this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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Eat lead (mander.xyz)
submitted 4 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] Linsensuppe@feddit.org 28 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

Can someone explain to me why lead HAS to come from another element? Why cant it just… exist?

[–] LouSlash@szmer.info 15 points 4 weeks ago

Because it needs a...

... leader

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

Pazuzu@midwest.social explained above:

The original post only gave half the explanation. It’s not that lead exists in general, it’s that lead exists within zircon crystals.

Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, zircon crystals strongly reject lead atoms as they form. There’s no way to stuff lead into the crystal lattice in the quantity we find them there. But uranium and zircon go together just fine, we just have to wait for it to decay into lead. The trouble is it takes ~4.5 billion years for just half of those uranium atoms to turn into lead. So any zircon crystal we find with half as much lead as uranium must be roughly that old

[–] And009@reddthat.com 4 points 4 weeks ago

God made lead right after creating life

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 weeks ago

Some star fusion science can create radium but not lead?