[HN Gopher] The first blue pigment discovered in 200 years is no...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The first blue pigment discovered in 200 years is now commercially
       available
        
       Author : uptown
       Score  : 312 points
       Date   : 2021-01-17 01:27 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (news.artnet.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (news.artnet.com)
        
       | habosa wrote:
       | If I was working in a lab and my experiment turned a deep blue
       | I'd say "cool!" and move on. I didn't know that discovering a new
       | color was something meaningful.
       | 
       | I wonder who told these scientists "stop what you're doing you've
       | just discovered a new pigment".
        
         | newdude116 wrote:
         | Do you have a chemistry background?
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben
         | 
         | Do you know what the name means?
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | One more thing for art forgers to worry about.
        
       | ChuckMcM wrote:
       | I would love to see this color in person. I had not realized it
       | was such an excellent IR reflector either, from an industrial
       | perspective that should be a boon for IR lamp heating systems in
       | terms of efficiency.
        
       | jakear wrote:
       | Anyone here have suggestions for viewing this and other novel
       | pigments?
        
         | zokier wrote:
         | I was googling around, and apparently there are some shirts
         | marketed as "yinmn blue":
         | 
         | https://www.scotch-soda.com/fi/en/men/shirts/long-sleeve-100...
         | 
         | I am somewhat dubious though if that is genuinely yinmn, but
         | interesting nevertheless that they are marketing it as such.
        
         | AareyBaba wrote:
         | You can see the blue pigment on an AMD Radeon Pro graphics
         | card. https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstation-series
        
           | jrockway wrote:
           | I kind of thought you were kidding, because nobody on earth
           | cares what color their workstation/datacenter graphics card
           | is... but indeed they are using YInMn blue:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMXS1A2uBeE And made a video
           | about how cool they are for putting certain paint on a
           | graphics card.
           | 
           | I will continue to be amused because people call Intel "team
           | blue" and AMD "team red", but in this case AMD's product is
           | blue.
        
             | xyzzyz wrote:
             | > I kind of thought you were kidding, because nobody on
             | earth cares what color their workstation/datacenter
             | graphics card is...
             | 
             | I'm not sure if you're joking here or something, but as it
             | turns out, many people buy video cards to play video games,
             | and many of them care about how their gaming device looks
             | like. They install LEDs and stuff. It's pretty cool.
        
               | jrockway wrote:
               | Radeon Pro is the professional line, for workstation use
               | cases (CAD, rendering, that sort of thing). They are not
               | aimed at the consumer market, and AMD doesn't appear to
               | paint their consumer cards blue.
        
               | Guthur wrote:
               | True, but these are workstation cards, they're for GPGPU
               | workloads or Rendering workstations for pro artist. You'd
               | rarely if ever find them in a gaming PC (too expensive
               | with no real benefit for gaming workloads).
        
               | spijdar wrote:
               | There are other uses, too. AMD makes low profile (?)
               | radeon pro cards like the WX2100 which are smaller and
               | have lower power requirements than their consumer
               | offerings.
               | 
               | I got a used one off eBay for my tower, mostly because I
               | wanted something AMD for linux usage with as low heat
               | emission as possible, but honestly I really like the look
               | of that blue too :)
               | 
               | Even if I have a black boxy case with no fancy windows or
               | anything else... Interesting to learn it's this neat
               | pigment.
        
               | Guthur wrote:
               | You might get some bargains on ebay for sure.
               | 
               | But straight up it would make no sense for a non
               | professional workload. You could get a AMD 5500 XT 4GB
               | GDDR6 (WX2100 is 2GB GDDR5) for a similar ball park in
               | price with 5x the bandwidth and a lot more graphical
               | horse power for a gaming workload. And if heat is the
               | concern it would be trivial to underclock and undervolt
               | to get it quite chilly.
               | 
               | You may have some special situation and have got a great
               | deal but for the most part they should be of little
               | interest to standard consumers.
        
               | spijdar wrote:
               | Looking briefly at ebay, the 5500 XT goes for around
               | 250-300 USD, while the WX2100 goes for around 50-70 USD.
               | 
               | And the 5500 XT has a TDP of 130 watts, vs 25 watts for
               | the WX2100. The WX2100 is also smaller, and doesn't
               | require additional power from the PSU, running entirely
               | off the PCIe slot power.
               | 
               | Not that I'm saying it's great for gaming. But I'm
               | running it on a IBM POWER processor which can't really
               | play x86 games anyway, just open-source and java games
               | (it can tank minecraft at 4k pretty nicely). It lacks an
               | on-board accelerated GPU too, so going without isn't
               | really an option.
               | 
               | I agree almost everyone should probably just get a better
               | gaming card, but for the price this thing runs a 4k
               | monitor great, has good video en/decoders, and a cool
               | blue exterior ;)
        
             | sharpneli wrote:
             | I was on the release event of those cards. All of that
             | setup just for the punchline in the end: "The first non-
             | toxic blue"
             | 
             | The fact that it was said makes the amusement value even
             | greater.
        
