Our lives are a balance between needing oxygen and preventing oxidation damage. We have several enzymes that constantly reduce radicals and chemicals caused by oxidation. So yes oxygen is continuously damaging us. And will eventually win.
Unrelated but the bottom navbar in that screenshot makes me long for the Alien Blue days of Reddit. I also just miss that iOS design (along with the OS X Mavericks design)
There are quite a few sci-fi stories and short stories built on a similar concept. One of my favorites is an alien ship lands on a random farm in the US and (leaving a lot of details out, read the book!) it comes to light that the aliens normally live at insanely hot temperatures like 900F (480C) and consider Earth an “Ice World” (that’s also the name of the book). Anyway, one of the catches in the book is that farmer figures out the alien wants to trade (again skipping a lot of details) but all he has on him that he can give up is a cigarette (the farmer doesn’t know it’s super hot inside the ship). He does the trade and we later find out that most of the galaxy is INSANELY vulnerable to being 100% completely utterly addicted to nicotine. When the alien took in the cigarette it instantly vaporized and sent the nicotine into the air and they breathed it and became instantly addicted worse than any opiod addiction IRL.
You didn’t mention the book name, so how are we to read it?
Anyone else stopped breathing here?
Ever breathe oxygen, son?
Good, don’t start. Me, I’m hooked!-Muddy Mudskipper
To sum up - because I taught this to a kid yesterday - for a period, basically all life photosynthesized and oxygen was toxic to most living things. There were large growths of photosynthetic Cyanobacteria that pumped the air full of oxygen. Living things at the time (like, bacteria and microbes, nowhere near vertebrates) couldn’t handle all the O2 and died.
Iron had been taking in most of the oxygen, but it got all rusted up. There’s beautiful geological evidence of this.
This pic sexy as fuck:
You think that’s bad, wait until you hear about dihydrogen monoxide! It’s in almost everything, even the water you drink and the air you breathe!
Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide kills more people than any other liquid? And yet, the government does nothing to ban it. This deadly liquid could be anywhere, even in your home!
Took me some time
More information about this dangerous chemical: https://dhmo.org/facts.html
if you haven’t heard of air, it’s an invisible blend of gases so addictive, we suffer fatal withdrawal symptoms within minutes of our supply being cut off
That’s why I chainsmoke constantly, I have to protect my lungs from oxidation.
you train your legs and arms and back, but when i train my lungs im told smoking isnt allowed in the restaurant 🙄
It makes my blood run blue just thinking about it
This is why I feed blueberries to my chains
You can combat dangerous oxygen with black smoke from burning oil.
Don’t forget, water is only one atom in it’s molecular composition away from rocket fuel
Or an extremely deadly poison. Or an explosive, flammable gas.
Look at what it did to the Linux kernel too.
Tap for spoiler
Ssshhh. It made it better
OOTL? 🥺👉👈
Rust programming language
Oh, but of course! Please excuse my old brain, and thank you.
Statistically speaking, for humans, breathing oxygen does eventually have a 100% fatality rate.
Did you see what oxygen did to the Hindenburg? I’m not going to let that happen to me. Say no to big oxygen!
Have you ever seen asbestos catch fire? Me neither. So it’s your choice what you’d prefer breathing in.
Delicious fluorine for me please
I’ve been thinking about neon. Imagine breathing out multicolour bright lights!
Lol obviously. Thanks!
