[HN Gopher] Temozolomide Is Explosive
___________________________________________________________________
Temozolomide Is Explosive
Author : _Microft
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-07-12 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.sciencemag.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.sciencemag.org)
| cratermoon wrote:
| As one comment there notes, just looking at all the Ns lined up
| ought to cause concern, at least for anyone that has read this
| authors "things I won't work with" series.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _You could say that TMZ is a prodrug for a prodrug for
| methyldiazonium, which is never going to be a drug that can just
| be administered by itself. ... temozolimide is genotoxic and
| tetratogenic, so it has to be handled carefully, but honestly,
| anything that generates a small diazonium compound so readily is
| going to be similarly hazardous. ... Indeed, drop-hammer tests
| showed that these TMZ samples decompose suddenly with smoke on
| impact._ "
|
| So, uh, what are the explosive decomposition products?
| aazaa wrote:
| The chemical structure is the clue to the explosive potential.
| The N-N-N triad is a strange beast that shows up in a lot of
| explosive materials. They're explosive for similar reasons that
| ammonia nitrate is explosive.
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23399-texas-disaster-...
|
| Think of energy as a vertical scale increasing upward. Including
| a nitrogen triad (like in the drug) pushes the entire molecule up
| on the energy scale. It's like riding the elevator to the 42nd
| floor.
|
| In contrast, the N-N triple bond (i.e., atmospheric nitrogen) is
| way down at the ground floor. This is one reason that despite
| nitrogen being the most abundant gas in the earth's atmosphere,
| it requires large amounts of energy to process into fertilizers
| and other materials.
|
| CO2 and H2O also sit near ground level. So there's a large energy
| difference between the drug and the combustion products N2, CO2,
| and H2O.
|
| All it takes to release all of that stored energy is a trigger.
| For example, if someone were to push you off the top of the
| building, you would spontaneously release the stored energy.
| Hopefully you'd be equipped with an air braking device to
| dissipate it gradually, but if not - well, that energy will be
| released into your body and the pavement all at once.
| gpvos wrote:
| For those who don't know yet, Derek Lowe's series "Things I won't
| work with" is very fun to read, and also educational.
| https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/thin...
| meepmorp wrote:
| Is it all that surprising though, considering how much nitrogen
| is stuffed into that molecule?
| lmilcin wrote:
| I mean, seriously, just look at the molecule. All those nitrogen
| atoms lying there restless to each go their own separate way:)
|
| I would be surprised if it wasn't.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| At a bare minimum it'd probably be a damn good oxidizer at
| which point you're 80% of the way to a good explosive.
| [deleted]
| mabbo wrote:
| As someone who dropped chemistry in grade 11- what makes
| Nitrogen so exciting like that?
|
| So many common explosive compounds seem to have it.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| They can form molecules where nitrogen is not in its lowest
| energy bond (which is the triple-bond N2 gas) and where a
| reaction to this lower energy molecule can be triggered with
| some small activation energy. The energy released provides
| the activation energy for nearby material so you get a
| chemical chain reaction.
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| Nitrogen-Nitrogen bonds inside larger molecules are never
| quite stable because 1) nitrogen "wants" to form stable di-
| nitrogen (N2) molecules containing a very stable triple bond
| (an exothermic reaction) and 2) the result of such
| decompositions is nitrogen gas increasing the amount of
| entropy released (due to more molecules being created).
|
| Reactions are driven both by the amount of heat released
| (enthalpy) and the amount of "disorder" created (entropy).
| Explosive reactions tend to be the ones where both factors
| add to the driving force.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Does the same apply to oxygen? Since it also likes to be in
| a diatomic form.