             | cycrutchfield wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YInMn_Blue#Commercialization_
             | a...
             | 
             | >AMD announced in July 2016 that the pigment would be used
             | on new Radeon Pro WX and Pro SSG professional GPUs for the
             | energy efficiency that stems from its near-infrared
             | reflecting property
        
               | londons_explore wrote:
               | Except for cooling a hot thing, you _want_ a pigment that
               | absorbs and radiates a lot in the far infrared (ie. acts
               | like a black body)
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | mhh__ wrote:
             | > because nobody on earth cares what color their
             | workstation/datacenter graphics card is
             | 
             | I think some HPC applications do actually have some
             | aesthetics because the bean counters want to be able to
             | look at their billion dollar datacenter and say "My
             | datacenter is bigger/prettier than yours" rather than just
             | having a black front panel.
        
       | getpost wrote:
       | "From Egyptian wall paintings to the Venetian Renaissance,
       | impressionism to digital images, Philip Ball tells the
       | fascinating story of how art, chemistry, and technology have
       | interacted throughout the ages to render the gorgeous hues we
       | admire on our walls and in our museums."
       | 
       | Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color Paperback -
       | Illustrated, April 15, 2003 https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Earth-
       | Art-Invention-Color/dp/0...
       | 
       | https://www.philipball.co.uk/
        
       | qndreoi wrote:
       | "YInMn Blue's appeal stems in part from its high opacity, which
       | means you don't need to apply much of it to get a good coating."
       | 
       | This! I've noticed that blue exterior house paint, even with an
       | expensive primer, just doesn't cover very well. This stuff seems
       | about 100 times too expensive for that application.
        
       | alisausa wrote:
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       | tekkk wrote:
       | These people really didnt think about how people are going to
       | pronounce their pigment? YInMn - what a monster of a name. In the
       | olden days at least people gave colors great names that were easy
       | to prounounce and provided them personality. Ultramarine,
       | prussian blue.. Even vantablack has a nice rhythm.
       | 
       | It's nice as techinical name, I guess, but I'd hope they have
       | some better brand name they are going by.
        
         | GreenWatermelon wrote:
         | I decided to pronounce it "Yelenmen"
        
           | triclops200 wrote:
           | The character after the Y in YInMn is an I (uppercase i), not
           | an l.
        
         | knuthsat wrote:
         | Coming from a language with phonemic orthography it's pretty
         | easy to pronounce.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | I'll propose: _Rare Blue_.
        
         | BossingAround wrote:
         | It seems to me like it'd have a Chinese-like pronunciation,
         | that is Yin Min.
         | 
         | Tangentially, as a non-native speaker, "ultramarine" has a
         | fairly similar amount of information encoded in the name as
         | "Yinmn"--pretty much zero. So, the two names ("ultramarine" vs
         | "yinmn") are pretty much equivalent to eme, personally.
         | 
         | Goes to show that naming things "properly" is difficult (I
         | suspect it's impossible actually).
        
           | adrian_b wrote:
           | Originally, "ultramarine" meant something like "imported
           | merchandise", i.e. something brought from the other side
           | (ultra-) of the sea (-marine).
           | 
           | It provided the information that this is a foreign pigment
           | that must be better than the lower-quality pigments produced
           | locally (e.g. azurite).
        
         | russellbeattie wrote:
         | Crayola is calling the crayon made with this color "Bluetiful",
         | does that help? Wikipedia also refers to it as "Oregon Blue,
         | Mas Blue, or Yin Min Blue" so I think it will be commonly
         | called something else.
         | 
         | Anyways, you're on HN, you know geeks shouldn't name things,
         | but they do anyways. Think "XBox" as a perfect example.
        
           | TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
           | Crayola's crayon isn't actually using the YInMn pigment.
        
         | La1n wrote:
         | One of the videos in the article has it as Yin Min.
        
       | shivamgarg19 wrote:
       | Nice!
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I don't get it, how would you even discover a pigment? How would
       | you know what you're looking at is novel?
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | _I don't get it, how would you even discover a pigment?_
         | 
         | I suspect it starts with "this compound has a nice colour, how
         | about its other properties?"
         | 
         |  _How would you know what you're looking at is novel?_
         | 
         | There are extensive lists of existing pigments.
        
