“The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Bought ’em anyway. Ground ’em up, mixed em into a gel. And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill. Still, it turns out they’re a great portal conductor. So now we’re gonna see if jumping in and out of these new portals can somehow leech the lunar poison out of a man’s bloodstream."
Moon Dust
Submitted 3 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/ea729214-800f-4325-946e-28c68fe6389a.jpeg
Comments
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
MossyFeathers@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
What I want to know is: how the fuck did he have an allergy to it in the first place?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
IMO (not a scientist), moon dust is basically pulverized glass, only without the benefits of weathering and erosion. So think of lots of microscopic sharp, abrasive, shards of finely pulverized volcanic rock and obsidian. Get that stuff anywhere near a mucous membrane - eyes, nose, mouth, throat - and it’s going to irritate you. At the same time, it’s pretty much intert; well, at least the parts that don’t instantly react to oxygen or humidity that is. My guess is that Schmidt is just a little more sensitive to it, or perhaps he rubbed his eyes with a glove by accident.
And for the uninitiated, it’s well documented that everyone in the lander was physically exposed to moon dust. There was no airlock on the lander, so every excursion resulted in bringing whatever was on the suits right into the cabin. They reported that it “smelled” like burned gunpowder, so they were at least all inhaling the stuff.
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
I think moon dust doesn’t qualify as an allergen because breathing sharp glass dust is not something people are supposed to do without harm. IIRC ithings that are intrinsically irritant, like smoke or pepper, don’t qualify as allergens.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I don’t know how you think allergies work but if it was actually an allergic reaction it probably went something like immune system encounters a foreign never seen before substance and overreacts. Alternatively he was just the unlucky guy who didn’t clean his suit enough and breathed in more of it than the others.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Shit happens.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
“The bean counters said we could literally not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Did it anyway! Ground 'em up, mixed 'em into a gel. And guess what? Ground-up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill.”
TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Turns out he’s also a climate change denier.
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Obviously the moon dust, which was adulterated by aliens specifically for this purpose, did that to him
WhiteHotaru@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Relevant study. tl;dr Earth is more toxic: www.sciencedirect.com/…/S2214552425000252?via=ihu…
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
But less shard dust.
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
…that’s either a one-in-a-million chance or a VERY common allergy
Or anywhere in between
bampop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
or less likely than one-in-a-million
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Or more likely than 1 in 12
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Far as i know it was overdose, because the sharp dust shards (because no erosion) got in the suit and the module, and not allergic?
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
isn’t this like saying some people are allergic to asbestos?
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What if the moon is haunted and he’s allergic to ghosts
dwindling7373@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
That’s funny and all but if it happened 1 in 12 the chances that it’s very common are orders of magnited higher than it being super rare DUH
bss03@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
It’s a very non-reprrsentative, very small sample. The error bars in the statistical inference to the whole population includes both “very common” and “one-in-a-million”.
senkora@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Assuming a representative sample, the best point estimate is 1/12 (8.33%), and the 95% confidence test interval is 0.21% to 39%.
Longer explanation here: lemmy.zip/comment/19753854
dwindling7373@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
What do the bar represent in 3d space?
What do they represent in 3d space?!? (aggressiveduck.jpg)
Gaussian distributions.
9point6@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Image
brown567@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
ifunny watermarks on memes are like sprinkles on sugar cookies
I don’t prefer them, I’d never go out of my way to add them, and I prefer their absence just barely enough that I’d pick one without over one with
That being said, I’d also never complain about it being there XD