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| Oh, yes. Every substance carrying a ,,peroxo" in its name
| is usually nasty stuff. Concentrated hydrogenperoxide for
| example can explode creating gaseous water (aka steam)
| and dioxygen (aka oxygen) in the process. While O2 is a
| corrosive, it is quite inert under normal conditions
| (which is why our clothes don't burst into flames
| spontaneously).
| masklinn wrote:
| The opposite, or oxygen wouldn't be such a strong
| oxidiser, which implies it readily and energetically
| leaves its double bond behind for either single bonds
| (H2O) or double bonds with non-oxygen atoms (CO2).
| opportune wrote:
| Diatomic oxygen is less stable than many other oxygen-
| containing compounds like CO2 (that is why charcoal
| burns) but diatomic nitrogen is pretty much as stable as
| nitrogen can get.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Hydrogen peroxide at sufficient concentration can be used
| as rocket fuel.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide
|
| "High-concentration H2O2 is referred to as "high-test
| peroxide" (HTP). It can be used either as a
| monopropellant (not mixed with fuel) or as the oxidizer
| component of a bipropellant rocket."
| Thorondor wrote:
| When nitrogen compounds combust, they tend to produce
| nitrogen gas (N2). Since nitrogen molecules contain a very
| strong nitrogen-nitrogen triple bond, a lot of energy is
| released when they form.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I thought this was an informative read for someone who also
| only has a limited knowledge of chemistry:
|
| https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/06/27/when-does-the-
| breaki...
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| I think some (many) blood vessel dilation meds are based on
| nitroglycerin :)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroglycerin_(medication)
|
| I certainly remember looking with great suspicion at my
| granddad's medicine and was very much disappointed when my
| attempts to light his pills on fire did not yield rapid and
| uncontrolled decomposition.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Wages of Fear, anyone? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/
| dvirsky wrote:
| That would have been a perfect device plot for Breaking Bad.
| tyingq wrote:
| Maybe helpful to note that the phrase "Class 1 Explosive" isn't
| denoting a certain type, or power of "Explosive". "Class 1" in
| Hazmat is all explosives. Class 2 is Gases. Class 3 is Flammable
| or Combustible liquid, and so on.
| Arrath wrote:
| Fair point. The sub-classification gets into those weeds.
|
| For example:
|
| 1.1 being "mass explosion hazard", typically high-explosives.
| 1.4 being "fire or projection hazard", typically consumer
| fireworks, small arms ammunition. 1.5 is "may mass explode in
| fire", things like AN fertilizer (Beirut; West, Texas), many
| industrial blasting agents.
| code_duck wrote:
| So a liquor cabinet is full of Class 3 explosives.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Are you referring to the NFPA diamond?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFPA_704
|
| The explosive class mentioned is likely using a different scale
| or standard.
| tyingq wrote:
| Pretty sure they are talking about Hazmat classes, where
| "Class 1" is explosives.
|
| See https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/docs/
| Nin...
| thewakalix wrote:
| > tetratogenic
|
| That's like a teratogen, but four times as bad!
| gus_massa wrote:
| Yep, it looks like a typo. Perhaps you can add a comment there
| or send an email (it's available under his photo).
| microtherion wrote:
| Somewhat surprisingly, this was NOT filed under "Stuff I Won't
| Work With"
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| Sounds like it got off on a technicality:
|
| _> I have personally worked with compounds that are this
| hazardous, but at least I knew up front that they were!_
| fabian2k wrote:
| The stuff in that series is generally much more dangerous or
| unusual in handling than this one.
| ufmace wrote:
| It sounds like this stuff is only mildly dangerous and easy to
| keep safe with if you know what you're doing. Considering that
| it's been used as a chemotherapy drug for years, it'd be
| surprising if it wasn't.
|
| Most of the "Stuff I Won't Work With" is fantastically
| dangerous even when you know exactly what you're dealing with
| and take all of the right precautions.
| _Microft wrote:
| If you had told me that the article was by Derek Lowe and that
| there are a number of nitrogen atoms involved, I would have
| indeed (wrongly) guessed that it were _Things I Won't Work
| With_ , that the compound had been created by the Klapotke
| group at Munich University and that it would go boom ;) Well,
| not quite. This time at least.
| wydfre wrote:
| Well, the government is working on ways to deal with cancer[0].
|
| [0]: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/voices-told-woman-she-had-
| br...
| olliej wrote:
| I mean in fairness we still use nitroglycerine for some heart
| ailments, so chemo - a field filled with horrific chemicals -
| having an explosive shouldn't be too surprising.