         | refurb wrote:
         | Chemistry - either organic or inorganic. We already know what
         | is responsible for the colors of molecules. So you can build
         | _new_ molecule or complex based on those principles and some of
         | them turn out to be scientifically interesting or commercially
         | valuable.
        
         | Pasorrijer wrote:
         | I think it's possible the discoverers looked at it and said
         | they had never seen such a colour before artificially
        
         | peteretep wrote:
         | Guessing if you're a chemical engineer it's one of those
         | properties you're keeping an eye out for?
        
         | krisoft wrote:
         | > How would you know what you're looking at is novel?
         | 
         | Pigments are chemicals. Chemist can use various techniques to
         | analyse a sample and tell what is its composition. After that
         | they search for it in the literature and if they find that the
         | given chemical was not described previously then it is novel.
         | That's it.
         | 
         | > I don't get it, how would you even discover a pigment?
         | 
         | The article answers this. " Chemist Mas Subramanian and his
         | team serendipitously came upon it while conducting experiments
         | with rare earth elements as part of their work with
         | semiconductors."
         | 
         | That is to say they were experimenting and something turned out
         | as blue. They didn't expect this so they analyzed the sample
         | and then did a literature search.
        
         | Bud wrote:
         | Read up just a little bit on art history and you'll get it.
         | 
         | It wasn't that long ago that a blue pigment--anything at all
         | that was blue and that would be durable over time--was
         | extraordinarily rare and valuable.
        
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       | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
       | Is this ok?
       | 
       | >Yttrium is mostly dangerous in the working environment, due to
       | the fact that damps and gasses can be inhaled with air. This can
       | cause lung embolisms, especially during long-term exposure.
       | Yttrium can also cause cancer with humans, as it enlarges the
       | chances of lung cancer when it is inhaled.
       | 
       | >Indium compounds are encountered rarely by most people. All
       | indium compounds should be regarded as highly toxic. Indium
       | compounds damage the heart, kidney, and liver, and may be
       | teratogenic.
       | 
       | https://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/y.htm
        
         | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
         | Cobalt is used in some colors. Many oil paints are filled with
         | things that can kill you in large doses. Bob Ross likely died
         | from inhaling paint thinner fumes.
         | 
         | It just comes with the territory oddly enough...
        
         | hwillis wrote:
         | EPA thinks so
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | awalton wrote:
         | Its oral LD50 was tested to be more than 5000mg/kg according to
         | Shepherd Color Company's MSDS for Blue 10G513 (as it is known
         | commercially). That's well into "non-toxic" as categorized by
         | the EPA. For perspective, that's more than ten times less toxic
         | than caffeine.
         | 
         | So, probably pretty safe when used appropriately. I wouldn't go
         | inhaling it, since any fine powder's not great for the lungs,
         | but that shouldn't be news to anyone. Just wear your N95 when
         | mixing dry pigments as you always should.
        
           | icedistilled wrote:
           | It's not the LD50 for Cobalt Blue, but the LD50 for soluble
           | Cobalt salts is between 150 and 500 mg/kg and Cobalt toxicity
           | seems to be a thing. But the LD50(rat) for cobalt blue is >
           | 10000 mg/kg according to the MSDS I'm looking at. That
           | doesn't sound toxic.
           | 
           | Wiki says this about cobalt: "it causes respiratory problems
           | when inhaled. It also causes skin problems when touched;
           | after nickel and chromium, cobalt is a major cause of contact
           | dermatitis"
           | 
           | So for people looking for an example of something that's
           | somewhat toxic, but much less toxic as a paint. Here you go,
           | Cobalt Blue. The color this new can be substituted for. yeah
           | the toxicities are different, but it's the same idea.
        
           | ehnto wrote:
           | I think that's for the processed pigment though, what about
           | during manufacturing?
        
           | corndoge wrote:
           | Isn't LD50 only relevant to acute exposure?[0] Just because
           | you can eat 5 grams of something and survive doesn't mean
           | repeated exposure to it in smaller quantities or in other
           | ways won't hurt you (obviously). E.g. acute inhalation of
           | asbestos has no recorded mortality. I think I'm missing
           | something in your post.
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose
        
         | Daub wrote:
         | Dangerous pigments is old news to painters, and artists in
         | general. Check out the book Artist Beware (Michael McCann).
         | Pigments I used, and still use when I can get them, are the
         | Cadmiums (red, yellow), flake white (lead oxide) and Naples
         | yellow. All very poisonous.
         | 
         | A great influence on me as an artist, and a good friend, died
         | prematurely almost certainly as a result of his exposure to
         | dangerous materials. In his case, asbestos.
        
