How poisonous is cigarette smoke?

Watch this interesting television commercial from Cancer Research UK,
which talks about the toxicity of cigarette smoke.

http://cancernewsnetwork.blogspot.co...tte-smoke.html

Dnia 2007-02-25 sylvester napisa³(a):
> Watch this interesting television commercial from Cancer Research UK,
> which talks about the toxicity of cigarette smoke.
>
> http://cancernewsnetwork.blogspot.co...tte-smoke.html

Nonsense. Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
a long time. Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of
this thing spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room
and you are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once
how they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of course)
was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a smoker too, of
course.

Of course it may look way different in countries where people have a
habit of suing each other. Not because dangers of cancer are higher,
though.

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Andrzej Rosa wrote:

> Dnia 2007-02-25 sylvester napisa?(a):
>> Watch this interesting television commercial from Cancer Research UK,
>> which talks about the toxicity of cigarette smoke.
>>
>> http://cancernewsnetwork.blogspot.co...tte-smoke.html
>
> Nonsense. Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
> a long time. Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of
> this thing spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room
> and you are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once
> how they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
> According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of course)
> was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a smoker too, of
> course.

I had a former chem teacher who told stories of his generation playing
with Quicksilver. He specifically mentioned his fascination with putting
it in his mouth.

Dnia 2007-02-25 Sir Jackery napisa³(a):
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Andrzej Rosa wrote:
>
>> Dnia 2007-02-25 sylvester napisa?(a):
>>> Watch this interesting television commercial from Cancer Research UK,
>>> which talks about the toxicity of cigarette smoke.
>>>
>>> http://cancernewsnetwork.blogspot.co...tte-smoke.html
>>
>> Nonsense. Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
>> a long time. Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of
>> this thing spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room
>> and you are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once
>> how they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
>> According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of course)
>> was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a smoker too, of
>> course.
>
> I had a former chem teacher who told stories of his generation playing
> with Quicksilver. He specifically mentioned his fascination with putting
> it in his mouth.

If they did it often, then it was dangerous. Details like that
(cumulative exposure and concentration) make a difference between
something harmless and potentially harmful. Paracelsus figured it out
some time ago.

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

Andrzej Rosa <bakters@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
> a long time.

Not so. The short of the story is this. Acute benzene intake (in
rodents) through inhalation or orally has been known to cause
cancers. But the long term low dosage exposure wasn't as
effective. So, someone noticed that benzene retards cell division in
bone marrow where those cancers originate primarily. But this has the
effect of slowing down the cancer development. As expected, later
experiments with the pulse exposure showed increase in cancer rates.

Because of the cell division inhibition property, benzene was briefly
tried as a drug for leukemia at the beginning of the 20th century. It
didn't take long to see that people were dying much quicker than
expected.

> Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of this thing
> spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room and you
> are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once how
> they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
> According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of
> course) was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a
> smoker too, of course.

We used to work with such alcohol (benzene was used there to suck out
all water from ethanol to make permanent cytological samples) before I
abandoned experimental biology. Nobody would touch that stuff, even
though Soviet scientists and also non-scientific staff of academic
institutes would drink industrial grade alcohol without thinking
twice. Ethanol marked "for lab usage" used to be a sort of currency,
like for example if you needed to fix plumbing in the lab, or ask
professional divers to catch some sea animals on a stormy day. Your
chemistry professor didn't know what she's doing.

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007, DZ wrote:

> Andrzej Rosa <bakters@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
>> a long time.
>
> Not so. The short of the story is this. Acute benzene intake (in
> rodents) through inhalation or orally has been known to cause
> cancers. But the long term low dosage exposure wasn't as
> effective. So, someone noticed that benzene retards cell division in
> bone marrow where those cancers originate primarily. But this has the
> effect of slowing down the cancer development. As expected, later
> experiments with the pulse exposure showed increase in cancer rates.
>
> Because of the cell division inhibition property, benzene was briefly
> tried as a drug for leukemia at the beginning of the 20th century. It
> didn't take long to see that people were dying much quicker than
> expected.
>
>> Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of this thing
>> spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room and you
>> are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once how
>> they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
>> According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of
>> course) was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a
>> smoker too, of course.
>
> We used to work with such alcohol (benzene was used there to suck out
> all water from ethanol to make permanent cytological samples) before I
> abandoned experimental biology. Nobody would touch that stuff, even
> though Soviet scientists and also non-scientific staff of academic
> institutes would drink industrial grade alcohol without thinking
> twice. Ethanol marked "for lab usage" used to be a sort of currency,
> like for example if you needed to fix plumbing in the lab, or ask
> professional divers to catch some sea animals on a stormy day. Your
> chemistry professor didn't know what she's doing.

