Tellurium is usually found stick to various metals in the ground . It forms ores with amber , silver , copper , and conduct . When refining these metals , some unfortunate people have arrive into physical contact with purified tellurium — and photo mean you reek of ail for weeks .
Tellurium was a favorite among early alchemists , because it was often retrieve hidden in other metals . They thought it was a stepping Edward Durell Stone on the mode to gold , but not a very pleasant stepping stone . The fact thatthey gave it the name , “ metallum problematum , ” reasonably much sums up their attitude towards it .
It probably made them unpopular in their communities . One one-half of amicrogram of tellurium absorbedinto the body present a someone extreme garlic breath for 30 hours . More will cause a miasma of garlic to permeate from someone ’s back talk and pores for weeks . One of the warning signs of tellurium pic , for people who knead in factory that utilise or make tellurium , is extreme garlic breath .
How on Earth does a metallic element , just an element , make you reek of ail ? For the most part , it ’s the organic structure ’s doing . What you ’re smell , when you smell “ garlic ” after tellurium pic , is ( CH3)2Te , or dimethyl telluride . The bodymetabolizes tellurium the same way it does sulfur , one of the elements that have garlic stinky . ( That ’s also the way that the body metabolizes selenium , which is apparently preferentially absorbed by garlic plants . ) Sulfur and Se are first cousin of tellurium — they’re both member of a group called chalcogens — and S and atomic number 34 are directly above it on the periodic mesa . basically , your dead body recognizes these elements as having like properties , even if you do n’t . And it respond by stinking .
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