Compound Interest
Pufferfish: kind of cute, right? Also kind of poisonous. They hit the news this week after a Japanese supermarket accidentally sold five packages of fugu (as it’s known in Japan) without removing the highly poisonous livers. This post looks at what makes them so poisonous.
Having already looked at arsenic and cyanide in the previous instalments in this series, our attention turns to thallium, another famed poison. Thallium perhaps doesn’t share quite the same profile as arsenic and cyanide, but despite this it’s perhaps an even more effective compound in poisonings. This graphic looks at its history and effects.
The second in the series on poisons looks at cyanide, another notorious agent of murder. It’s played a role in genocide, in suicide pills, and is also found in small amounts in the seeds of numerous fruits. So, why is cyanide so poisonous, and why are deaths from cyanide poisoning less of a rarity than those from arsenic […]
This graphic is the first in a planned series looking at the effects and chemistry of a range of different poisons. As such, it seemed appropriate to start with one of the most well known poisons: arsenic. Arsenic has been used by poisoners for centuries, primarily in the form of white arsenic, or arsenic trioxide, […]