this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
384 points (97.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43945 readers
1008 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Similar metal in the human body one, Vitamin B12 has cobalt in it. Absolutely wild. I guess that's not really commonly known but it's still worth mentioning
and vitamin D has mithril in it
vitamin D warf
Strike the mithril veins! I guess?
May I ask what is special about cobalt in B12 specifically? I've come to realize there are numerous inorganic substances inside my body like copper, gold etc. so cobalt by itself doesn't really stand out anymore.
Cobalt by itself is toxic and damages the nervous system.
Interesting
I think your idea of what is organic or inorganic is a little off. Organic things can and do involve metals and gases in various forms. According to wikipedia, "About 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus." These are elements that also appear in minerals and other rocks, but that doesn't mean the same elements can't be in organic compounds. Everything is made of all the same stuff on the periodic table, organic or inorganic.
huh, thank you for leading me to find out about organocobalt compounds, and complicate my understanding of organic/inorganic chemistry. I still that fits the simple definition of "organic" = "contains carbon" that most chemists would use, though.
Sorry, why is that wild? Is it cause itβs a metal? Ty
Cobalt is toxic
Everything is toxic in sufficient amounts. Even water.
Cobalt is very toxic. Far worse than lead. But yet bound up in this one molecule, that looks like this:
it becomes biologically necessary for all animals. How does it get there? Is all the vitamin B12 made already and it stays in circulation, or is there some plant that selectively fetches cobalt from the ground and builds this thing that keeps us all alive?