The Disappearing Spoon: Chapter 11: How Elements Deceive Summary & Analysis

Elements might behave in a predictable way in an atomic sense, but when they come into contact with “the chaos of biology,” the results can be bewildering. In 1981, five technicians were working on a simulation spacecraft at the NASA headquarters at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The technicians undid a panel, then—immediately—peacefully passed out. Back in 1967, NASA had a policy of only having pure oxygen inside spacecrafts, rather than normal air (which contains 80 percent nitrogen). Yet, as the agency was about to tragically be reminded, oxygen makes fire rage far faster than normal air, and a fire can be provoked in pure oxygen by almost nothing—something as little as the static from Velcro. 

In 1967, this led to three astronauts being burned to death when a spark went off inside a grounded spacecraft filled with pure oxygen. As a result, by 1981 NASA had a policy of filling spacecraft compartments with nitrogen in order to prevent such fires. Unfortunately, on this fateful day, someone accidentally signaled for nitrogen to be pumped into the spacecraft while the technicians were still inside. Two of the five technicians who lost consciousness inside the spacecraft died from lack of oxygen. Death by nitrogen exposure is frightening because no one realizes if it happens to them. Rather than a feeling of suffocation, nitrogen will cause a person to peacefully pass out. Even scarier, nitrogen is invisible and odorless.

In 1952 a Swedish doctor named Per-Ingvar Brånemark was conducting a gruesome experiment of boring holes in rabbits in order to observe how bone marrow generates blood cells. He attached little titanium “windows” the holes in the rabbit fur, yet when he tried to remove these, they remained stuck. Incredibly, this was the beginning of modern prosthesis. For centuries, humans could not figure out how to properly “integrate” prosthetics into the human body. Bone-forming cells cannot distinguish between titanium and real bone, allowing titanium to “fully integrate itself into the body.” Ever since Brånemark’s discovery it has been used for implanted teeth, sockets, hips, and fingers. 

The human sensory system is even more complex than the immune system, and tricking the sense can be highly difficult. Elements can have bizarre effects on our sensory system. Coming into contact with tellurium will make a person stink of garlic, whereas if a person licks beryllium, they will find it tastes like sugar. Unfortunately, beryllium is also highly toxic. Taste buds are usually alert to poisonous foods, which is why cyanide, for example, tastes horribly bitter. However, beryllium overrides this system. Moreover, sensual experiences—such as eating something sour—really only provide an approximation of what is actually going on. For example, our mouths can easily mix up the taste of an electrical charge with sourness.

Saltiness is also the result of electrical charge, but humans can similarly be tricked into experiencing saltiness by something that isn’t charged like sodium. All in all, humans are sensually ill-equipped to distinguish between elements. Kean argues that “if you inject a random element into our bloodstream or liver or pancreas, there’s almost no telling what will happen.” Iodine, which has proven to be a deceptive element more than once in the history of science, played an important role in the life of Mahatma Gandhi, who apparently despised the element. In 1930, Gandhi led what was called the Salt March in protest against the salt tax of the British colonial government. 

The salt tax was brutally greedy and oppressive. Gandhi encouraged people to produce untaxed salt, thereby breaking colonial law and (hopefully) weakening the power of the British imperial government. However, a problem arose via the fact that Western countries had started adding iodine to salt. Although there were known health benefits to doing so, Indian people were reluctant to take up the practice due to its association with Western colonizers. Huge amounts of common (non-iodized) salt were produced in India, which led to a sharp rise in birth defects. Unfortunately, the ramifications of this lack of iodine continue into the present day. The philosopher Bertrand Russell used the profound effect of iodine on the human brain as evidence that humans are purely physical beings, controlled by chemistry rather than souls.