, but mining for it produces massive quantities of dangerous runoff and radioactive waste. Good thing coal doesn't do that!

[–] CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I have absolutely no idea how to find reference to this at this point because every search I do results in absolute bullshit that’s not related (like apparently the most liquid currency is the diarrhea coin… a problem that didn’t exist a few years ago..), but I recall reading about a practice from like the medieval era or something where special coins were made that contained heavy metals, and when consumed, would induce diarrhea. They would be retrieved, washed, and reused, and even passed down in families.

Today we know how bad of an idea something like that is, but then, like with radiation, it was all ghosts in the blood causing problems. Shitting blood was normalized.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Not a coin, and not medieval. The search term is "antimony pill".

[–] CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social 3 points 5 hours ago

Thank you! I was having such a struggle with it! That’s exactly what I was thinking of!

[–] lengau@midwest.social 61 points 12 hours ago

Imagine if we had to move it around in such large quantities that there were thousands of kilometres of unwatched pipelines just out there, potentially leaking.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 55 points 13 hours ago

And imagine people fight pointless wars over resources instead of using the renewables that are available for free.