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Maybe stick to the stuff that comes out of the tap. (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] buycurious@lemmy.world 128 points 1 year ago

Reminds me on this chemist joke:

A man brought his chemist friend to the bar for a drink with the other friends. When asked what he wanted, the chemist decided that since she's the designated driver, she'll order water. "I'll have some H20, please!" the chemist said, with the man replying "I'll have some H20 too!"

The man died of ingesting hydrogen peroxide.

[-] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 113 points 1 year ago

And the joke's alternative anti joke punchline:

The bartender served them both water, because he fully understands everyday human interaction and translated the request as intended.

[-] SkyeStarfall 15 points 1 year ago

Well, for as much as you use the chemical formula for water in your everyday human interactions, anyway

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

The bartender didn't mind, since he has a sense of humor and understood he worked in an entertainment facility where people derive fun from saying and doing goofy things with friends and acquaintances, and this isn't even be the weirdest thing he has heard a patron say this week.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

"Your mom is so fat, when she sits around the house ... she's morbidly obese."

[-] Catoblepas 51 points 1 year ago

Little Billy was a chemist

Little Billy is no more

For what he thought was H2O

Was H2SO4

[-] mustardman@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 year ago

I've heard it as:

Little Billy took a drink, of which he'll drink no more.

For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

For better meter: Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more / What Johnny thought was H2O you get the idea.

[-] lunarul@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

"I'll have some H20, please!" the chemist said

To which the bartender replied "I'm sorry, but we don't have icosatomic hydrogen"

[-] DharmaCurious@startrek.website 27 points 1 year ago

I love the sequel to that one, too. Same set up. ... The first man orders H20 The second man says "why would you say that? It's incredibly pretentious, and you look like a jerk. Just order water." The first man frowns and sulks because his murder plot has been foiled.

[-] affiliate@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

is it called hydrogen peroxide because there’s one hydrogen per oxide?

[-] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 17 points 1 year ago

It's actually because "per" is used to denote the maximum "proportion" of an element. Compare "oxide", which is just one oxygen. "per-" is also used in chemistry in the sense of the Latin prefix "per-", which attaches to adjectives and verbs and such to convey the sense of "very" or "all the way". For example, sometimes we refer to molecules as being "perdeuterated" when all hydrogen atoms have been replaced with the heavy isotope deuterium.

[-] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxide

[-] protist@mander.xyz 69 points 1 year ago

For those interested in learning about uranium peroxide: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Uranium-peroxide

[-] Jajcus@kbin.social 32 points 1 year ago

Suprisingly mild and not very reactive. And I wondered if this even exists.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

Uranium - it makes things safer!

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

it is a confirmed human carcinogen.

See, that's the good stuff

[-] ArtisinalBS@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Oh my god I didn't think it was an actual molecule...

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

Sweet, a yellow cake dispenser! It's strangely difficult to acquire

[-] Knusper@feddit.de 27 points 1 year ago

Don't want to drink pure H₂O either...

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

I mean, unless I'm missing something it should be fine as long as you get salts another way.

[-] notacat@mander.xyz 13 points 1 year ago

Correct. I have no idea why people are freaking out over drinking water. We constantly eat and drink things that have wildly different osmolarity than our cells and yet here we still are. Our stomach and intestinal mucosa cells are not going to burst if we accidentally drink a milkshake (a hyperosmotic solution).

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

From what I can tell, they were told about osmosis and did not understand the actual volume of water involved in the quirky example of extremeness.

[-] Knusper@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Going to link the comment of @ParsnipWitch@feddit.de, as that's a better explanation than I could have provided: https://feddit.de/comment/2620197

@can@sh.itjust.works

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

So exactly what I said. Balance it with other salts and you're fine. Most water doesn't have enough salts to balance your system anyway, that's called saline, and you would notice if you drank it.

Pure water is fine and will have no significant difference to any given generally safe tap water.

[-] Knusper@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

The relevant part is that distilled water + osmosis makes cells burst. So, we're talking about tiny injuries, not just some mineral inbalance.

As far as I understand, once it's in your stomach, it'll get dilluted and then it really is just water with too few minerals. But on the way into your stomach, it can cause damage.

We likely don't have scientific data on how much/frequently you'd have to drink it for the body to not counter-heal enough. But yeah, just don't drink distilled water.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

OK let's break this down.

Distilled water will not in fact do any of this at a tiny l level. For one, again, the difference between distilled water and tap water in terms of osmolarity is actually pretty much insignificant.

For two, your mouth, and esophagus have mucus linings making this entirely moot as far as water is concerned.

For three, distilled water is far and away the least stressful thing your body ever deals with, eating something even moderately salty is far far more "dangerous" to your cells than drinking distilled water. Ever eat a potato chip?

Third, your cells actively resist osmotic pressure changes as necessary. You have to go pretty hard and actually change the salinity of your blood to have any noticeable effects.

