Fresh analysis with calorimetry, X-rays, electron microscopy lend support to hotly debated theory.
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Study: Hot Vesuvian ash cloud really did turn a brain to glass
- Thread starter JournalBot
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what is organic glass? what is its composition? it doesn't seem to have a universal meaning, and there are some commercial products that call themselves organic glass.
There shouldn't be much silicon in a brain, so is the organic glass a mostly carbon substance? almost like coal?
There shouldn't be much silicon in a brain, so is the organic glass a mostly carbon substance? almost like coal?
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TheMolesRevenge
Ars Praetorian
Well now I've got something to talk about in our advanced vitrification program meeting tomorrow....
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Omega_Prime
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Serious question, given the human brain is something like ~70+% water, what exactly is vitrifying? Carbon and trace elements would present, but how could there cellular structure be retained after flash boiling (exploding) at 510C.
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Given the circumstances and descriptions, if you take an organic thing and glassify it, it becomes a kind of organic based glass, or organic glass.
"Organic glass" is usually a polymer, so using the same term for two things that probably greatly differ in composition, it's more about creating a glass-like material out of purely organic materials, rather than creating a glass out of polymers.
That may be why it's confusing. What was discovered isn't polymer-based "organic glass". It's biologically based material that's been glassified.
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"like roasting a joint in the oven" ...
... ?1?
I guess being an archeologist is more fun than I thought.
... ?1?
I guess being an archeologist is more fun than I thought.
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You have put your finger on the central problem identified by the skeptics of this hypothesis. The human skull is unlikely to have been able to hold the sudden increase in pressure long enough for the vitrification to have taken place.
Nevertheless, we are learning lots of interesting things thanks to the investigation (which is why scientists often look at questions that seem "Well, duh!" to people outside the field).
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Amazing, they found more identifiable brain matter in a 2100 year old skull than could be found by combining the contents of the skulls of everyone in the executive office of the president and his entire cabinet and advisor cabal.
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"Once had a love,
And it was a gas,
Vesuvius blew,
Turned his brain to glass"
Apologies to Deborah Harry.
And it was a gas,
Vesuvius blew,
Turned his brain to glass"
Apologies to Deborah Harry.
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Albino_Boo
Ars Praefectus
It's the organic material that's undergone a process known as glass transion, leaving it with a semi crystalline structure. It's not glass as in window panes. Diamond and graphite are both allotropes of carbon but they both exhibit regular uniform structure. This material has areas where's it crystalline and where it isn't and the crystalline areas aren't regular repeating units.
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Doi link/number isn't working for me.
Was there any speculation as to what part of the brain was made glass?
At first glimpse the curves could suggest some part of the outer neocortex, but thinking about the conditions of formation I could see it being a much deeper part. The skull may not have needed to completely contain the pressure, if a crack acted as a relief valve there could be a few moments of high heat high pressure for some parts of the brain.
Thanks for the article, great stuff!
Was there any speculation as to what part of the brain was made glass?
At first glimpse the curves could suggest some part of the outer neocortex, but thinking about the conditions of formation I could see it being a much deeper part. The skull may not have needed to completely contain the pressure, if a crack acted as a relief valve there could be a few moments of high heat high pressure for some parts of the brain.
Thanks for the article, great stuff!
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In the near future, US Plastic Corp testifies before Congress that microplastics are good because they prevent brain glassification (and it's what fish crave!)
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This is fascinating, horrifying, and causing my stomach to tumble, but I couldn't stop my curiosity from getting the better of me. I didn't have a fear of my brain turning to glass before, but I think this may plant that seed. Thanks, science!
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This is a hilarious juxtaposition of vocabulary for those for whom "baked" and "joint" don't initially evoke images of cooking a large cut of meat with moderate dry heat.
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I had the exact same thought. Apparently some people call a beef roast a “joint”? I have never heard this before, but I think maybe my future includes “joint and joint” evenings.
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Albino_Boo
Ars Praefectus
Yes pretty much. Amino acids in the protein have more than elements than sellotape but it's the same sort of effect
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I'm less concerned with past politicians than I am with current ones, but a glass-brained Biden with competent cabinet beats the shit out of what we have now.
