We really need to know what the molecular nature of mercury is in fish. If we want to know whether we’re going to be worried about it or not. There is no good just knowing there is methyl mercury something in it, it\u2019s very important to know methyl mercury what. These are the only actual spectral data that I\u2019m going to show you and I\u2019m showing them to you just to give you a flavour of what we look at day in, day out. the little dots here you can see the best perhaps here and here\u00a0 show what I call a spectrum\u00a0 and what\u2019s important\u00a0 are the little\u00a0 wiggles and\u00a0 bumps on where there are\u00a0 and they’re matched against a solid line\u00a0 which \u00a0are like standard\u00a0 compounds . What age do, the simplest piece of analyse that we do, by no means the only kind is to finger print them. We look at our x-ray absorption spectrum and we match them against a large number, maybe 30, maybe more of reference compounds that are synthetic, chemically characterised small molecules that we really know the structure of already. You can see the top one matches.\u00a0 Here\u2019s that methyl mercury fragment and it\u2019s revealed to us what the rest is. We now know that mercury in fish is a methyl mercury Sistine species. Among all the possibilities we can underline this one and say this is what it is and this was published in science of last year about a year ago.\u00a0 Methyl mercury Sistine, a long name, turns out to be much less toxic to fish. Other animals, mammal for instance haven\u2019t been investigate d so we don\u2019t know how toxic it is to mammals but it\u2019s much less toxic fish. A little zebra fish carve which a tiny fresh water fish is found some other methyl mercury molecules.\u00a0 obviously they haven\u2019t tested all of the methyl mercury molecules\u00a0 but\u00a0 this is a strikingly less\u00a0 toxic form of methyl mercury and many other species and in particular the other species that have been used\u00a0 in clinical\u00a0 experiments that have involved move and things to determine how toxic the thing is .<\/p>\n
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What we suggested was are the recommended safe levels for fish consumption lower than they need to be. We did day that they were because that would be a bit rash, we actually don\u2019t know but there is cause to question it I think. Now that we know the molecular from us can actually move forward. When we started saying these kinds of thing all kinds of fuss happened. We ended up in a lot of newspaper and on the television a lot. The one I likes the best is the BBC coverage and I have to do this from memory, I hope I get it right. You probably know that I\u2019m English from the ay that I\u2019m talking and at the time that I did all these experiments I was at Standard but I subsequently moved to Canada.\u00a0 They said something like \u201cCanadian scientist report” and then they talk about what we discovered ” but British expert cautioned”. They didn\u2019t say who the experts were.\u00a0 I thought that as the best quote. The one I actually like the best was the New York Times which had a really nice, balanced article on it.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m going to change gears a little bit and deliver a message form our sponsor. This is a commercial break if you like. I want\u00a0\u00a0 to advertise the next lecture, the runaway Universe by Roger Branford who is the director of Cava lee Institute for Particular Astrophysics in cosmology. It sounds like a very interesting topic cosmology. I think we had one on slack , one on Singotorum Radiation , one on\u00a0 anti-matter and matter , one on metals , molecules , death and things and now we’ve\u00a0\u00a0 got cosmology which is really a diverse thing. this is\u00a0 to encourage you to\u00a0 join slack collections and at this urn\u00a0 you can find out a lot more about upcoming\u00a0 lectures and also if you wan please sign up for a\u00a0 tour of slack and you can\u00a0 find out more about those right at the top level page there. As ii told you methyl mercury molecules are neuro toxic but there is just a huge amount we don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t know how they work. We have little clues but we are really into the dark about the bulk of the mechanisms about how mercury molecules cause damage to nervous systems.\u00a0 One of the most curious things is they exhibit latency. A delay between exposure and the onset of toxic effects I\u2019ll say more on that a little bit. It can be as long as 150 days in people, a really long time. This shows you what a creepy and insidious thing some of these mercury compounds are. You can be exposed to them and not know. There can be nothing wrong for ages and ages and then all of a sudden it will hit you out of the blue. Those are best illustrated in the tragic case of Karen Whitterhan. She was a professor of chemistry of Dark Moth College and she was using a substance called dimethyl mercury that I already mentioned. what she\u00a0 was\u00a0 doing involved a very small amount\u00a0 of the material in a glass ample like this one right here and she was\u00a0 transferring , she got a colleague of hers to\u00a0 cool the\u00a0 compound to minimize the vapour pressure and the\u00a0 possibility of it bursting , the college cut a little nick in the top of it with\u00a0 a file , they\u00a0 crack the ample open , she used a little glass dropper like the ones h shown here to transfer a small amount\u00a0 to a glass sample\u00a0 tube for a particular\u00a0 kinds of experiments. The tube was sealed up and with glass blowing torch and labelled. This happened on august 14th 1996.\u00a0 she used gloves when she was doing this\u00a0 whole thing ,\u00a0 she wore latex gloves, she wore\u00a0 safety spectacles, everything was done\u00a0 ,\u00a0 the entire procedure was done in a fume\u00a0 hood, this is a device that chemist use a lot\u00a0 when they\u00a0 are dealing eighth hazardous\u00a0 materials and there are\u00a0 strong extractor fans at the tops of it and\u00a0 it pulls the air rough to minimize exposure to you . you’re wearing gloves , lab\u00a0 coat , safety spectacles\u00a0 you’re talking all the recommended precautions at the end of the procedure she noticed that she had\u00a0 spilled just a few\u00a0 drops of this stuff onto her gloved\u00a0 hands so it was on the glove not her skin. At that time she removed the h gloves, she made a b note of it in her log book. After everything was clean and tide she went home to her husband and her children. 5 months later she experienced difficulty walking and talking. She went to her neurologist, lest than a month later she was in a coma, another four months she was dead. There was not a thing they could do for her despite extensive and heroic treatment efforts. They could do nothing for her.<\/p>\n
