The Chemical-Free Chemistry Kit

eldavojohn writes "It's known that home chemistry sets are in danger of going extinct, which has spurred set makers to add the label 'Chemical Free!' on modern chemistry sets (NSFW warning — JAYFK stands for Journal of Are You *expletive* Kidding). The kit for ages 10+ provides 60 chemistry activities that are mind-bogglingly chemical free. The pedantic blog entry points out the many questions that arise when the set promises 'fun activities' like growing plants and crystals — sans chemicals! That would be quite the feat to accomplish without the evilest of chemicals: dihydrogen monoxide. While this rebuttal is done in jest, this set's intentions do highlight the chilling growth of a new mentality: Chemicals are bad. Despite their omnipresence from the beginning of time, they are no longer safe. Even real researchers are starting to notice the possible voluntary stunting of science education that is occurring in the name of overreaching safety."

Comments

Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[elrous0]

Laugh all you want, but that stuff is a powerful solvent that's highly reactive. It can promote corrosion in metals and bacterial growth, is used in making many deadly compounds, and even becomes explosive when mixed with common chemicals like sodium. I hear they're even spraying it on houses and cars now to strip away dirt and grease. It's THAT powerful a solvent. All that and yet our kids are exposed to the stuff every single day, and no one seems to care. These our OUR KIDS we're talking about, for christ's sake!

Sure, the EPA and numerous state agencies *say* they're monitoring the stuff, but do we REALLY know?

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[elrous0]

Most people have no idea how many people die each year from just getting this crap into their lungs.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[Dr.Bob,DC]

I looked for that chemical on NaturalNews.com and Mercola.com and found nothing. Did you spell it right?
Will have to check after work or between patients.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[oliverthered]

all you need is a lead acid battery, some urine and some old vegetable oil.

Half empty first, dehydrate second.
mix,
do something (carefully... ohh stings)
collect red fuming
buffer with other half
render third
skim
mix with buffer
warm
titrare
add cellulose base product to help with stability.
set up Nobel prize fund.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[treeves]

I guess that means lead, radon and fluorine are very safe. Fewer syllables than oxygen or nitrogen (or in the case of lead, even water).
OTOH, deoxyribonucleic acid, at ten syllables, must be awful stuff.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[idontgno]

Not so much chilled, but instead blended with select compounds of ethanol and malt-barley-based cogeners.

This is one of my preferred reagents.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[drooling-dog]

Alright, I can't take it anymore. Even in the absence of a "common" name, I doubt that any chemist would refer to H20 as "dihydrogen monoxide", any more than aluminum oxide (Al2O3) would be "dialuminum trioxide". It's redundant, people. We call H2O2 "hydrogen peroxide" -- not dihydrogen dioxide -- and "hydrogen oxide" is all you need to distinguish H2O from that. If we're being pedantic, that is.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[bmo]

>like an explicit LD50 given

Water toxicity is an actual threat. People have died because they thought water is completely harmless when ingested in huge amounts, that you'll simply pee away the excess. You do pee away excess water, but the kidneys act only just so fast - 1 litre per hour for healthy kidneys.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16614865/ns/us_news-life/

--
BMO

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[ivan_w]

Not really..

In it's gaseous phase, it's fairly harmless, and can be found in minute quantities in the air you breathe

Furthermore, even if one is to inhale and fill it's lung with the foul substance, one may eventually be saved by allowing one to breathe again normally - assuming it is within a reasonable amount of time, then it is not fatal.

So no : Not 100% lethal !

(I must be new here!)

--Ivan

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[Cillian]

That's not really the point. The point is that you can either make stuff up or be very misleading and lots of people will loudly go along with it (I believe a bunch of people went out and got a lot of signatures on a petition to ban DHMO). I'm sure if you made up something entirely nonexistent or found some other very obscure but pretty safe chemical you could get the same effect, but the fact that it's water makes it all the more amusing (And makes the fact that it's not actually evil more readily apparent to the informed reader).
"Oh well, I lost my moderations but I felt like saying this anyway. And don't blame me if some 'c's are missing, my key is a bit broken." -Cill

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[StikyPad]

It might not be the point, but it's still only slightly less asinine than referring to processor speed in gigabytes, confusing downloads with uploads, or any of the other inane mistakes that make most of us shake our heads and die a little inside.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[Tanktalus]

So says you. I bet all those people die later, and there's no conclusive proof that it wasn't caused by your allegedly "harmless" chemical that they were breathing through their lives.

This has got to be a bigger concern than even HVDC power lines to the paranoid and delusional!

