Carbon Dioxide Fever

Chemicals are a lot like people. Some are gentle, helpful and kind. Other chemicals seem almost mean spirited. Some chemicals seem to be our friends and others tend to be real jerks.

There are some chemicals out there that are controversial, substances that have people in a moral standoff. Carbon dioxide is just three atoms. It’s just a tiny little peapod of a molecule floating around in the atmosphere, but it has everyone in a tizzy.

How afraid should we be of this gas coming out of all our noses and mouths right now? Carbon dioxide is a key nutrient and a building block to life. It’s in the air, the water, the dirt, the rocks. It’s a food ingredient. It’s an industrial gas. It’s used to power lasers. When it’s pressurized into liquid, it’s a key, nontoxic solvent. It can be formed into a useful ice. Carbon dioxide was the first gas ever described by chemists. In 1640, CO2 gas was called wild spirit.

Carbon dioxide gas has even been used in psychiatric treatment as a mind-altering agent. Inhalation of CO2 rich gas mixtures has been known to cause profound shifts in visual perception and mental state. The brain interprets an increase in blood CO2 levels as suffocation, impending death, and this leads to a cascade of profound psychological and physiological changes.

Even with carbon dioxide, the product of our own respiration, the stuff of our exhaled breaths, the dose makes the poison.

Vanadium features video explorations of the many fascinations of materials scientist, Christopher Rankin PhD.

See more at: www.christopherrankin.net
All music by Christopher Rankin

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