dualmindblade

Yeah seems like it, the gold standard coil alloy is kanthal and, don't quite me on this, but I think it's been basically the only one considered acceptable for "roll your own" coils since like forever, so almost certainly what you were using. And most DIYers used to use nic freebase only (not sure if that's still the case), the paper implicates the hcl salt nic as possibly making the metal leeching thing more efficient:

Nicotine salts introduce organic acids (5) in e-liquids, which may facilitate metal dissolution in e-liquids through ligand–metal interactions.

Anyway, the metal of concern in kanthal is chromium which can be non-toxic depending on the chemical form. The paper stated they didn't detect any toxic version of chromium in the vapor, although they speculate it might be possible for this to undergo a further chemical change in the lungs:

Nontoxic Cr(III) was the only oxidation state of Cr observed in aerosols

But they also detected metals that didn't come from the coils! Like Escobar brand apparently has a coil sheath that is 40% lead. Like what the actual fuck were they thinking with that design decision? And sure enough the juice had lead in it before it was even vaped. Also they found antimony and stated they didn't know where it came from, presumably it would be something the juice came into contact with before the device was put together.

A vape with a borderline dangerous amount of lead in the liquid might still be superior to cigarettes from a health standpoint, but why risk it when you can just use a regular non disposable one with coils and juice from reputable brands?

Holy shit, that's what I get for using a heuristic. Unless the results were faked this seems highly concerning. Relevant quite from the study:

Across all devices, virgin e-liquids exhibited relatively low concentrations of the primary elements observed in the heating coils, including Cr (3 to 20 μg/kg) and Fe (148 to 1090 μg/kg) (Table S2). Across ELF Bar and Flum Pebble virgin e-liquids, Ni was similarly low to Cr and Fe (14 to 29 μg/kg; Table S2). Unexpectedly, elements that are not present in heating coils (Table S1), including Pb, Cu, Zn, and Sb, were observed at excessive concentrations in Esco Bar device virgin e-liquids, with the exception of Ni which was elevated in virgin e-liquids relative to ELF Bar and Flum Pebble virgin e-liquids and present in coils (Figure 1). Esco Bar Flavored and Clear virgin e-liquids showed extremely high concentrations of Pb (64,000 to 127,000 μg/kg), Ni (13,000 to 38,400 μg/kg), Cu (344,000 to 533,000 μg/kg), and Zn (240,000 to 376,000 μg/kg) (Table S2). For context, concentrations of Pb, Ni, Cu, and Zn were universally and comparatively low in all other virgin e-liquids from Elf Bar or Flum Pebble devices, at ≤15, ≤29, ≤24, and ≤331 μg/kg, respectively, with the exception of Zn in the ELF Bar Flavored virgin e-liquid at 4420 μg/kg (Table S2).

I'm skeptical. The same claims were made about vaping before disposables were even a thing and it always turned out they were abusing the device somehow, deliberately overheating it or dry hitting. I'm sure there are a ton of random chemicals in disposables just doubtful that heavy metals are a problem. Avoid them cause they're wasteful.

How can New Yorkers be so gullible, Zohran's very name is a dog whistle!

Zohran = one letter off from Zofran

Zofran = the most popular prescription antiemetic

Antiemetic = one letter off from a slight misspelling of antisemitic

Communist liberals will have the gall to respond "this is a coincidence" and "he didn't choose his name" or "what are you talking about?". Oh yeah, maybe he should have chosen it then, since you wokies are all about that. What if his parents had named him Hitler, eh?

No expertise here but couldn't you just stick a bunch of it in a pile and create a sort of artificial meltdown leading to a bunch of radioactive waste?

Funniest outcome: Zohran squeaks out a win after the runoff has been computed. 200 million pours into the race and the Republican candidate wins

The sleeper cells have just been hitting snooze since 2003, they were trained too well

Which of them were blasting breakcore at the ice detention center?

I've wondered about this since I don't like hurting wasps. They will move out if you consistently get them wet, but it takes a long time. You can also blast the nest with water (they can't fly when wet) to remove them then cut it down, they always try to rebuild at least 2 or 3 times but eventually they get the idea and move. There's a video which shows how to move a while colony manually, sounds hard but might be a fun project: https://youtu.be/ml4IRBFuOvs

I believe I tried a paper bag once for a fake nest, that didn't work, you can buy more realistic ones online though. Unfortunately I may never know, new strategy is just to leave them be, the ones we get around here (South central Texas) are really non aggressive, the only way you get stung is making physical contact.

One more thing, most of these social wasps abandon the nest over winter and rebuild the next year. If you catch them really early in spring it's much easier to discourage them from building just by hosing it down, in this case it's probably even easier than killing them with pesticide.

In the US at least, a bunch of the common VPNs are apparently really just one company owned by an Israeli national or something. Unfortunately some if these are probably the best in terms of features and performance. The alternatives that I'm aware of each have some downsides, Proton is considered pretty fast, I think there are some allegations of shadyness, don't know much about it. I don't think piracy will get you in trouble regardless of which one you choose, make sure you can do port forwarding if you're toerenting.

The very first paragraph of the final report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a PDF that took 3 years and presumably millions of dollars to create

Americans are already familiar with how the Chinese government conducts economic warfare with crucial technologies such as semiconductors: corner the supply chain, then choke it to weaken the United States. But this is not the last time Beijing will run this play, and it is not even the most dangerous version of it.

Imagine a not-so-distant future where researchers in Shanghai develop a breakthrough drug that can eliminate malignant cells, effectively ending cancer as we know it. But when tensions over Taiwan reach a breaking point, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the strategic apparatus of the Chinese government, hoards the treatment under the guise of national security, cutting off supply to the United States. After years of access, this lifesaving drug is immediately in shortage, requiring doctors to ration it while American biotechnology companies scramble to reconstitute production in the United States. The streets and social media overflow with people demanding that the United States abandon Taiwan. The Administration faces an agonizing choice between geopolitical priorities and public health.

This scenario is fiction. But something like it could soon become reality as biotechnology takes center stage in the unfolding strategic competition between the United States and People’s Republic of China (China).