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araczynski
Ars Scholae Palatinae
70% water, sure, but the other 30%?? nobody said they found a 100% whole human brain crystallized/glassified/whatever. Even if only 5% of it made it, that's still something.
Plus 'unlikely' in true scientific terms is pretty meaningless... half a year ago, I would say it would be WAY more than unlikely that we'd have a self proclaimed nazi and an actual russian spy in charge of the country, and yet, somehow, jesus just barged his pedo A in and proceeded to dry fist the US.
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This is one of those theories that are subject to the classic:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
What they have so far is compelling but not conclusive. Subject a dozen freshly killed animal skulls similar to size and structure of humans to the pyroclastic conditions and cooling regimes proposed in the study and see if anything remotely resembling the outcome comes out.
I regret that The Amazing Randi is no longer with us to oversee the experimental protocols.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
What they have so far is compelling but not conclusive. Subject a dozen freshly killed animal skulls similar to size and structure of humans to the pyroclastic conditions and cooling regimes proposed in the study and see if anything remotely resembling the outcome comes out.
I regret that The Amazing Randi is no longer with us to oversee the experimental protocols.
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Yeah, but it isn't in the US, which is where Ars and its editors are headquartered. We would use "cut" or "hunk" or even "slab". I'm fairly certain the author (and their editor) knew exactly what they were doing.
(Alas, Ars has eliminated the emoji which would have been appropriate to use here, and their depiction of
doesn't quite cut it as a replacement).
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on the "ways to die" checklist:
"engulfed in hellishly hot gasses such that my brain glassifies"
may actually be near the top of the list at this point
"engulfed in hellishly hot gasses such that my brain glassifies"
may actually be near the top of the list at this point
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I think it’s probably much more likely that the brain matter was partially surrounded by sand or silica rich materials after the skull burst from the high temperatures surrounding it. The silica rich material on which the individual was lying turned to glass, enveloping and mixing with brain matter. This is a more plausible explanation based on the knowledge that the brain has little or no silicates, mostly fats/lipids and water.
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"A joint of meat is a piece that is bigger than a couple of servings, and will probably be cooked whole. It will usually be roasted."
"What the British call a joint (a large piece of meat, such as a leg of lamb or loin of pork, cooked in an oven and eaten with potatoes and other vegetables) is known as a roast in the U.S. Most Americans would be shocked to hear that the Sunday joint is a British family tradition."
"In British English, a joint is a large piece of meat for cooking—and has been since the sixteenth century. It typically contains a bone (a leg, a rib, a shoulder) and is roasted. But in nineteenth-century America, ... direct reference to ‘legs’ was taboo. ... The solution was to euphemize the leg of such a fowl as a joint. Apparently it caused a certain amount of confusion among British visitors." --Oxford Reference
What cut of meat is a “joint”? --Straight Dope
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anthrolume
Seniorius Lurkius
I raise an eyebrow whenever a scientist presents a mechanism as the "only way" ___________ can occur.
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The elemental analysis (in the supplemental info linked at the end of the original article) shows carbon and oxygen plus trace elements (and presumably hydrogen, which SEM dispersive X-ray analysis doesn't detect). So it could be an amorphous polymer, such as polycarbonate. They didn't do any molecular analysis.
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Hot dang, I want to party with Jennifer, she’s just out there somewhere, hot-boxing entire houses like it’s a normal thing to do.
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The glassy and semicrystalline states are two different things.
Polymers give some familiar examples of organic glasses (i.e. not made of inorganic stuff like window glass). Plexiglas (PMMA) goes through its glass transition about 100C upon cooling, and so is in the glassy state at room temperature. Milk jug material (HDPE) is in the semicrystalline state at room temperature. The crystals give it solid-like behavior, but you would have to cool it to something like -20C to -125C for the noncrystalline portions to go through their glass transition (the literature on this for PE is unfortunately messy.)
PET is an example of a polymer that enters the semicrystalline state upon cooling (depending on conditions of course), and then upon further cooling goes through its glass transition at 75-80C.
And yes window glass is also in the glassy state at room temperature (its glass transition temperature is somewhere in the 500's of degrees Celsius.)
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