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| The surprising part is that it's been around since the 1970s
| and someone has only just gotten around to discovering this.
| tyingq wrote:
| Found the safety sheet for TMZ:
| https://www.merck.com/docs/product/safety-data-sheets/hh-sds...
|
| Nothing about explosions other than dust explosion warnings, but
| this one is kind of amusing:
|
| _" H351 Suspected of causing cancer"_
| cowboysauce wrote:
| A lot of chemotherapy agents works by causing DNA damage and
| are therefore carcinogenic themselves.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Chemotherapy is basically cave man medicine. That a therapeutic
| drug is explosive only adds to that sentiment. The idea that
| we'll basically poison you just up to a point that's nearly fatal
| in order to kill the cancer is such a terrible way to treat
| someone. Now I'm not saying don't ever do it -- unfortunately
| that's where we're at in 2021. It's just kind of unbelievable
| that cancer remains so elusive that we're still using medical
| treatments that started from mustard gas usage during world wars,
| when we're so advanced technologically in so many other ways.
|
| Interestingly, cancers for children are largely successfully
| treated. I was at a fancy conference a few years ago where some
| cancer researchers were socializing over wine, and I asked them
| why that was versus adults. They said the difference was that
| parents are willing to do almost anything (aka enroll their kids
| in experimental treatments) to cure their kids, but adults aren't
| quite so willing for themselves. Thus the rate of experimentation
| was just so much higher for children to the point where it's
| often curable. Perhaps one day we'll be able to simulate the body
| well enough to the point where we can brute force treatments
| computationally to fix this gap.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >Perhaps one day we'll be able to simulate the body well enough
| to the point where we can brute force treatments
| computationally to fix this gap.
|
| This is why as a total outsider/non-expert I believe we will
| cure everything in the next 50 years if we do not regress or
| destroy ourselves.
| josefx wrote:
| Remember how Steve Jobs suicided on fruitarianism instead of
| getting his cancer treated when it was found in its early
| stages? The biggest tech company on the planet was basically
| led by an anti science lunatic with millions of followers.
|
| We will probably end up almost destroying our selves twice
| over before we get anywhere near curing every disease. On the
| plus side wiping out almost all of humanity should also take
| care of dozens of illnesses.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| We still don't understand much of the inner workings of our
| own body. It's a bit like the divide between quantum physics
| and the macroscopic world. We have successfully observed and
| modeled individual processes as they happen at a cellular
| level, and we can draw some statistical conclusions at the
| whole body level, but much of the area in-between is
| basically unknown.
|
| One just needs to look at nutrition or the farce that is
| "nutrition science". We only barely understand what we are
| supposed to eat to maximize our health, and that's such a
| basic and fundamental concept that I feel anything like
| "brute force treatments computationally to fix this gap."
| would require multiple generational leaps in our
| understanding. In other words, I feel like you are
| extrapolating to space flight when we have just recently
| invented the catapult.
|
| Hell, we are only starting to suspect that the gut biome
| affects our consciousness. How crazy is that? And yet it is a
| very sobering indicator of how little we know. The human body
| is an incredibly complicated system with so many feedback
| loops that I'd put it in the same class as solving the
| halting problem or establishing a grand unified theory of
| physics.
|
| We have modern robotics and tools like laser knives, but we
| still have to poke needles into a patient's brain to
| determine where to cut out tumors. I don't mean to disparage
| the doubtlessly talented surgeons of today, but to me this
| seems barely above medieval techniques. Our tools have
| improved 100 fold, our understanding just barely.
|
| I think _at best_ the prediction we can make is that "we
| believe eventually all diseases should be treatable". But to
| say that in the next 50 years we can become functionally
| immortal (treat all diseases), is a very long stretch IMO.
| fabian2k wrote:
| Many of the modern treatments are much more targeted, any
| antibody-based treatment is by nature extremely specific. But
| then you also have the problem that cancer isn't a single,
| unified disease, so a very targeted approach doesn't work for
| every cancer.
| pcarolan wrote:
| You're right that we haven't made much progress but this drug
| is the only advancement in brain cancer in decades and has very
| few side effects for most people. Compared to traditional
| chemotherapy, it is a game changer for many patients' quality
| of life.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Chemotherapy, like cancer, is not one thing. Some of it is a
| matter of poisoning the body in ways that disrupt rapidly-
| dividing cells. This is why chemo patients frequently lose
| their hair (and other things you don't hear as much about, like
| gametes, fingernails, mucous membranes/digestive lining). You
| can call this "cave man medicine". Although that's more
| dismissive than is warranted, there's no denying that it's a
| blunt instrument.