         | ashtonkem wrote:
         | A surprising number of dyes and pigments are very toxic. I have
         | no idea if this is unusually toxic, but it wouldn't surprise me
         | if it's the norm.
        
           | scns wrote:
           | There are carcinogenic ones used in red lipstick.
        
           | dragosmocrii wrote:
           | I remember Zara was once in the spotlight due to their
           | clothes containing toxic dyes
        
         | rini17 wrote:
         | Isn't indium used everywhere in solder as a less toxic
         | replacement for lead?
        
           | okl wrote:
           | AFAIK only in specialised low-temp solder, like the one sold
           | by Chip-Quik to desolder sensitive components.
        
             | namibj wrote:
             | That's Tin-Bismuth eutectic, forming a 99 C (a hair below
             | boiling water) eutectic when mixed with lead.
        
         | throwaway5752 wrote:
         | Probably not good, but consider Cadmium Red, Chromium Green,
         | Lead White, and Vermillion (Mercury), among others.
        
           | idiocrat wrote:
           | Yes, just another few elements to leak into environment,
           | rivers, oceans.
           | 
           | It does not matter if the chemical compound is inert or not,
           | the elements will be well incorporated into a new vector of
           | nature.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | ImprovedSilence wrote:
           | Yeah, but they cause cancer. Things like lymphomas that
           | killed Bob Ross cuz those are the pigments painters use.
        
             | awalton wrote:
             | Ross's lymphoma was thought to have been caused by
             | dichloromethane exposure from his odorless paint thinner
             | (and him 'beating the devil' out of his brushes
             | aerosolizing it).
             | 
             | It's now banned in paint thinners as a result of some
             | pretty long lobbying efforts. It's a little sad, since
             | chemicals like DCM are hard to replace, but if it saves the
             | lives of our artists at the expense of them having a bit of
             | a harder time cleaning their brushes, maybe we can live
             | with that.
        
         | tryptophan wrote:
         | Chemical reactions (such as forming it into a pigment) greatly
         | change the biological effects substances have.
         | 
         | For example, you probably shouldn't drink OH- or H2O2, even
         | though it is made of the same atoms as water.
         | 
         | Just because the pure elemental form is toxic doesn't make
         | compounds with it toxic as well.
        
           | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
           | I don't think that is a very good example. A better example
           | would be is there a safe compound with lead or arsenic or
           | mercury (known toxic elements) you would want to take into
           | your body?
        
             | ampdepolymerase wrote:
             | Organic chemistry should probably be made mandatory as part
             | of high school science education like physics. Parent looks
             | like Exhibit A for anti-thiomersal hysteria.
        
               | owenmarshall wrote:
               | >> lead or arsenic or mercury
               | 
               | > Organic chemistry
               | 
               | Heh.
        
               | acidbaseextract wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethylmercury
               | 
               | "Heh" is an obnoxious response, as if an organic
               | chemistry class wouldn't teach the basics of
               | organometallics and some of the things that make
               | compounds more or less dangerous.
        
               | ampdepolymerase wrote:
               | Correct. One reaction involving mercury would be
               | Oxymercuration, a process that is usually covered in
               | Organic Chemistry 1.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymercuration_reaction
        
               | Scea91 wrote:
               | It is not? I had at least 2 years of organic chemistry at
               | high school (Czechia).
        
               | GreenWatermelon wrote:
               | same in Egypt.
        
               | hobofan wrote:
               | In Germany it's 1 year of the final 2 year Chemistry
               | elective, where most people instead choose Biology or
               | Physics (and I think if you are on a language focused
               | path you might not even have to do one of them).
        
               | dividedbyzero wrote:
               | It depends on the state level, but I believe in most (if
               | not all?) you need to take at least one year of anorganic
               | and one year of organic chemistry
        
               | hobofan wrote:
               | Just looked it up and you are right, all of 10th grade is
               | already focused on organic chemistry[0] (in Bavaria) for
               | those with a STEM profile, while other profiles also have
               | organic chemistry that year, but a bit less of it.
               | 
               | [0]: http://www.isb-
               | gym8-lehrplan.de/contentserv/3.1.neu/g8.de/id...
        
