this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
1234 points (98.6% liked)

Science Memes

10819 readers
2847 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Caffeine is poisonous to us too, so I think it's more accurate to say that humans enjoy the side effects of that particular neurotoxin. It's generally not possible for someone healthy to drink enough coffee to die, but they sell pure caffeine (for research) and even seemingly small amounts of that will kill a person.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can buy 200mg pure anhydrous caffeine pills at Walmart for like $5. It's abundant and as safe as coffee if you don't go nuts. The max daily recommended dose is 400mg, anything past that could cause harm

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What I had in mind is more like this 25kg bucket. That's enough to kill about 2,000 people, which is actually a lot fewer people than I would have guessed before I looked up the LD50.

I've never actually seen caffeine in a bucket myself, but I worked in a lab once that had a big plastic jar of it.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Isn't the LD 50 just over a gram?

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What I read was that it's about 200mg per kg, so for a 70kg human that works out to 14 grams. That actually sounds remarkably high (14 grams is a lot). Did I mess up somewhere?

[–] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago

I didn't bother to look it up, that was just my random vague understanding. I'd trust your numbers over mine.