|
| Other chemotherapy treatments are "holy shit, we live in the
| future." They're targeted and have almost no side effects.
|
| You specifically reference mustard gas. I had lymphoma, and one
| of my treatments was bendamustine, which is directly related to
| that class of chemicals, and the subsequent research. It's
| broadly toxic. The other treatment was rituximab, which is a
| monoclonal antibody that targets the CD20 protein that
| manifests on B cells, which are just one of many cells involved
| in the lymphatic system.
|
| I have to say the whole thing was a walk in the park.
| Bendamustine isn't fun, but I never vomited once, never lost my
| hair, and outwardly didn't look any different at all. I felt
| pretty shitty for about three days once a month after
| treatment. Kinda like a mild flu, but honestly I'd take the
| bendamustine over the flu any day. I usually took three days
| off work for it, primarily because I had to be at the chemo
| infusion center for a few hours to get the drugs. I could have
| worked through it (not that I should ever have had to, but I
| could have). The rituximab was a walk in the park. I took that
| once a month for a year, then every two months for two more
| years. Aside from an allergic reaction the first time (solved
| with Benadryl subsequently), I barely noticed it at all. It
| was, at its worst, nowhere near as bad as a hangover.
|
| I know I'm fortunate in that these treatments existed for my
| cancer, and that my cancer has a high survival rate (I've been
| clear for over a decade). Many people are far worse off, even
| if they survive. I like to take these opportunities to dispel
| some of the misconceptions that are out there.
| vibrio wrote:
| I agree with your wine-drinking physicians on clinical trial
| participation, and your question on how to improve broader
| participation. I also believe that there are fundamental
| difference in cancers that arrive in a young person versus
| cancers that have slowly evolved in the patients bodies,
| perhaps over a decade or more-the latter are likely much more
| stubborn.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A rather surprising number of chemo compounds trace directly to
| chemical warfare and compounds used during WWI, including
| several mustard-gas-related compounds.
|
| Some years ago, a close friend died of a relatively rare and
| aggressive form of cancer. Among my roles was running
| interference against those who were pitching various miracle
| cures, with that tired old scam laetril playing a significant
| role.
|
| In the decades since, I've watched developments in the science
| and development, as well as traced the history. It turns out
| that the treatment received a few decades ago was little
| changed from that of the 1960s, and has progressed little
| since. Genetic sequencing identified the affected chromosome of
| the triggering mutation in the 1980s, and we now know the
| specific codons involved. There remains no cure.
|
| Five year survival remains about 20%. Laetril is still a fraud.
| And several of the other patients we came to know during the
| course of my friend's treatment have died since of conditions
| related to the treatment itself, though yes, they did buy
| another 10--20 years.
|
| Cancer is brutal.
|
| I will note: "cancer" is a symptom cluster manifested by
| malignant growth, and virtually always due to genetic mutation
| within the affected cells (I'd say "always" though I'm not
| completely sure of that). _The specific triggers, and the
| possibilities for cure, vary tremendously._ Some bladder
| cancers are virtually entirely treatable by, of all things,
| tuberculosis baccili. Skin cancers if caught early pose little
| risk. Others are tremendously aggressive, and an online friend
| 's posts progressed from announcing their partner's diagnosis
| with liver cancer to the partner's death over the course of
| less than two months.
|
| Broad-brush statements are virtually always false.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There's a weird wedding here, toxic/warfare compounds dropped
| into your blood stream and nowadays it's used with
| administrative processes (for repeatability and liability
| purposes). Back in the days the people who came with the
| chemotherapies were also aggressive in the way the approach
| treatment (and according to De Vita it gave better results
| [but maybe cost more])
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There's also a direct connection to vivisection and human-
| subjects research during wartime which would fail to meet
| most ethical review board standards today.