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[SleazyRidr]

It depends upon the nature of the bonding in the compound. For ionic compounds (such as your aluminium oxide example) numerical prefixes aren't used, as the charge of the two ions determines the ratio of them.

Covalent bonds don't work the same way. For instance you could have either Carbon Monoxide (CO) or Carbon Dioxide (CO2), so the information of how many oxygen atoms present is required to correctly identify the compound. In these cases, because carbon comes first, we don't need to specify monocarbon- as that is assumed by convention. In the case of dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) the di- prefix is used for the first word.

Water does of course present a little more of an interesting challenge, as it can be seen as many types of compounds. It can be seen as an ionic compound (where you'd call it hydrogen hydroxide), or as an acid (which would be hydroxilic acid), or as a covalently bonded compound. Oxygen dihydride may be the /more/ correct way to refer to it as a covalently bonded compound, but as the convention is to write the formula as H2O rather than OH2, I'd stand behind dihydrogen monoxide as the correct name.

Yes, IAAC.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[Halifax Samuels]

Little Susie was a girl
but now she is no more
for what she thought was dihydrogen monoxide
was dihydrogen sulfuric tetroxide.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[SuricouRaven]

Even those who originated the name dihydrogen hydroxide know it's wrong. It was picked out for the 'monoxide' part, and it's simularity to scareygas carbon monoxide. It just sounds more worrying then hydroxide.

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[mcgrew]

More people are killed by deoxyribonucleic acid than any other substance. In fact, without it, there would be no death at all!

Re:Dihydrogen Monoxide *is* a serious threat

[treeves]

Hexane is C6H14, an alkane, and a component of gasoline and related petroleum distillates. Quite different from water. I'd not recommend drinking it.

From the: To be dumb Is to be cool Dept.

[SuperTechnoNerd]

"in the name of overreaching safety" You mean overreaching litigation? Right?

Re:From the: To be dumb Is to be cool Dept.

[0123456]

"in the name of overreaching safety"
You mean overreaching litigation? Right?

Both, really. Not just a demand for personal safety leading to litigation when anything goes wrong, but also the idea that anyone who's indulging their curiosity about chemistry must be either making drugs or bombs that threaten homeland security.

And, needless to say, if you want more people to invent new stuff in your society then making curiosity a crime is a bad idea.

Safety?

[0xdeadbeef]

I don't think they're particularly worried about safety. What they are worried about is the perception that science kits can be used for making poisons and explosives. Today's political climate does not distinguish between having uncommon knowledge and having the intent to use it to do harm.

Re:Safety?

[hypergreatthing]

I don't think they're particularly worried about safety. What they are worried about is the perception that science kits can be used for making poisons and explosives. Today's political climate does not distinguish between having uncommon knowledge and having the intent to use it to do harm.

Today's political climate? This garbage being spewed out of your fingers... i don't know where to begin. Poisons and explosives? Who cares? Yeah, i'm worried about someone using a chemistry kit to make a poison when they can just use bleach or hundreds of poisonous substances which are widely available at almost every store out there.
This squarely falls into the category of too much hyperbole and no danger involved.

Re:Safety?

[DCFusor]

Further, I do have a decent chemistry set, and it was once seen through a window by a police person. Due to the magic of profiling, I soon had a full dynamic entry from the DEA to add to my list of interesting experiences. That alone makes a real chemistry set dangerous as hell -- those guys were within a twitch of shooting us! They looked and acted a lot more like the meth heads they thought they were there to "Take down" than any real meth head I've actually met. Maybe they were hoping for a free fix. Dunno, but that was scary, expensive, and uncalled for.

What was really fun is that what I was using it for at the time *was* making explosives, legally, for a patent I was working on for microexplosive welding of flat cables in flip top things (like laptops and cel phones). They were fine with that once they sent the BATF out to check. And weirdly enough, it was the BATF who were nice and polite, no drawn guns, we had a fun talk and all. Maybe, unlike the FBI/DEA/DHS, they bothered to actually look up my dossier and find out I was an ex-spook with a long record of exemplary government service -- for the "good guys", so they treated me with respect instead of disdain.

No one not caught red-handed in the act of a violent crime should EVER be treated like the DEA treated us. No one.

Re:Clever

[bmo]

>It doesn't ship with any, but the experiments utilize common household chemicals.

So does the Anarchists' Cookbook.

BRB, I'm going to market the Anarchists' Cookbook as a "chemistry set" and make millions selling it to kids.

Completely legal, but this would troll so many people. To troll Nancy Grace with this shit would be hilarious.

--
BMO

"Chemical" now a synonym for "toxin"

[ewg]

"Chemical" has become a synonym for "toxin" in modern vernacular. Regrettably.