You're talking about alcohol that hasn't been denatured. Don't drink
denatured alcohol or any methylated spirits!!! Most ethanol in labs (by
volume) is methylated or contains some sort of chemical that denatures it.
Trace amounts of benzene in reagent ACS aren't going to cause problems but
5% methanol in USP will really fuck you up.


--Sir Jackery

Sir Jackery <roehrig@cs.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> DZ wrote:
>> We used to work with such alcohol (benzene was used there to suck out
>> all water from ethanol to make permanent cytological samples) before I
>> abandoned experimental biology. Nobody would touch that stuff, even
>> though Soviet scientists and also non-scientific staff of academic
>> institutes would drink industrial grade alcohol without thinking
>> twice. Ethanol marked "for lab usage" used to be a sort of currency,
>> like for example if you needed to fix plumbing in the lab, or ask
>> professional divers to catch some sea animals on a stormy day. Your
>> chemistry professor didn't know what she's doing.
>
> You're talking about alcohol that hasn't been denatured. Don't drink
> denatured alcohol or any methylated spirits!!! Most ethanol in labs
> (by volume) is methylated or contains some sort of chemical that
> denatures it.

Be assured that the Soviet ethanol produced "for lab usage" had no
methanol in it, or anything truly harmful - precisely for the reason
that most of it was EXPECTED to be consumed. In any case, this
practice was discontinued at the end of Cold War, and if that is not
enough, then I would have to declare that I personally don't drink
alcohol in any form whatsoever. I remember an incident however, when a
bunch of geneticists at a marine station went inside the lab to pick
up a bottle of ethanol from the shelf. That took place at night, after
some prior overindulgence. The proposed toast was "for beautiful
women", which all men are supposed to drink up standing, all in a
single gulp. As became clear only after the fact, the stuff turned out
to be one of those fatty alcohols - I think it was octanol. As the
theory goes, in cases like that, one should slow down the formation of
non-acetic aldehydes by consumption of legit ethanol for which the ADH
enzyme has a higher substrate specificity. So, the company went to the
shore, vomited into the sea of Japan, and then had plenty of vodka -
to prevent any possible poisoning. Nobody died that night.

Sir Jackery <roehrig@cs.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> Most ethanol in labs (by volume) is methylated or contains some sort
> of chemical that denatures it. Trace amounts of benzene in reagent
> ACS aren't going to cause problems but 5% methanol in USP will
> really fuck you up.

BTW, there is no methanol in USP alcohol -

"Pure Alcohol (Ethanol) is also commonly referred to as USP
Alcohol. That is because only pure, undenatured Ethanol can be
certified as the "grade" USP/NF (United States Pharmacopeia - National
Formulary)." - www.pharmco-prod.com/pages/ep1.pdf

Dnia 2007-02-27 DZ napisa³(a):
> Andrzej Rosa <bakters@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
>> a long time.
>
> Not so. The short of the story is this. Acute benzene intake (in
> rodents) through inhalation or orally has been known to cause
> cancers. But the long term low dosage exposure wasn't as
> effective.

So you tell me that this commercial made absolutely no sense
whatsoever?

[...]
> We used to work with such alcohol (benzene was used there to suck out
> all water from ethanol to make permanent cytological samples) before I
> abandoned experimental biology.

Same stuff.

> Nobody would touch that stuff, even
> though Soviet scientists and also non-scientific staff of academic
> institutes would drink industrial grade alcohol without thinking
> twice. Ethanol marked "for lab usage" used to be a sort of currency,
> like for example if you needed to fix plumbing in the lab, or ask
> professional divers to catch some sea animals on a stormy day. Your
> chemistry professor didn't know what she's doing.