|
| References are pretty easy to find:
|
| _After promising animal research, physician researchers
| connected with Yale University and the University of
| Chicago tried injecting sulfur mustard and its somewhat
| milder relatives, the nitrogen mustards, into the veins of
| cancer patients in the early 1940s. This was the first time
| a systemic treatment was given for cancer. "It would upset
| the whole body," says Smith. "That proved to be valuable
| when you deal with certain kinds of leukemia or lymphoma."_
|
| https://www.the-scientist.com/foundations/from-chemical-
| weap...
|
| _Not long after the discovery of nitrogen mustard, Sidney
| Farber of Boston demonstrated that aminopterin, a compound
| related to the vitamin folic acid, produced remissions in
| children with acute leukemia._
|
| https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/history-of-
| cance...
|
| I'm not certain Japan's Unit 731 was engaged in research
| with chemotherapy precursors, though the range of testing
| was extensive, and the US provided a grant of immunity
| after the war.
|
| Please note that pretty much anything horrific you can
| imagine, and then some, is discussed in the links which
| follow.
|
| https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/unit-731-japans-
| sec...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
| devy wrote:
| I am not surprised the a Class 1 HAZMAT is used as the chemo
| agent for glioblastoma, the most malignant form of brain tumor.
| My father in law just recently passed with glioblastoma stage
| 3, from admitted to hospital to passing in a couple of month.
| robbiep wrote:
| The cancers that are treated successfully in children are the
| blood borne ones (mostly leukemias) and generally because
| they're easier to wipe out and replace the marrow with. Some
| Childhood brain tumours are also very successfully treated, and
| most other adult cancers children don't get. Sarcomas still
| kill people left right and centre though.
|
| The truth is that we're already peeking out of the dark ages of
| chemotherapy. Immunotherapies have revolutionised the field and
| new stuff coming online is incredible. When I started medical
| school 11 years ago the 5 year survival of metastatic melanoma
| was close to 0%. It's now close to the population average
| (well, not really, but it's greater than 50%). Records are
| being smashed
| et2o wrote:
| Metastatic melanoma? I haven't seen any data showing close to
| 50% survival rate, where are you looking? Just managed a
| young patient with metastatic melanoma and very poor
| prognosis.
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| I think they were referring to pd-1 inhibitors. I'm not an
| oncologist but that generally fits with what I've seen as a
| hospitalist. FWIW I personally know someone who has
| survived > 5 years who received it right when it cane out.
|
| Here's a paper supporting:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7019511/
| jcims wrote:
| PD-1 inhibitors seem like magic when they work.
|
| Unfortunately they don't work in every case, but it's
| abundantly clear when they do that the immune system is
| good at killing unwanted cells roaming around the body.
| *smacks forehead*
| robbiep wrote:
| Yes sorry I should have specified, PD-1s. Was 4am in
| australia on mobile and wasn't in the mood to reference.
| Sorry
| cubicmeter wrote:
| this could be true that as a different example along the lines
| of the same conclusion: Women-only medical conditions are less
| known by medical fields, and there are fewer treatments. Its
| because the society treats women's lives less seriously. For
| example pregnancy is still pretty mysterious in general
| medicine. Birth control pills are to prevent women fertility
| etc. It could be true that children lives are deemed more
| important by parents and more researched.
| open-source-ux wrote:
| My understanding is that chemotherapy is indiscrimate when it
| attacks cells - it affects cancerous and healthy cells alike.
| However, doctors assume the healthy cells will recover from the
| weakening effects of chemotherapy. Meanwhile the cancer cells
| are stressed to a greater degree by the chemotherapy and thus
| suspectible to death. All this is presented as the "best
| outcome" scenario for chemotherapy treament.
|
| However, for some patients (and depending on their type of
| cancer) chemotheraphy can leave lingering side-effects and can
| even cause cancerous cells to recur or turn even more
| aggressive. For some cancer patients, chemotherapy is not about
| curing the cancer but slowing the cancer spread ("treatable but
| not curable" is the phrase used by doctors for some cancer
| conditions).
|
| Although chemotheraphy can be succesful for some (many?)
| patients, as you say it still feels like a crude, blunt
| approach to treating cancer. Doctors might baulk at that
| description. But consider: if someone has a non-metasized
| cancer (i.e. cancer in one part of the body that has not spread
| to other parts of the body), chemotherapy is applied with blunt
| force to the entire body including to the majority of healthy
| cells in the body. I can't see how anyone can say this isn't a
| coarse and crude treatment method even when the outcome is
| deemed successful.
