Watched Modern Marvels at the gym.
Learned that lead was called plumbium in Roman times and hence the "pb." The lead/crazy Romans theory is false, at least as far as the water system goes. I had heard this before but never specifically why it was false. The pipes were almost definitely coated with limestone due to the nature of the soil in the area which would have acted as a barrier. Even back then, Romans knew (or some did) about lead's neurological effects. However, they did sometimes add lead to wine to form the compound lead acetate. It made the wine sweeter. I've read about children in poorer neighborhoods eating lead paint chips because they taste sweet.
Most lead is mined from the earth in the form of galena ore. It's about 87% lead and the rest of sulfur. The majority of mined lead is used in car batteries.
Lead stops x-rays because they bounce off of its bigass nuclei. The high energy particles ricochet until their energy is dissipated. I believe anything sufficiently high density would do but lead is cheap. Lead cannot stop neutron radiation.
Lead is dangerous because sometimes your body mistakes it for calcium and it gets absorbed into your bones and then travels throughout your body on red blood cells who think they are lugging calcium around. This is rather curious since calcium is an alkali earth metal with an atomic # of 20 and lead is a heavy metal with an atomic # of 82. I just Googled this though and found confirmation from multiple sources. Intriguing.
We have lots of lead (#82) on our planet because uranium (#238) eventually decays into it. From the radioactive decay article on Wikipedia, it looks like U-238 decay chains eventually into Lead-206, an isotope of lead.
Muriatic acid is another name for hydrochloric acid.
Acid rain is nitric and sulfuric acids.
In which I engage in shallow discussions about books, movies, science, history and whatever else I'm thinking at that moment. And have beers with Captain Howdy.
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