Re:what is a chemical anyway?

[bmo]

Water has a MSDS.

http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/w0600.htm

MSDSes are fun.

Learn something. Learn what to do when you get superglue in your eye:

http://www.rockler.com/tech/RTD20000394AA.pdf

In other words "nothing, put a patch over it and it will come off the eyeball on its own in a few days."

--
BMO

Wow ...

[gstoddart]

So, in 10 or 15 years, when everyone has grown up being kept away from anything remotely dangerous, not allowed outside, and being pandered to to be sure we don't hurt their feelings as we try to teach them to spell ... why do I foresee an entire generation of children who are too stupid and sheltered to do anything, and too spoiled and coddled to understand why they're not magically having the world care for them and give them everything they want?

I mean, OK, sure ... when we were kids, you could get cut, or break something, or maybe even really poke someone's eye out. Surprisingly few people actually did, though. Only the really psychotic kids, or the ones who really did need the helmet and the short bus were ever actually kept away from this kind of thing.

We already know that kids don't really understand basic science well enough to go into university and not be completely wrong about how things work. Chemical free chemistry sets? Wow ... let's wait for the generation that is raised entirely with safety scissors, glitter, and nothing but comforting reassurance that it's OK to spell words any way you please, and who cares what 2+2 is?

"Doomed as a species" comes to mind. At the very least ... the places that aren't intentionally educating their children to be simpletons will have an advantage.

How much of this is fear of litigation, and how much is fear of children becoming terrorists as they learn how to make pipe bombs?

Re:Wow ...

[Tailhook]

So, 10 or 15 years ago, when everyone began being raised isolated from anything remotely dangerous, not allowed outside, and were pandered to to be sure they didn't have their feelings hurt when we tried to teach them to spell ... we foresaw an entire generation of children that would be too stupid to do anything, and so spoiled and coddled to that they would expect the world to care for them and give them everything they want.

Some knew then we would end up with kids that would never really understand basic science well enough to go into university and not be completely wrong about how things work. Chemical free chemistry sets? No surprise there. We now have a generation that has been raised entirely with safety scissors, glitter, and nothing but comforting reassurance that it's OK to spell words any way you please, and have never cared about the sum of 2+2.

"Doomed as a species" was brought to mind. The places that didn't intentionally educate their children to be simpletons now have the advantage.

How much of this was fear of litigation, and how much was fallout from anti-chemical hysteria?

Short=Safe

[Sooner Boomer]

I was at a Chiropractic seminar a few months ago where one of the presenters had an interesting point: the more syllables in a chemical name, the more dangerous they are.

 

So farts are perfectly safe?

Re:do it yourself chemistry set

[dustymugs]

Quite easily. Just buy everything from Sigma-Aldrich (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com) as they've got almost everything a home chemist could want :-).

That is what people said about you

[SmallFurryCreature]

Seriously, do you think is new? Did you hunt? Help a cow deliver a calf? Helping build the house? Make bread? Fix your own car and fully understand it, not clip in a new chip? Build your own radio?

I will tell you something very simple. My mother knew vi (no, not vim) better then I. To me it is the editor of choice in the shell, for her it was the latest tech. Used it NOT to edit some config files but to do office work in. Mail.

You are the pandered child to the generation before you.

And yet, it still works out.

Re:That is what people said about you

[Fnord666]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Re:That is what people said about you

[wierd_w]

1) Did you hunt?
A) Yes. Found it boring. Know how to do it though if pressed. (Found making and laying snares more profitable.) Also know how to identify wild edible plants, and how to process them. Found the latter more enjoyable than hunting anyway. Plants are awesome. Also understand the importance of avoiding over harvesting.

2) Help a cow deliver a calf?
A) Having been raised in an agricultural environment, and having been exposed to animal husbandry-- YES. Yes I have, and yes, yes I do know how to pull a calf. Thank you. I have done it several times, and could still do it if needed.

3) Help building the house?
A), No, but I have helped rebuild roofs. (No, not tarpaper and shingles. I mean support timbers) I have also helped build barns. Very similar to your houses in no less respect. Same principles apply. Also well practiced in making survival structures. Lots of fun for young and old.

4) Make bread?
A) From powdered yeast, or from cultured sponge? In either case-- YES, and YES. The latter is much more challenging, and is actually quite fun. Hard to get people to not throw out your sponge when they find it in the fridge though. Gives you a good lesson in keeping your kitchen clean so you get the right kind of culture when working from sponge too. Good for historical lessons on why breweries and bakeries were not normally in close proximity to each other as well. I would highly recommend it as a home lession in microbiology and home economics.