It looks like. I assume that she used sort of standard reasoning,
which pretty much regarded anything carcinogenic as harmless. I know I
did. ;-)

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

Dnia 2007-02-27 DZ napisa³(a):
> Sir Jackery <roehrig@cs.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>> DZ wrote:
>>> We used to work with such alcohol (benzene was used there to suck out
>>> all water from ethanol to make permanent cytological samples) before I
>>> abandoned experimental biology. Nobody would touch that stuff, even
>>> though Soviet scientists and also non-scientific staff of academic
>>> institutes would drink industrial grade alcohol without thinking
>>> twice. Ethanol marked "for lab usage" used to be a sort of currency,
>>> like for example if you needed to fix plumbing in the lab, or ask
>>> professional divers to catch some sea animals on a stormy day. Your
>>> chemistry professor didn't know what she's doing.
>>
>> You're talking about alcohol that hasn't been denatured. Don't drink
>> denatured alcohol or any methylated spirits!!! Most ethanol in labs
>> (by volume) is methylated or contains some sort of chemical that
>> denatures it.
>
> Be assured that the Soviet ethanol produced "for lab usage" had no
> methanol in it, or anything truly harmful - precisely for the reason
> that most of it was EXPECTED to be consumed.

Weren't they making some experiments with it too? I know we did, and
some random admixture would easily spoil some of them. Anyway, we have
here two cheap sources of alcohol, which are supposedly poisonous, with
Jolly Roger and all the warnings, but only a limited amount of smelly
stuff added to it, to make it stink more than normal. Who knows, but
in reality it may be safer than some commercial or semi commercial
black market alcohol. Bums drink it quite often.

> In any case, this
> practice was discontinued at the end of Cold War, and if that is not
> enough, then I would have to declare that I personally don't drink
> alcohol in any form whatsoever. I remember an incident however, when a
> bunch of geneticists at a marine station went inside the lab to pick
> up a bottle of ethanol from the shelf. That took place at night, after
> some prior overindulgence. The proposed toast was "for beautiful
> women", which all men are supposed to drink up standing, all in a
> single gulp. As became clear only after the fact, the stuff turned out
> to be one of those fatty alcohols - I think it was octanol. As the
> theory goes, in cases like that, one should slow down the formation of
> non-acetic aldehydes by consumption of legit ethanol for which the ADH
> enzyme has a higher substrate specificity. So, the company went to the
> shore, vomited into the sea of Japan, and then had plenty of vodka -
> to prevent any possible poisoning. Nobody died that night.

Here guys used similar reasoning when Chernobyl went boom, I heard.
Some of them actually knew that only small amounts actually help, but
why spoil the fun? ;-)

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

In article <Pine.LNX.4.64.0702250837180.20028@pc30.cs.ucdavis .edu>, Sir
Jackery <roehrig@cs.ucdavis.edu> wrote:

> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Andrzej Rosa wrote:
>
> > Dnia 2007-02-25 sylvester napisa?(a):
> >> Watch this interesting television commercial from Cancer Research UK,
> >> which talks about the toxicity of cigarette smoke.
> >>
> >>
http://cancernewsnetwork.blogspot.co...tte-smoke.html
> >
> > Nonsense. Benzene is dangerous if you are exposed to it constantly for
> > a long time. Can't imagine evacuating a building due to a bottle of
> > this thing spilled on the floor. Simply wash it and ventilate a room
> > and you are done. A female professor of chemistry I knew told us once
> > how they used to drink an alcohol purified by benzene distillation.
> > According to her, only side effects (besides getting drunk, of course)
> > was annoying burping with benzene aftertaste. She was a smoker too, of
> > course.
>
> I had a former chem teacher who told stories of his generation playing
> with Quicksilver.

I used to play with it myself as a kid, though i didnt put it in my mouth.

--
Will @ www.BrinkZone.com

"It twas ever thus " - Mr Natural

In news:willbrink-2802071715150001@192.168.2.156,
Will Brink <willbrink@comcast.net> typed:
>
> I used to play with it myself as a kid, though i didnt put it in my
> mouth.

Nice thought; thanks.

--
Bully
Protein bars: http://www.proteinbars.co.uk

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees
the opportunity in every difficulty." Sir Winston Churchill