| zaroth wrote:
| Not entirely indiscriminate. For example as I understand it,
| a lot of chemo drugs attack cells that divide quickly. Which
| is why a lot of times hair loss is a side effect because they
| are some of the faster dividing cells in the body.
| da_chicken wrote:
| My understanding was that chemotherapy drugs often affect
| cells literally _as they divide_. The exact mechanisms
| vary, but it 's that timing of affecting a cell during
| division that makes a given substance possible to be used
| as chemotherapy drug.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Chemotherapy combined with surgery and radiation is still a
| standard and still does cure a significant portion of people -
| my father's cancer was cured by this "ordinary method".
|
| The problem is that more selective methods of killing cancers
| run up against the tendency of cancer cells to mutate and find
| a defense against them.
|
| And this is definitely stuff that's killing you and the cancer
| and hoping the cancer dies first. To keep going, you need a
| strong reason to live.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _That a therapeutic drug is explosive only adds to that
| sentiment._
|
| Explosivity and toxicity are unrelated. Cyanide can kill you,
| but it's not explosive IIRC. You can make explosives with
| aluminum, but it's safe to use as a food container, ...
|
| > _Chemotherapy is basically cave man medicine._
|
| The main problem is that cancer cells and normal cells are very
| similar. Anything that kills cancer cells will probably kill
| normal cells. Anything that is safe for normal cells is
| probably safe for cancer cells. Killing one but not the other
| is like a poll trickshot.
|
| (Killing bacteria or fungus is easier, because some of the
| molecules they use are different, and sometimes they produce
| the molecules using a different method, so you can make a drug
| that attack the difference and hope the best.)
|
| Also, not all the treatment for cancer use chemotherapy
| methods. Some cancers are affected by hormones, so you can
| modify the hormone levels. (This also cause problems in the
| part of you body that use the hormone, so it's a tradeoff.)
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Kind of surprising nobody thought to check until now. Even as a
| non chemist (albeit a regular reader of Derek Lowe), I look at
| that and say "boy is that a lot of nitrogens, I wonder if they're
| itching to become an expanding cloud of hot nitrogen gas and
| broken lab equipment".
| languagehacker wrote:
| Reminds me of how DNP, a chemical used for creating explosives,
| has been used as a weight-loss drug. It's surprisingly effective,
| but overdosing on it will result in a long, hot, agonizing death.
| southeastern wrote:
| DNP was banned after causing a lot of deaths. Still a
| fascinating drug, I don't remember exactly how it worked but it
| disrupted respiration so that less ATP was produced from
| electrons while their energy instead was 'spent' increasing
| heat
| bserge wrote:
| So has Clenbuterol (pure stimulant), Sibutramine (an ADHD
| medication way before its time, marketed as a weight loss
| drug by some idiot marketers), and many others.
|
| Really should stop banning drugs because a few morons
| overdosed on them.
|
| I mean, no one has banned stairs yet. They tried to ban
| alcohol, but the conviction turned out paper thin.
|
| I guess it is easier to ban something that only benefits a
| sad small minority. Bonus evil points when the rich can get
| the drug regardless.
| G3rn0ti wrote:
| The fundamental reason why 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) burns fat is
| surprisingly complicated. Basically, it intoxicates
| mitochondria in your cells being their power houses. These
| organelles create ATP, a universal metabolic energy carrier, by
| maintaining a proton gradient across its membrane. By means of
| chemical osmosis this gradient is what drives the ATP synthase
| enzyme under normal conditions. Now, DNP is capable of
| shuttling protons along the gradient and short-circuits this
| process catalyzing the conversion of fatty acids into worthless
| heat.
|
| Interestingly, babies use a controlled variant of this
| mechanism to help maintain their body temperature thanks to
| their brown fat tissue. It makes babies look cute and keep
| warm. :)
| jcims wrote:
| This is an animation and cursory explanation of ATP
| synthesis, with suitably dramatic music:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT5AXGS1aL8
|
| This animation and associated narration is much more
| detailed, but a bit slow for something you haven't vetted
| your interest in yet :)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI
| dylan604 wrote:
| "What they found was rapid onset of decomposition at 170 degrees"
|
| So this seems to be more about people in a lab situation rather
| than it being so unstable it reacting sitting in someone's hot
| car.