5) Fix your own car and fully understand it?
I do fix my own car, but I dont fully understand it. The automatic transmission alone is absurdly complicated in the nitty gritty of how it operates-- Something to do with over a thousand moving parts and complicated fluid dynamics involved in how it shifts gears. The basic understanding is there, but not complete understanding. So "Sort-of". I have seriously considered building an electric vehicle as well. Really want to get my hands on some tritium based beta-voltaic cells. I dont mind painting the big radioactive sticker on my car, if it means I dont have to recharge it for 25 years. ;) As far as useful radio isotopes go, Tritium is pretty harmless. Sadly, the prevaling ignorance, fear mongering, and paranoia from government, industry, and other citizens makes sourcing such batteries nearly impossible unless you are a military contractor. Still looking for a private sector distributor... I really dont want to use dirty heavy-isotope pacemaker batteries. Nasty isotopes in those.

6) Build your own radio?
A) Actually, YEAH! I DID build my own AM radio once-- Course, I had instructions and it was part of a kit, but yes-- I DID create my own crystal set AM radio. Really neat. Further, now that I am older I understand how the crystal set radio works well enough to build one without a kit. I might do that some time when I am bored.

So... I guess I score a 5.5 out of 6 on your quiz.

No. I am not "Old". I am not even 30 yet. Oh yeah, I can also spin, weave, crochet, know how to produce vegetable textile dyes, and can synthesize simple pharmecuticals (like aspirin), and a whole host of other neat stuff. (Like make rope, fishing nets, ceramics, glazes, glass, ... ... You get the idea. This *IS* slashdot. Geeks come in a wide variety of flavors.)

I realize I am abnormal in that respect--- I am an information and skill junkie; LOVE learning new things rather than say, A porn junky, or sex addict like most people are these days-- but that does not invalidate the GP. I am this way BECAUSE my parents encouraged "Dangerous learning activities."
If they had kept me in a plastic bubble like most people do with their kids these days, (OMG! They might come into contact with GERMS! Quick, get the hand sanitizer!) I would not be anywhere NEAR as capable and skilled as I am today. I wouldnt even be the same person!

I am apalled at the state of education of other people around me. No concept at all of how the rea

Possible Johnny Carson quote

[snspdaarf]

"Remember when a dangerous toy was one that could poke out more than one eye at a time?"

Re:what is a chemical anyway?

[blueg3]

Hardly. Concrete, for example, isn't a chemical. (The individual constituents may be. Ultimately, the constituents of concrete are all composed of chemicals, but that could be a ways down.) A bridge isn't a chemical. Humans, potatoes, bacon, hope, money -- none of those are chemicals.

"Everything" is perhaps a more inclusive word than you were going for.

Sheltered kids - Adults unable to function

[ThunderBird89]

My father is a professional photographer. He studied in a time when photography started in the brain, not in the camera, and you had to develop the film and images yourself. When I was five or so, he gave me a bunch of lab-grade equipment to use as I please: beakers, Petri dishes, test tubes, a rack for them, cleaning equipment, graduated cylinders, glass pipettes (the kind they use in a real lab, with precise markings), the works.

It wasn't before long that the carpet in my bedroom had several stains and outright holes around the part where I played with the stuff. I mixed up all sorts of crazy stuff: glue from vegetable oil, some green acid that ate right through the carpet, and some sort of caustic foam from god knows what components comes to mind. My parents didn't mind it that much, because was learning. My father didn't even bat an eye when I took a mouthful of that green acid because I couldn't see it creep up in the pipette, he just told me that I should do that facing the light so I can see it. The caustic foam got all over my hand, yet my parents weren't suing anyone.

I was barely ten when I helped him develop film in the lab. If anyone did that before, they know that the stuff used is not kid-friendly, and can kill you in a heartbeat. Why didn't I die? Because I didn't fuck around with them. I did what my father told me to do, and didn't do what he told me not to do. I also had the common sense to approach stuff cautiously. I don't try stuff that looks dangerous just to see what happens.

There's probably a lesson in here for what appears to be the majority of American parents: kids need their freedom. Why not let him endanger himself a bit, just enough to teach him that it's not good. The more sheltered a child is, the less likely to be able to cope in the outside world. If the kid is allowed to explore and learn on its own, it'll become that much stronger and adaptable. Thus, removing 'dangerous chemicals' from a chem set is not the answer, nor is absurd supervision. The answer is to teach him properly.

Re:This is a very paranoid country

[scot4875]

No, the problem is that *citizens* don't trust *anyone,* and ask the government to step in and protect them from the evil terrorists/pedophiles/drug addicts.

--Jeremy