               | makomk wrote:
               | One of the things I learnt in actual chemistry classes
               | was that organomercury compounds actually tend to be
               | really toxic compared to elemental mercury.
               | Unfortunately, there's been a fair amount of
               | misinformation spread about this online in the name of
               | fighting anti-vaxxers, often involving misleading
               | analogues with stuff like chlorine and sodium.
        
               | adrian_b wrote:
               | I believe that the anti-thiomersal hysteria was quite
               | justified.
               | 
               | Even if thiomersal is more effective at killing bacteria
               | than at killing humans, there are no doubts that it is
               | also toxic for humans and for any other animals.
               | 
               | While the thiomersal dose injected together with a
               | vaccine is small enough so that in most cases it will not
               | cause damages before being eliminated from the body, the
               | risks are not negligible.
               | 
               | To willingly inject yourself with poison, even in a
               | quantity that hopefully will not hurt you, seems rather
               | stupid.
               | 
               | Better alternative bactericides must be found for vaccine
               | preservation.
        
               | p_l wrote:
               | The amount of mercury intake with vaccine that was
               | preserved using thiomersal is smaller than amount mercury
               | taken into organism when you drink a cup of tap water in
               | many countries, including tap water declared safe to
               | drink.
               | 
               | That's why it wasn't justified.
        
             | jasonhansel wrote:
             | Yes. As one example, arsenobetaine is an arsenic-containing
             | compound that is naturally present in almost all fish that
             | we consume. It is entirely harmless to humans in normal
             | amounts, since we don't metabolize it into ordinary
             | arsenic.
        
             | chrisbennet wrote:
             | Yes, tooth fillings.
             | 
             | "Dental amalgam is a mixture of metals, consisting of
             | liquid (elemental) mercury and a powdered alloy composed of
             | silver, tin, and copper. Approximately half (50%) of dental
             | amalgam is elemental mercury by weight. The chemical
             | properties of elemental mercury allow it to react with and
             | bind together the silver/copper/tin alloy particles to form
             | an amalgam."
             | 
             | https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/dental-devices/dental-
             | am....
        
               | esperent wrote:
               | Amalgam fillings do offgas tiny amounts of mercury. Of
               | course, this is a controversial topic and there's a lot
               | of misinformation around, so do your own research.
               | Personally, I came to the conclusion that the one amalgam
               | filling I have is ok but too many would cause potentially
               | toxic buildup over a lifetime so I'll never get another.
        
             | OJFord wrote:
             | Why does it need to be safe to 'take into your body'? I'm
             | not going to drink lead paint or the turpentine used to
             | clean brushes either.
        
               | mathgeek wrote:
               | Likely for the same reason we rarely use lead paint
               | anymore, or why micro plastics are a concern in bath
               | products. Just for a couple of examples of products you
               | don't consume ending up in animal bodies.
        
             | _Microft wrote:
             | What about Barium? Water-soluble barium compounds are toxic
             | while the insoluble barium sulfate is used as radiocontrast
             | agent.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barium_sulfate#Radiocontrast_
             | a...
        
               | voldacar wrote:
               | Well sulfates in general tend to be highly insoluble in
               | water, and therefore biologically inert, so I think this
               | is still kind of a cherry-picked example
        
               | avianlyric wrote:
               | Isn't cherry-picking kind of the point here?
        
             | SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
             | Mercury amalgam (silver, tin, zinc, copper, etc) fillings.
        
               | londons_explore wrote:
               | There is a strong correlation between incidence of
               | mercury amalgam and alzheimer's. Obviously correlation is
               | not causation, but I'd still be wary of putting mercury
               | in my body...
        
               | refurb wrote:
               | No there isn't a correlation. Maybe you are thinking
               | aluminum? Even then the data is weak.
               | 
               | Mercury salts are corrosive, organomercury compounds are
               | highly neurotoxic and elemental mercury is relatively
               | non-toxic if ingested.
               | 
               | The form of the element matters a lot.
        
               | SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
               | I'd also add that elemental mercury is toxic if inhaled
               | as a vapor. While I mentioned fillings as a safe use,
               | there is a (very small) amount of vapor released when
               | they're installed, and more gets released if they need to
               | be removed. Not enough to matter in adults. If you needed
               | enough fillings for it to be a concern the dental
               | microbiota issues causing the decay would be a far bigger
               | general health threat. Indeed, Alzheimer's is linked to
               | gingivitis (gum disease) and the hypothesized link with
               | amalgam fillings may be an artifact of people with worse
               | gum disease having worse dental health, and thus more
               | fillings.
        
