Metallic Mercury is absolutely no problem. They used it to treat congestion back in the day.
My degree is in bio but if I'm remembering my coursework correctly, this is the legend that's supposed to be on it.
If someone's licking any of the transuranic elements I'm not sticking around to watch.
Some stuff should simply not exist in a lickable quantity.
I see we're continuing the trend of scaring literally everyone when a scientist gets excited.
i'm not a chemist but is this licking the most common molecule form or the atomic variety
O₂ is safe but i don't think O is
I think it's framed in the context of: "How dangerous would a single molecule be to a human?". In that context, I would say
Ois safe, only because our body naturally destroys the radical oxygen molecules every day that we create with our anti-oxidants.True, in a larger quantity than our body can handle, it's extremely toxic; but a single molecule would probably not be too bad.
But I do agree, it shouldn't be Green. It should be Yellow at least.
O would completely destroy you in lickable quantities. I think you underestimate how extremely reactive it is. Just remember that it is so reactive that it reacts with oxygen to form ozone. This is not a little byproduct in extremely small quantities all throughout the body, which is also not the O radical anyway.
Chemist here: all the reds are correct but it would take so much time to explain why so many of the greens are super concerning. Every time I see this reposted it's so concerning...I should just spend the 17 minutes and save a copy pasta response of everything horribly wrong with this.
Edit: page 1 on the SDS for pure sulfur.
You are absolutely fine licking sulfur, it is not going to do anything. In case of a solid block you are not even going to taste anything. Also what the fuck, sulfur is not poisonous, that MSDS is bullshit.
I'm pretty sure that licking pure magnesium would make your tongue explode too.
I have elemental magnesium (4 ~50g ingots, I keep it in my library in a barely-sealed ziplock). it's shelf stable and doesn't react violently with water. Want me to try licking it and let you know? (hint: at worst it'll make a minuscule amount of milk of magnesia)
ETA: Would I stick my tongue in pyrophoric magnesium powder? No, and you wouldn't do that with pyrophoric aluminum or zinc powders, either, but that doesn't stop me from using (or licking) alumnum foil. Proof: https://invidious.darkness.services/watch?v=Q_4I30Nz_b0
The LD 50 for sulfur is 2000 MG per kilogram body weight. So you'd probably be fine licking it. You can't just go off the msds.
Mid at best. There's a lot of stuff you don't want anywhere near your mouth on there.
Needs a "how fast can you move your tongue?" label for the unstable elements.
From my elementary knowledge of chemistry:
I had to go looking for Mercury and Lead and sure enough they look about right.
Column 1 reacts with water so you bet that'll hurt. Hydrogen needs a boost to start reacting with oxygen so no naked flame is recommended.
Anything in column 7 are desperate to rip electrons away from molecules so yes, permanent damage to your tongue and mouth.
Uranium is alright if you lick it once. A guy ate uranium cake once on TV.
The 'Please reconsider' lot seem to be a good way to die a horrible death by radiation.
Tc I believe is technetium which is radioactive and emits gamma rays, perhaps not soluable so stays in your body and you become gamma-man.
Elemental mercury isn't very bioavailable so licking the surface of a pool of mercury isn't going to hurt you much if at all. (Assuming you just do it once). Plus the density of mercury is going make it hard for you to slurp up a significant quantity the stuff anyway.
If you want to know about the horrible potential for mercury to mess you up look for stories about dimethyl mercury exposure. Its the fat soluble varieties that give mercury it's reputation.
My life long dream is to lick a block of Berylium and see what it tastes like. Are you SURE this chart is accurate?
lol You don’t need a table to tell you whether or not you should like an element. Like ‘em all! Also, whoever made the pic misspelled “like” as “lick”. jsyk.
Oh yeah just lick the carbon. It’s probably fine.
It is. Activated carbon is used to treat diarrhoea, you basically swallow a chunk of carbon that absorbs any moisture it comes across
Not moisture but reactive molecules. (I mean, many forms probably do still absorb a good bit but) I forgot the exact chemistry but "activated" means chemically reactive. It binds with all sorts of reactive molecules, like toxins and many other things.
Have you never licked a diamond before? You’re missing out.
Tastes like a campfire.
I'm no chemist but - can you lick a gas?
Edit: pick
Too distracted by the misspelling in the title
you can always answer how likable they are?
Licking bismuth would be very very very very very bad
Why? Bismuth is pretty harmless from what I can find. It's not great but it's way better than lead (which it replaced in a lot of applications). Based on what I read, bismuth probably wouldn't hurt you if you gave it a lick.
Are you thinking of benzene?
Mfer I'll go lick my rainbow Lovecraftian City looking rocks right now to spite you
Bismuth bangers 4 lyfe
Listen to this guy. He's serious bismuth
Making a knife out of Bismuth
NileBlue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0SQ88bAjto
KiwamiJapan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgdHZqSIO1M
Beryllium is mostly only toxic when you breathe it in (there's even a special disease you get from it), but as a solid, it's pretty safe afaik.
Not that I recommend it.
Since the green isn't labelled "yes you can" I stopped reading...
I mean, technically you can lick any of them...
(Once)
Can you, though? Can you lick a gas? Am I licking the atmosphere when I stick my tongue out?
Plenty of them are also so rare that there isn't enough of them to form any lickable matter; solid, liquid or gaseous.
Some have such an incredibly short half-life, you cannot lick it before it decays into something else.
This really feels like we're going to descend into an "is water wet"-style debate. Those are always fun.
I think I'd still consider it a lick even if you just contact one atom of a substance to your tongue. You could even fire it at your tongue with the LHC and I'd still be willing to go along with calling that a lick, using the term very loosely.
I'm less sure on the gas, but fuck it, sure, sticking your tongue into a gas can be a lick between friends. Alternately you could condense/freeze it and lick that form, but that might be worse.
There's no getting away from the idea that it would be very difficult to lick an atom with sub-millisecond half life. Unless... you create it already inside your tongue! I'm sure we could do that somehow. Probably involving magnets.
Yes you can lick a gas. Have you ever tasted a fart?
What's wrong with licking osmium? I know if heated in oxygen it will form osmium tetraoxide which is toxic, but a solid chunk of elemental osmium I thought was inert and I could keep it in my mouth all day if I wanted ( I do).
Lead should be red
lead's bad for you, sure, but when some of the other metals on this scale's red might literally explode your tongue/face/head depending on sample size and saliva accumulation, i'd say yellow fits it pretty well.
Idk, just licking it once shouldn't do much harm, right?
There is no identified threshold or safe level of lead in blood” [AAP 2016]
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/physiological_effects.html
I'd call that "you really shouldn't" for an adult, and for a baby I'd tell them to "please reconsider" for sure
that yellow and that green are problematically close
No they arent
