dblum
Posts by this author
April 24, 2010
The chemical symbol for the metallic element gold is Au, taken from the Latin word aurum meaning 'shining dawn'. In the Periodic Table of Elements it occupies a companionable neighborhood of other metals, tucked neatly between platinum (Pt) and mercury (Hg).
But as origin of its chemical symbol…
April 23, 2010
In 16th century France, there lived a king with a beautiful and somewhat mysterious mistress. Diane de Poitiers was almost 20 years older than Henri II but she looked like one of his contemporaries. She had skin of a near porcelain white and auburn hair as fine as silk thread.
Famed for her…
April 21, 2010
In an earlier post, I wrote about the possible copper poisoning of the great British poet and artist William Blake. The very simple lesson inherent in that story is that a strong dose of metals on a regular basis is generally bad for a person's health.
But one could argue that this is too simple a…
April 17, 2010
Last week, the U.S. Army announced that its excavation old chemical munitions dump - unfortunately located in one of Washington D.C.'s more elegant neighborhoods - had turned up remnants of two of the ugliest weapons developed in World War I.
By which I mean compounds used in the production of…
April 16, 2010
In the forensic laboratories of the 1920s, a chemist checking for poison could make a beaker glow with the brilliance of a gemstone. Color tests, as they were called, derived from the fact that many toxic materials turn a specific hue if exposed to the right mixture of heat, cold, acid and base.…
April 12, 2010
Recently, at events for my book, I sometimes find myself describing the gas carbon monoxide as a favorite poison. "It's just so efficient," I'll joke. "And I like things that work."
In an academic sense, I do respectfully admire carbon monoxide's simplicity (a carbon atom + an oxygen atom) and the…
April 9, 2010
The old mining term for explosive gases in coal mines is "firedamp". It seems illogical - I mean, a damp fire? - until you realize that it comes from the German word "dampf" for vapors.
There are other "damps" in mining terminology - "afterdamp", for instance, refers to the poisonous gas carbon…
April 8, 2010
Almost 200 years ago, methane gas ignited in a coal mine in England, setting off an explosion that killed 92 miners. These were not miners as we think of them today - in the pre-child-labor-law world almost half were children, as young as eight years old.
So that one can make an argument -…
April 2, 2010
A few days ago, I wrote about the lessons I'd learned while a young journalist in North Georgia on how to safely drink illegal alcohol (Moonshine Days). Probably because I had moonshine on my mind, I ended sharing stories about it with family and friends during a recent visit to the state.
Just to…
March 30, 2010
A couple days ago, I wrote a post (Tyger, Tyger, Copper, Copper) about the theory that the late, great British poet William Blake (1757-1827) and been killed by copper poisoning due to years of acid-etching copper plates as a print maker.
One chemist promptly wrote to raise the possibility that it…
March 27, 2010
My first job out of college, I was a police reporter for a small newspaper in North Georgia, situated in rolling foothills of the southern Appalachian mountains. Moonshine country, in fact.
I was hardly a month on the job when agents at the local office of the federal government's Alcohol, Tobacco…
March 25, 2010
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake, the brilliant British poet, published "The Tyger" in 1794 and it's always been one of my favorite poems. I studied him during a brief period when I thought I might…
March 17, 2010
I find it ironic - okay, I find it slightly hilarious - that the house plant which results in the most calls to poison control centers is called the Peace Lily.
Next on the list is Pokeweed - which people have a bad habit of mistaking for other edible wild plants - followed by two holiday favorites…
March 15, 2010
Let me begin with a confession: until I researched and wrote a book about poisons, The Poisoner's Handbook, I never paid too much attention to National Poison Prevention Week.
Like most of us, I was just too comfortable with our chemical culture, the toxic compounds that we use daily to clean our…
March 14, 2010
I couldn't resist this wonderfully explosive video on YouTube showing the unfortunate end of a red gummy bear when mixed with potassium perchlorate.