               | ryder9 wrote:
               | [citation required]
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | conception wrote:
             | Mercury? Of course. Tooth fillings.
        
               | cromka wrote:
               | Just google "mercury amalgam cancer".
        
               | sk5t wrote:
               | Just google "vaccine autism" - what's the difference?
        
               | xevrem wrote:
               | theirs is based in scientific knowledge, yours is based
               | in ignorance of that knowledge
               | 
               | "molecules are not the same as elements"
               | 
               | now repeat it with me
               | 
               | "molecules are not the same as elements"
        
               | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
               | I live in pride of my mercury-compound amalgam. You can
               | choose to live in fear.
               | 
               | "Numerous other organizations have also publicly declared
               | the safety and effectiveness of amalgam. These include
               | the Mayo clinic,[21] the U.S. Food and Drug
               | Administration (FDA),[22] Health Canada,[23] Alzheimer's
               | Association,[24] American Academy of Pediatrics,[25]
               | Autism Society of America,[26] U.S. Environmental
               | Protection Agency,[27] National Multiple Sclerosis
               | Society,[28] New England Journal of Medicine,[29]
               | International Journal of Dentistry,[30] National Council
               | Against Health Fraud,[31] The National Institute of
               | Dental and Craniofacial Research NIDCR,[32] American
               | Cancer Society,[33] Lupus Foundation of America,[34] the
               | American College of Medical Toxicology,[35] the American
               | Academy of Clinical Toxicology"
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_amalgam_controvers
               | y
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | I'm not deep in a hole "living in fear," I just got the
               | resin and don't have to think about it anymore.
        
               | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
               | The resin fillings don't last nearly as long. You'll need
               | a replacement down the road. I'm going on 40 years or so
               | with my mercury filling.
        
               | OpieCunningham wrote:
               | From that link:
               | 
               | "A large retrospective cohort study found a significant
               | association of mercury based fillings with the
               | development of Parkinson's disease."
               | 
               | (Reference to 2000 - 2008 study in Taiwan.)
        
               | xapata wrote:
               | How many diseases did they significance test? What's the
               | causal mechanism? Was there a proportional response, or
               | was the causal variable thresholded arbitrarily?
        
               | perl4ever wrote:
               | For better or worse, the dentists I have gone to in
               | recent years don't use it any more. I have some old
               | mercury fillings and at least one newer resin one.
               | 
               | Your link is interesting. It seems like the arguments
               | against mercury amalgam being a problem include:
               | 
               | 1) organizations like you listed saying don't worry
               | 
               | 2) obvious scammers making a living blaming everything on
               | fillings, even nonexistent ones
               | 
               | 3) only 5% of people with fillings having elevated
               | mercury in urine, particularly gum chewers
               | 
               | 4) "hypersensitivity or allergy" are the "most likely
               | health effects" but there is not clear evidence for or
               | against autoimmune disorders caused by fillings.
               | 
               | It seems to me that it's perfectly conceivable, at the
               | same time, that there is or has been a scam/cult of
               | mercury fillings causing every possible problem, and at
               | the same time, that they _do_ do something to a minority
               | of recipients that is different from acute mercury
               | toxicity that we know about. There could be a combination
               | of more than normal mercury released and more than normal
               | sensitivity.
               | 
               | Something that would be interesting to research, I think,
               | is the microbiome of people with and without different
               | kinds of fillings. There's been some recent claim(s)
               | about the bacteria that cause gingivitis being linked to
               | Alzheimers.
        
               | namibj wrote:
               | Here (DE) they stopped using it for fillings where it'd
               | be visible in social settings.
        
               | heliodor wrote:
               | Health-related topics is one place where google fails
               | miserably.
        
             | thereare5lights wrote:
             | > A better example would be is there a safe compound with
             | lead or arsenic or mercury (known toxic elements) you would
             | want to take into your body?
             | 
             | Dental amalgam
        
             | hyperpallium2 wrote:
             | Sodium and Chlorine are both pretty nasty.
        
             | fortran77 wrote:
             | There's a safe compound with sodium and chlorine that I eat
             | every day.
        
               | ReptileMan wrote:
               | They are not toxic though - they are just so reactive
               | that they corrode tissue.
        
               | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
               | Why does that matter? The point is you can combine
               | elements and create compounds that are drastically
               | different to the components with different properties.
               | 
               | Obvious one is water. H - explody. O2 - burny. H2O - puts
               | out fires, quenches your thirst, no longer a gas, not
               | very reactive.
        
