this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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Today I Learned (TIL)

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[–] bklyn@piefed.social 78 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Technically true, but not for the reason you think

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 17 points 10 months ago

Technically correct, the best kind of correct.

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not technically true at all. You would not die of radiation, you'll just poop it out. Maybe fuck up your organs a bit, kidneys and liver but not deadly.

Inhaling this stuff is where it becomes dangerous because it stays in the lungs.

There are far more dangerous things to ingest but nothing with digestible calories. The entire premise is based on ignorance and fear.

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 21 points 10 months ago

You're right about ingesting uranium but the premise of this post was based on ignorance and humour, not ignorance and fear. I'm just stupid not scared.

[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That’s a thousand days’ worth of kcals.

On the other hand, that’s enough uranium for the rest of one’s life.

[–] mech@feddit.org 4 points 10 months ago

ten thousand

[–] Sarcasmo@piefed.social 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But you'll be hungry again in half an hour.

[–] Ininewcrow@piefed.ca 3 points 10 months ago

It's like Chinese food ... it just goes right through you.

[–] SalamenceFury@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (5 children)

And also, bananas are radioactive. If you ate 40.000 bananas in 10 minutes you would die of radioactive poisoning.

[–] jeff@programming.dev 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

(me, an American) Well, forty isn't that many.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

Very, very precisely forty.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 4 points 10 months ago

Wasn't entirely sure that 3d.p. of precision is necessary when measuring bananas.

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Unless it's cakes. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

[–] SantasMagicalComfort@piefed.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Would it kill you if you shoved forty thousand bananas up your ass in ten minutes?

[–] classic@fedia.io 3 points 10 months ago

Mr Hands as entered the chat

[–] mech@feddit.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure you'd die from something else, but I'm no doctor.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

From slipping on all the banana peels.

[–] Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 months ago

It's more in the range of 40.000.000 if I remember correctly.

[–] Ininewcrow@piefed.ca 1 points 10 months ago

The pressurized bananas that need to be sent into your system as fast as possible would probably be shot right through your skull.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This is technically incorrect, because calories in food are measured using a bomb calorimeter or similar techniques. In this device a small sample is burned and the heat is measured, which indicates the number of calories it has.

Uranium is fireproof. It has 0 calories.

Even enriched Uranium with a lot of unstable isotopes would not give up noticeable energy/heat in regular sample sizes for this process.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Just because the human body cannot extract the energy doesn’t mean the energy isn’t there.

Edit: I love the pedants trying to force logic into an absurd post.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Obviusly.

But if we're gonna do the math that way, every atom in the universe has an insane amount of energy.

It's just to get at it, you need to either split or fuse the atoms. Doing this just happens to be easy with uranium, it's not that special in terms of energy density.

And a bomb calorimeter isn't precises either, but it gets close because burning the food is what our bodies do, too.

[–] Poojabber@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There is a fire in my belly when I eat?

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

That explains why my butt hole burns sometimes

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Not your belly, but in your cells, yes.

The reason you need oxygen, is that your cells use it to "burn" stuff a few atoms at a time, for energy.

It's the same reaction as fire. Oxidation. Though inside our bodies it happens in an extremely controlled manner.

Although cellular respiration is technically a combustion reaction, it is an unusual one because of the slow, controlled release of energy from the series of reactions.

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You are confusing facts with measurements of facts. Uranium has a lot of chemical energy, just like food. Yes it's different and not edible, but this is a flaw in the human body, don't blame uranium for it

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Uranium has nuclear energy.

But if we are gonna count that when discussing food, then every atom has a shitton of energy.

Uranium just happens to be easy to split, hence we can actually use the nuclear energy.

But if you could split the atoms of bread, that's gona release unimagineable amounts of energy, too.

[–] Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 10 months ago

Doesn't that depend on the specific isotopes? U-238 might be not that much of a problem as one might think...

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wonder what the best conversion rate from uranium kcals to human consumable cals would be.

Like is nuclear power to LEDs to plants the best route? Maybe radiation to fungus to some kind of slurry?

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago

sheesh we could just use the heat for yogurt incubators. if it's gotta be slurry why can't it be delicious 😭

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you are measuring calories that way, then you have to consider that anything you eat contains e=mc^2^ energy.

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

That's my excuse for getting fat. Even the air I breathes contains millions of calories

[–] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The second level of stupid here is that 20 million kcal would last ~ 22 to 27 years (at 2000 to 2500 kcal a day), so not very optimistic about your longevity.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

I'd say that's a pretty optimistic estimate of longevity of someone willing to eat uranium (let alone someone who actually does it)

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago