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The lethal doses of 55 substances (infosec.pub)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It is somewhat misleading to group poisons, radioactive isotopes and viruses

Far as I can tell there aren't any viruses in there? There's a few bacterial toxins, but they're… well, toxins.

Also, the grouping isn't misleading. Not only is eg. plutonium fairly toxic (because it's a heavy metal) in addition to giving off ionizing radiation, but calculating an LD50 for something doesn't require it to be toxic, just that some dose of it kills. There's some µg/kg ingested (or inhaled or whatever) dose of polonium that will kill 50% of a study animal population dead, regardless of what the mechanism that kills them actually is

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You are right, those aren't viruses. But you can imagine that a virus or prion (like botulinum) might have a very small LD₅₀. I discussed the radioactivity/toxicity in another comment, you are correct - but a tiny amount of any element can quickly kill you from decay radiation if it's a very unstable isotope.

And yes, if you understand what LD₅₀ means, the mechanism is the confusing part. Ingesting naturally occuring uranium will not kill you primarily from radiation despite the ☢️ symbol on the infographic, and vitamin D won't kill you if you only get it from the Sun. And I was primarily correcting the misunderstanding in the above critique, not defending everything about the picture.