               | namibj wrote:
               | Because corrosive is way different than toxic.
               | Particularly, acid/base corrosion can and will be
               | neutralized by our body once sufficiently diluted. Toxic
               | compounds, especially heavy metals, stay toxic even if
               | diluted.
        
               | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
               | Again, so what?
               | 
               | The point being made is that you can take dangerous
               | elements and then create a compound that doesn't share
               | the properties of the elements.
               | 
               | So a counter argument is to show that's not true for the
               | elements that make up the compound for this blue dye.
        
             | onei wrote:
             | Thimerosal is a mercury compound used as a preservative in
             | vaccinations [1].
             | 
             | 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal
        
       | pacificmint wrote:
       | Here are two articles about how this pigment was discovered:
       | 
       | https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/485696248/a-chemist-accidenta...
       | 
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-quest-for-billion-do...
        
       | pmoriarty wrote:
       | _" The pigment--which is the first new blue discovered in 200
       | years--was finally approved by the EPA for use in artists'
       | materials last May."_
       | 
       | The EPA under the Trump administration.[1][2][3][4]
       | 
       | I'd take a wait-and-see approach on this one.
       | 
       | Not to mention that there are so many great colors that have seen
       | hundreds of years of human use.. as opposed to this one, which
       | has seen zero.
       | 
       | [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/climate/epa-trump-
       | biden.h...
       | 
       | [2] - https://apnews.com/article/politics-science-
       | environment-e0c8...
       | 
       | [3] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-trump-
       | administratio...
       | 
       | [4] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-the-trump-
       | administ...
        
         | Bjartr wrote:
         | As easy as it is to look at Trump's impact on the EPA and
         | simply assume everything the EPA did during his tenure is de-
         | facto bad. In this case, it would be useful to understand what
         | specific impact his changes had on the EPA's ability to
         | effectively evaluate the pigment against the Toxic Substances
         | Control Act testing requirements mentioned in the article.
         | 
         | People clearly put a lot of work into this pigment, it'd be a
         | shame to shun that only because they happened to apply for its
         | use in consumer products while Trump was in office.
        
           | Talanes wrote:
           | Yeah, I don't ever recall seeing something that made me think
           | Trump was in the pocket of "Big Pigment."
        
         | Forge36 wrote:
         | If you believe they are doing something wrong, tell them.
         | 
         | There is an email listed regulatoryaffairs@
         | 
         | They may not be nefarious, I wouldn't judge them on someone
         | else's actions. I don't know that two are related
         | 
         | https://www.shepherdcolor.com/about/overview/
        
         | ThrowawayR2 wrote:
         | According to the article " _YInMn Blue has been approved for US
         | use in industrial coatings and plastics since September 2017_
         | ", so saying that it has seen zero years of human use is not
         | quite true.
        
         | sitzkrieg wrote:
         | its seen zero years of use, no kidding?
        
       | ncmncm wrote:
       | Trying to reconcile "extremely high price" with "we want to paint
       | buildings with this stuff". Clue?
        
         | 542458 wrote:
         | Very expensive buildings? Relatively dilute paint? Agreed, it
         | does seem like a disconnect.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related from 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20245672
        
       | summm wrote:
       | Indium is very rare. Used for transparent conductors on displays
       | etc. Is it really worth it to use it in a slightly better blue?
       | In other words: does its current price really reflect all the
       | future use we could get from Indium?
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | Indium is comparable in abundance with gold, so it is indeed
         | very rare.
         | 
         | Indium is completely irreplaceable in LED's, especially in the
         | LED's used for lighting, and also in other important
         | semiconductor devices, e.g. in the GaN transistors that are now
         | used in the latest miniaturized power bricks.
         | 
         | Currently the largest quantity of indium is used for the
         | transparent conductors required in all displays, from
         | smartphones to TV's and monitors. There are alternatives for
         | this use, but all have various disadvantages, e.g. a lower
         | lifetime or a lower efficiency.
         | 
         | I agree that wasting indium, which is probably the element with
         | the lowest known resources compared to the known future needs
         | for it, to make something like pigments, where there are a lot
         | of mostly equivalent alternatives, is a serious mistake.
        
           | annoyingnoob wrote:
           | I would say, do not underestimate the value of art. The
           | article described an artist that made is own paint from the
           | pigment. He painted a depiction of an ancient bird, its
           | absolutely beautiful. This use was not a waste of resources
           | and will in fact last much much longer than any screen made
           | in 2021.
           | 
           | Its arguable that using precious resources for products that
           | last less than 20 years, in many cases less than 5 years, is
           | a true waste.
        