I do love to watch a good hissing, sparking chemical reaction. Especially when it's not me doing the sparking (see earlier blog on the art of setting…
March 13, 2010
When I was eight years old, my sister and I discovered that a small tree in our Louisiana backyard was dropping some thickly shelled nuts into the grass. We loved eating fallen nuts; an enormous pecan tree carpeted the front yard with them every summer. But these were different - rounder and…
March 10, 2010
After I wrote my last blog post on mercury, readers wrote to ask about the old-time antiseptic Mercurochrome which - as you might imagine - was named for the poisonous traces of mercury mixed into it.
One man wondered about childhood toxic exposure. Another noted that her mother still liked to tell…
March 9, 2010
Elemental mercury is a slippery substance.
In the earth's crust, it anchors itself by bonding with other elements, creating materials like the rough coppery rock cinnabar, a crystalline combination of mercury and sulfur. Once cinnabar, or other metallic ores, are mined and crushed, mercury can be…
March 3, 2010
A little over a week ago, I wrote a story for Slate called The Chemists' War. It was based on information I'd uncovered for my book, The Poisoner's Handbook, and it detailed a forgotten program of the U.S. government to poison alcohol supplies during the 1920s.
The poisoning program was an…
February 26, 2010
Cyanides are old poisons, with a uniquely long, dark history, probably because they grow so bountifully around us.
They flavor the leaves of the yew tree, flowers of the cherry laurel, the kernels of peach and apricot pits, the fat pale crunch of bitter almonds. They ooze in secretions of insects…
February 21, 2010
I've just started my book tour for The Poisoner's Handbook and people seem to be wondering why I (a friendly mother-of-two) am so fascinated by poisons. I admit to a fascination with murder mysteries (count on me later in this blog to write about Agatha Christie). I share my affection for…
February 17, 2010
One of the most repeated rules in toxicology is this: the dose makes the poison.
In other words, a milligram of arsenic is unlikely to kill you. Make that 200 milligrams and a cemetery plot awaits. Seems obvious, right? But what if we're talking about a benign substance - say a drink of cold water…
February 15, 2010
A story in today's Salt Lake City Tribune carries this rather obscure headline: "Poison Death Rate is High." What poison, what death rate, you wonder? Where?
And the story deserved better than that because what it says is that residents of Utah die from poisons at twice the rate of people living…
February 14, 2010
Last week, The Poisoner's Handbook got a great, pre-publication review in one of my favorite magazines, New Scientist. I was thrilled - and relieved. Hard to say which came first. The week before publication - the book's official date is Feb. 22 - always makes me a little crazy.
But much as I…
February 12, 2010
The poison, according to Greek mythology, could be traced to the gates of hell. It dripped from the jaws of Cerberus, the hulking three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld.
For centuries, it's carried the taint of dark magic. The ancient Greeks called it the Queen of Poisons,…
February 10, 2010
The Poisoner's Handbook, is out next week and in a recent interview I found myself trying to explain why I'm now writing about poison and murder when my last book was about supernatural research and the one before that about the biology of love and affection.
I know, it sounds like I have a short…
February 7, 2010
Just before this weekend's stunning snow storm arrived in the Mid-Atlantic, poison control centers started issuing chirps of alarm.
I thought of them as chirps - something like the peeping alarm calls of small birds - because they sounded so faint against the other looming worries -…
February 6, 2010
When I bought my poison ring (I think I mentioned earlier that I do own one), I was browsing around at an antique show. While I stood admiring an ornately chased Victorian ring, the dealer came over smiling. "What makes that one so good," she said, "is that it's a poison ring."
Good is, perhaps,…
February 5, 2010
So one summer evening in 2008, a Maryland family sits down to a dinner of home-made beef stew flavored with mint from the backyard and, oh yeah, some other plant growing in the leafy borders by the fence. It looks like this:An hour after dinner, another relative shows up to find the members of the…
February 3, 2010
Browsing through the most recent annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, I began to worry that my choice of reading material is becoming too dark. Didn't I used to relax with novels instead of lists of household materials used in suicides?
My husband is sitting across…