this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 74 points 6 days ago (2 children)

If we could consume uranium, you could have a teaspoon's worth and be done with eating for the rest of your life.

[–] [email protected] 147 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think that's technically true regardless.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I wonder if that's actually factual or not. Uranium by itself isn't too terribly dangerous. It's the whole fission byproducts thing that's the buzz kill.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)

You would get heavy metal poisoning, same as if you ate a chunk of lead

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Interestingly, no. It's not the same as if you ate a chunk of lead.

Lead binds to calcium channels, and then blocks them. This makes it a bit of a neurotoxin. It also accumulates in the bones.

Uranium on the other hand is one of the heavy metals that the body is good a filtering out of the blood. The body is not as good at expelling the uranium. It accumulates in the kidney. This can lead to kidney disease, and other related issues. And that's just the chemical toxicity of Uranium. Add in the radioactive side of things, and you have a truly distinct form of metal poisoning.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Also it depends on the isotope of uranium. Something you could find naturally isn't too dangerous, but something enriched too be used as fuel or for wepons is significantly more radioactive.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Radioactivity inside your body is very bad bad

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Lies that Big Non-Irradiated food is trying to spread. Uranium is actually nummy. Why do you think it's called "Yellow Cake" anyway?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I have a uranium rock which I could conceivably swallow - probably closer to a tablespoon than a teaspoon. I don’t think any process in my body could extract energy from it.

Alpha radiation is not too bad. Unshielded helium particles. Like I tell anyone I show my rock too - as long as you don’t eat it, this is safe. (I am a mad scientist who has exposed hundreds if not thousands of children to uranium lol)

Really, if you could extract the energy from the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, you’d never have to eat again. But also because that’s too much energy for you and you would be dead.