             | adrian_b wrote:
             | I agree that using such a pigment for a small number of art
             | objects would certainly be justified, like also the use of
             | gold in art objects or jewelry, instead of its more
             | valuable technical uses, for which there are no
             | alternatives, e.g. in protecting electrical contacts from
             | corrosion or in semiconductor metallization.
             | 
             | However, if instead of using this pigment in a few valuable
             | paintings, it would be used in a high number of ephemeral
             | sketches done for practice, that would be a waste.
             | 
             | Nevertheless, the high price at which the pigment has been
             | launched is good, because it will probably deter casual
             | use.
        
       | mcbutterbunz wrote:
       | This is an area that I know absolutely nothing about, so the
       | notion that new pigments are being created is fascinating to me.
       | I've never really considered pigments and the chemicals used to
       | make all of these colors.
        
         | Daub wrote:
         | Check out this timeline of pigments through the ages. See how
         | the industrial revolution multiplied the number of colors
         | available.
         | 
         | http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/history.html
        
         | tdaltonc wrote:
         | Consider getting the book "The Secret Lives of Colors." The
         | book itself is a beautiful object and the contents are a great
         | dive in to the history and chemistry of pigment and color.
         | 
         | https://g.co/kgs/Np4PF6
        
           | archsurface wrote:
           | https://duckduckgo.com/?q=The+Secret+Lives+of+Colour&t=ffab&.
           | ..
        
       | trevortheblack wrote:
       | > The store sells the paint for $179.40 for just 40 ML. By
       | comparison, the other structure acrylics it offers starting in
       | sizes no smaller than 75 ML are available from just $8.70.
       | 
       | $4.485 per ML versus $0.116 per ML. That's a difference of almost
       | 40x cost. I wonder how much of that is offset by how
       | saturated/opaque the pigment is. Still, an incredibly expensive
       | blue.
       | 
       | > Connecticut artist Michael Rothman got his hands on some Kremer
       | YInMn blue pigment in 2019 and produced his own paint, "hand
       | milling the dry material in acrylic emulsion resin," he said.
       | 
       | I wonder what the difference in cost is for the dry pigment
        
       | andrewla wrote:
       | Phthalo Blue is more recent than 200 years; it was isolated in
       | the early 20th century.
        
         | boibombeiro wrote:
         | The article specifies as the first non organic pigment.
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | While that may be true, it does not make the headline any
           | less inaccurate and clickbaity
        
       | fermienrico wrote:
       | I've bought several hundred tubes of paint in last 20 years. I've
       | seen artists gravitating towards more expensive paints as a sign
       | of better pigmentation which is completely misplaced. Pricing of
       | pigments is largely a complex equation including marketing by
       | paint manufacturers to pose Cadmiums and Chromiums as "premium"
       | quality paints. The truth couldn't be farther from that. Modern
       | synthetic pigments are superior, safer and have far better
       | lightfastness than the Cadmiums and Chromiums. Perylene red is
       | amazing. Mix it with a dash of Titanium white and you can get
       | very close to the opacity of Cadmiums. Mix it with Zinc white and
       | you've got a far more brilliant red than anything else. But,
       | Artists' I've worked with tend to gullibly gravitating towards
       | the more expensive == better philosophy. I found this hilarious
       | when buying paint during my early days in art world.
       | 
       | The quality of paint is measured by several characteristics such
       | as pigment load, lightfastness, opacity/transparency, tinting
       | strength, etc. Not its scarcity in nature.
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | See:
         | 
         | > _In economics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is a product
         | that people consume more of as the price rises and vice versa_
         | 
         | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
        
           | fermienrico wrote:
           | Thanks for educating me on this! It is super interesting that
           | there is a formal theory behind it.
        
         | billfruit wrote:
         | Very insightful. Will be interested to know of your preferred
         | 12 colour palette.
        
           | fermienrico wrote:
           | I use a Yellow Ochre Light, Pthalo Blue, Titanium White, Zinc
           | White, Transparent Oxide Red (for blocking), Pthalo Green and
           | Perylene Red :)
           | 
           | Although, you can just use Richard Schmid's palette, replace
           | all the toxic junk with modern pigments and you're good to
           | go. The thing is to stick with the palette forever for many
           | decades so that your paintings have a cohesive harmony.
        
             | bluenose69 wrote:
             | I notice that the Windsor & Newton watercolour series has
             | nothing called Perylene Red, but it has a nice looking
             | colour named Perylene Maroon that seems similar.
        
             | billfruit wrote:
             | Thanks. Only after you mentioned did I lookup Perylene Red,
             | looks great.
        
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