Technically the month is not over, but it's likely that anything that tops this month's winner will be worthy of a post of its own. And in the time honored tradition of gematria this is "close enough."
Also, technically this is more than a year old. But I didn't find out about it until earlier this week. My awards. My rules. Also in the time honored tradition of gematria not having any real rules I can do what I want.
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With the hubbub surrounding Hubbard's (temporary) YouTube cannel shutdown I decided to check out the video in question that Google got all uppity about. The content I saw wasn't offensive in regards to the reported reason for the channel shutdown. Notice I said, "content I saw." As soon as I hit this content, the scientist in me was offended and I'd had enough.
Peach pits are used to make arsenic.
What...the...fuck?!?
Well that's not right. But as a scientist and in order to find out if there was some strange urban legend I didn't know about I poked around and found nothing that indicated that anybody else thought of that. The closest was traces of a cyanide-like compound can be found in peaches, but you'd have to eat like a bazillion peach pits to get enough to kill you. That's a long pit stop.
Cyanide or ricin and other nasty toxins can be manufactured or extracted from other things. Arsenic is an element. On the periodic table with its own number (33) like Oxygen or Carbon or Vanadium. You don't 'make' arsenic. It's not a product of radioactive decay of another element. It's just arsenic.
I glanced through every single comment looking for a challenge to this error. The only comment that even acknowledged it was something like, "Peach pits used to make arsenic. Gee I didn't know that!"
I hope you didn't, because it's not true.
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