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This is dangerous stuff. The point that I\u2019m trying to get across is the latency. You get poisoned, you’re ok for five months and then something bad happens.\u00a0 We have no idea how this works and to understand how it works we would need to understand the molecular forms of mercury that are involved and how mercury is being modified in the body.<\/p>\n
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One interesting way, mercury and selenium are linked in quite a curios ay in human metabolism. it\u2019s been know for a\u00a0 relatively long time that if\u00a0 you take a dose\u00a0 of mercury and I have the two together and I\u00a0 accidentally drink the mercury and I accidentally drink and equal dose of selenium the toxic effects are cancelled\u00a0 . It\u2019s like your classic antidote. I was reminded of that classical Indiana jones movie where he has an antidote in a little tube and he gets the antidote and drinks it and he\u2019s fine.\u00a0 This would be the selenium blue he wold have to drink it ratty quickie before the mercury get him. We know a lot about how this works.\u00a0 if I say “later I know I\u2019m going to have some mercury so I would better have a dose off selenium right now ” so I take the selenium later and then maybe two hours later I have a dose of mercury the toxin effects of the mercury arte not only not cancelled but they are hugely magnified so it\u2019s much more toxic. the\u00a0 molecular form of the\u00a0 selenium\u00a0 is being transformed into\u00a0 something in our bodies that is combining in the two hours in between and then it gets to\u00a0 combine with the mercury that you ingest to produce\u00a0 something that\u2019s absolutely deadly . We have no firm proof or know how this really works.\u00a0 This is a big mystery and it is one of the major things we are trying to understand. We did have to understand this a little bit.\u00a0 Never mind the details of this picture the thing I would like you to concentrate on is this thing. when you\u00a0 take mercury and selenium\u00a0 together what happens is\u00a0 you form a\u00a0 little ball of mercury\u00a0 and selenium like a ball bearing , maybe 100 atoms\u00a0 in there surrounded by other molecular fragments never mind what they are and this floats\u00a0 around the blood stream , its moved to the liver and its stored there forever until you die.<\/p>\n
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This is how it works, this is how the cancellation of the toxic effects is manifested. We understand this in some details now thanks to experiments done at SSRL.\u00a0 Quite a curious thing to think you might have these ball bearing things in your blood.<\/p>\n
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Arsenate and Cen unite are the names of two common molecules that contain arsenic and selenium. There are about as toxic as each other and in isolation by themselves they are each lethal at elevated levels. Remember we need\u00a0\u00a0 canines in our diets, we need selenium in our diet. Selenium is pretty important. The level between enough n our diet and the toxic level isn\u2019t very great.\u00a0 When they are taken together like the mercury but the mechanism is quite different, their toxic effects is surprisingly cancelled. Maybe it\u2019s not surprising because mercury did it but it works in an entirely different way.\u00a0 It\u2019s a quite an old piece of knowledge. In 1938 it was first published\u00a0\u00a0 that rats fed on 11 parts per million selenium I the form of canonized wheat, this is what contaminated with cinnysium. In 60 days fed <inaudible> amount of cilium and they all died.\u00a0 If they were fed not only on the cenonyzed\u00a0\u00a0 wheat but giving the cynonte in their drinking water they all survived. It was later discovered that this was even more effective if you gave exactly equal doses of arsenic and selenium and the thing that emerged over the years was that there was a lethal dose of arsenide or cenunite can be complete counteracted by an equal or otherwise lethal dose of the other one. You could take two lethal doses together and you would be fine.<\/p>\n
How does this work? Once again in Singotorum radiation our x-ray reveal the species in bile. This is excreted in the bile. What happens is the arsenic and the selenium comes out together in this cellular entity. We call it they celulobisesculictino arsenic iron. It doesn\u2019t really matter but the important bit is in the idle where the atoms have labels and you can forget about the outside bits and just concentrate on the middle bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We really need to know what the molecular nature of mercury is in fish. If we want to know whether we’re going to be worried about it or not. There is no good just knowing there is methyl mercury something in it, it\u2019s very important to know methyl mercury what. These are the only actual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footdetox.org\/pads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}