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[Eric Blank]

Exactly. He punched reality itself, and summoned forth the appropriate XKCD strip.

[TheBiggerFish]

I know, but I can't quite believe I beat the threshold.

Do it quick enough and no-one will notice. Not even these forums.

Also, I noticed.

[Eric Blank]

I could edit that fast. If my internet didn't take 30 seconds to load the page.

[Mech#4]

Strychnine is described as having a bitter taste.

Okay, but how did people know the taste of highly toxic substances?

Every substance is toxic at the right dose.

[insert relevant xkcd here]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I remember watching a video, one about heavy water by this channel, where one of the chemists mentioned that you could kind of guess what something tasted like by the molecules present.

[Solifuge]

Totally makes sense. Your sense of taste/smell is just a Chemical ID system when you get down to it. That and appetite help your body find them calories and vital organic chemicals, yo.

Still, I wonder if they base these flavors off of the accounts of people having been dosed with the poison sometimes too, or with sub-lethal doses?

[Baffler]

Totally makes sense. Your sense of taste/smell is just a Chemical ID system when you get down to it. That and appetite help your body find them calories and vital organic chemicals, yo.

Still, I wonder if they base these flavors off of the accounts of people having been dosed with the poison sometimes too, or with sub-lethal doses?

I'm fairly certain taste used to be standard observation people made in laboratories, so yeah that's probably what happened. As I recall this often led to serious health issues, so it fell by the wayside when it wasn't so easy for them to make lab techs/grad students do dangerous things to see what will happen and people got a little more serious about safety in general. You can also kinda guess what something will taste like based on its smell, there's probably some of that going on as well.

[Solifuge]

A moment of silence for those poor lab assistants who were told by their boss to drink mercury and taste lead-sulfates. I'm really glad I'm alive in an era when we know a little better, at least.

[Neonivek]

Dang 24 hours of work and I finished essentially ONE class... and that class only has 10 levels.

I'll need to learn how to be more efficient with my time.

[MonkeyHead]

A moment of silence for those poor lab assistants who were told by their boss to drink mercury and taste lead-sulfates. I'm really glad I'm alive in an era when we know a little better, at least.

If urban legends are to be believed, that is how saccharine was "discovered". A chem lab was working on a pesticide or some such, and a senior chemist asked an underling to "taste" the substance in error, instead of "test". Said underling chowed down on it, and noticed it was sugary. Suddenly, diet soda everywhere.

[hops]

Somewhere in the multiverse, there's a universe where people accidentally put strychnine in diet soda.

[miauw62]

anamanaguchi released a new album

except its actually a video game?

[IcyTea31]

Somewhere in the multiverse, there's a universe where people accidentally put strychnine in diet soda.

"Try the new Die_t Coke! A taste to die for, yet it'll drop you...of all that dead weight! You'll never drink anything else again!"

[Lord Shonus]

A moment of silence for those poor lab assistants who were told by their boss to drink mercury and taste lead-sulfates. I'm really glad I'm alive in an era when we know a little better, at least.

If urban legends are to be believed, that is how saccharine was "discovered". A chem lab was working on a pesticide or some such, and a senior chemist asked an underling to "taste" the substance in error, instead of "test". Said underling chowed down on it, and noticed it was sugary. Suddenly, diet soda everywhere.

While both saccharine and aspartame were discovered accidentally, in neither case was a testing mistake involved, and neither was under development as a poison. The "poison turned into diet soda" idea came from one of those "these gullible idiots will believe anything" fake news sites.

[Il Palazzo]

Poland can into rock bottom stupid:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-vaginal-beer-bottled-instinct#/

The amount pledged so far restores some hope in humanity.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Poland can into rock bottom stupid:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-vaginal-beer-bottled-instinct#/

The amount pledged so far restores some hope in humanity.

Stop the planet, please, this appears to be my stop, I gotta leave.

Also dear God, the description made me cringe so hard I almost turned inside-out.