Fourth, your cells are actively being replenished with good salinity blood.

Fifth, we are very insensitive to salinity changes in our blood. Blood salinity shifts quite a bit and regularly throughout the day.

Sixth, a benefit of being a multicellular organism is that we don't care much about any individual cell. Your mouth cells die and are replenished nearly the fastest of any set of tissue in the body. Your mouth in general is very much built to handle all sorts of harsh conditions. Chemically distilled water is nothing. I guarantee you 100% that if you drank distilled water every day for your entire life, and made sure to eat a normal diet which was not extremely low in salts, you would be fine.

Let's discuss non multicellular organisms for a moment as well: the salinity of fresh water is very low. That's the point of distinguishing it. Plenty of organisms live just fine in it. If you drank those organisms, many of them could also get you sick, as in live inside you, a pool of water with much higher salinity. Cells have ways to maintain homeostasis and respond to their environment. That's literally what they do.

No I don't think there is research on this specific subject. Are you starting to see why there isn't much worry on microdosing distilled water?

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

No? What would it be like?

[-] Chais@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Probably tasting remarkably bland and would likely mess with your electrolyte and mineral levels.

[-] Yoryo@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Isn't it just distilled water?

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Like in the other comments, you can drink distilled water as long as you only drink a "normal amount".

It's still an interesting thing to know, that you actually starve when drinking large quantities of distilled water (well, in theory since you have other stuff in your body that enriches the water with minerals anyway).

Through osmosis the cells on your mucosae will try to equalise the mineral content between the water and themselves. But since distilled water has no minerals they will take in so much water that they burst.

If you would drink liters and liters of distilled water, the cells responsible for taking in minerals will all be gone and you starve long-term.

Short-term you die from organ failure anyway, with your body desperately trying to keep in the minerals. This is the same as the good old water intoxication. Just that you reach that threshold faster with distilled water.

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

I have such a hard time believing the absence of trace minerals in distilled water is dangerous as to be deadly.

And I'm not talking that bullshit drank 5gallons thru a funnel than took a bath in it outlier, that is entirely unhelpful.

A normal person drinking 2 liters of distilled water is going to have no serious effect from it. A forkful of spinach has more of those trace minerals than 55gallons of water.

Imma go ahead and put this in the file with alkaline water and Japanese H²O that got its feelings hurt.

[-] JoYo@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

it causes cells to burst.

if you have extra cells for bursting then you'll be fine.

[-] notacat@mander.xyz 4 points 1 year ago

Yes that is why saline is used to as an IV fluid instead of water. But if you’re not injecting it straight into your blood stream, the osmolarity of the liquid does not matter so drinking distilled water is completely fine.

[-] Knusper@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

My biology teacher told me the same...

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[-] DasRundeEtwas@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago

it basically is, although most distilled water does contain a small amount of contaminants, so it would likely not count as cemically pure.

as for drinking it: i've found this article, according to which you shouldnt expect health problems, provided you eat a healthy diet. As most minerals we consume come from our food, not the water.

then again it supposedly tastes bland, is more expensive than tap water (provided your tap water is safely drinkable) and why even take the risk?

[-] Bonehead@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

then again it supposedly tastes bland, is more expensive than tap water (provided your tap water is safely drinkable) and why even take the risk?

Coffee.

Do you find that your coffee maker gets slow over time as it gets clogged with calcium buildup? The you have to run vinager through it and stink up the house to clean it? Use distilled water, and it won't do that anymore. As long as your entire liquid intake and majority of your calorie intake doesn't consist solely of coffee, it won't cause health problems either. You can even put a pinch of salt into the coffee basket to replace some electrolytes and make the coffee taste more like coffee.

[-] xionzui@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Distilled water is not ideal for coffee. You want some buffer in the water to balance the acidity, and you want some hardness in the form of magnesium or calcium to assist in extraction and provide some flavor. A little sodium can also improve the flavor

[-] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

"Purified water is water that has been mechanically filtered or processed to remove impurities and make it suitable for use. Distilled water was, formerly, the most common form of purified water, but, in recent years, water is more frequently purified by other processes including capacitive deionization, reverse osmosis, carbon filtering, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ultraviolet oxidation, or electrodeionization. Combinations of a number of these processes have come into use to produce ultrapure water of such high purity that its trace contaminants are measured in parts per billion (ppb) or parts per trillion (ppt). "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purified_water

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[-] siipale@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

I have drunk a cup of ultra pure water. Taste wasn't very different from tap water. I have no idea if it messed with my electrolyte levels much but seemed to be safe to drink.

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[-] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pfff U(IV)? More like U's a little bitch that can't add that weeny little O-O single bond. The only oxyuranium species worthy of entering my body are stripped of all valence electrons. Good ol peruranic acid, U(O)2(OH)2, that's the real quencher!