this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
298 points (94.3% liked)

Today I Learned

17804 readers
1102 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It was only in the early 1980s that the first tangible evidence connecting a toxicant with neurodegeneration came to light. In a tragic experiment of nature, a group of drug users in California accidentally injected themselves with a bad batch of designer heroin and began suffering from symptoms closely resembling those of Parkinson’s disease. Investigators traced the batch to a back-alley chemist who had synthesized the drugs and found that he had mistakenly created a neurotoxin precursor known as MPTP as part of the concoction. As it turned out, MPTP also resembled aspects of the chemical makeup of paraquat, a common herbicide, opening the door to the notion that perhaps chronic exposure to synthetic toxins was triggering Parkinson’s in aging patients the same way that the bad batch of heroin had in the users. Since then, advancements in molecular and genetic testing have continued to reinforce the idea. Recent studies have linked brain disorders with chronic exposure to cyanobacterial blooms, pesticides, air pollution and numerous other toxicants. Some researchers have gone so far as to describe Parkinson’s disease in particular as “man-made.”

As summarized by the New York Times.

top 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago

Thanks drug users :-)

[–] Blum0108 25 points 3 months ago (4 children)

So poison is bad for us, huh? It's a little crazy that no one wondered if something designed to kill, even if it's not designed to kill humans, would maybe not be good for us to be exposed to.

[–] SlopppyEngineer 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

When somebody discussed the vaccine causing autism conspiracy, I'd start arguing how pollution caused autism and fossil fuel companies are trying to cover this up. Nobody wants to discuss conspiracies anymore with me.

[–] piecat 3 points 3 months ago

The overlap between "chemtrails" and "fluoride in the water" and "epa bad" is pretty high. It's actually kinda odd.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

Science is about verifying things no matter how "obvious". Lots of obvious common sense things have been disproven.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

It's quite significant as further research process that people living in rural areas (close to fields where pesticides are used) showed higher amount of parkinson's cases.

So it's very relevant to prove this connection, so that legislation can be put into place to protect people from potentially catching Parkinson's.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

It's always a question of cost to benefit ratio.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] whostosay 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I would guess the substance in the article would be offered at a discount, for what it's worth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

nah man you got an asshole thats no wall

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Yeah, but there are two summaries, one if which in this post's description. An additional summary is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Langston#The_Case_of_the_Frozen_Addicts.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hey mods, can we please make a rule that posts CANNOT contain paywalled links?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's called a book, honey. NEXT.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Broken title gets a down vote. Every time

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Please don’t blame me for a Lenny federation bug

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I see someone else read this NY Times article today. Wild read, I was trying to get things done around the house and it sucked me in.

Edit: OP posted the article in another community, can't believe I missed it. https://kbin.melroy.org/m/[email protected]/t/411895

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

MPPP is not heroin; do words just not mean anything anymore?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It was advertised as a batch of heroin. Who’d see “MPPP” and think “oh yeah, dopamine!”?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I love your choice of the word "advertised". Like there was a billboard, it was on sale, and there were coupons in the Sunday paper.