|
| Suspecting it to react at 212 and finding it reacting at 170
| could ruin a lab tech's day to be sure. Those are the jobs that
| sound fun "for the science" lets see what happens when...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| "Decomposition" doesn't usually mean 'explodes', either.
|
| Curiously, Wikipedia still shows the old definition [1]:
|
| > _Temozolomide is an imidazotetrazine derivative. It is
| slightly soluble in water and aqueous acids, and decomposes at
| 212 degC (414 degF).[15]_
|
| The [15] citation from Wikipedia is to a 1982 book,
| untranslated from German. That may be one example of "the
| literature" that Derek cites. The factoid was added in this
| edit [2] by an Austrian Wikipedia editor who works on a lot of
| chemistry articles. I'd wager that the number of people who are
| English-German bilingual chemists with this book from 1982 on
| their shelf who edit Wikipedia is exactly one, and further,
| that he did not experimentally test or have other familiarity
| with the compound to sanity check the fact. This puts "the
| literature" in a very different context than the broad
| consensus of well-known, agreed-upon facts that I'd usually
| assume a constant value to have.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temozolomide#Chemical_properti...
|
| [15]: Dinnendahl, V; Fricke, U, eds. (2016). Arzneistoff-
| Profile (in German). 9 (29 ed.). Eschborn, Germany: Govi
| Pharmazeutischer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7741-9846-3.
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Temozolomide&diff...
| cratermoon wrote:
| Something about that part of the article had me wondering. It
| seems they ran some sophisticated tests to determine the
| physical properties which would lead to it decomposing, but
| they didn't actually put a sample of the stuff on a source in a
| vent hood? It does say they later ran some standard tests for
| explosivity on it, I suppose that counts?
| munificent wrote:
| I think you're overlooking the most important scenario: mass
| production of it in a factory setting.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think that falls under my qualification of "people in a lab
| setting"
| ISL wrote:
| And just handling/storage. Things that are flammable or
| explosive have more-stringent requirements.
|
| A familiar example: one should take much greater care when
| storing rubbing alcohol (or Bacardi 151 or vodka) than wine.
| One will magnify a house-fire. The other will help to douse a
| flame.
| laurent92 wrote:
| At every people's house, I see a cupboard with the
| chemicals. WD-40, 90deg alcohol, acetone, white spirit, all
| in the same IKEA (=plywood) cupboard (although it would be
| hard to protect children if they were each in a different
| cupboard too). I wonder how many fires start from the
| chemicals cupboard. We know that a lot of artists had their
| rag pile spontaneously heating up then catching fire...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Those things are fine in their separate containers. They
| will not spontaneously combust. If the containers are
| leaking, or fire starts elsewhere, yeah they could become
| fuel. But really no more than any other hydrocarbons in
| your house (e.g. wood, plastic, cloth, upholstrey and
| foam cushions, etc.)
| munificent wrote:
| _> They will not spontaneously combust._
|
| Linseed oil or other drying oils can if they have enough
| exposure to air.
|
| A couple years ago, my wife re-oiled our wooden patio
| furniture and threw all the paper towels in the trash.
| Ten minutes later, smoke was pouring out of the trash
| can. Fortunately, I managed to get it out of the house
| before the fire spread.
| cratermoon wrote:
| In case of fire, does it matter that they are all in one
| cabinet together? Should they be stored separately so
| that a fire that does reach one won't cause a serious
| acceleration through combinations?
| cratermoon wrote:
| See, for example, Beirut.
| lflux wrote:
| nb: Decomposition happens at 170 degrees _Celsius_ - around 340
| degrees Fahrenheit. A fair bit warmer than a hot car usually
| gets.
| manmal wrote:
| Fires can start anywhere, and a small explosion can make the
| difference between the firefighters arrive on time vs the
| building burns down and people die.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or the firefighters getting killed in the explosion because
| something blew up 45 degrees early than expected.
|
| All sorts of things can go wrong when things react at
| unexpected times. Are we really going to attempt to list all
| of them? It'll be a long list of replies.
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