today at 7:26 PM
> if left untreated, is known for spontaneously combusting as it decays and oxidizes.
Does anyone remember the 90s when as a laymen it seemed like an open debate whether humans would occasionally combust spontaneously? I guess it stopped happening once falling asleep with a cigarette lost popularity
But my point is I wasn’t aware that “spontaneous combustion” was a real thing one has to worry about it. Linseed oil rags will do this too, and that’s why patent leather shoes are coated in plastic now instead.
today at 8:00 PM
This can happen to mulch as well if it's left in a very big pile for a long time.
today at 8:28 PM
Regularly happens to the same pile of mulch at a lot in Boston. No idea why they have been allowed to keep storing it.
https://www.universalhub.com/2026/mulch-fire-brings-all-jake...
today at 9:40 PM
If you have a big enough pile of organic matter, exothermic decomposition can lead to fire, if the conditions are right.
Commonly happens in grain silos, mulch piles, etc.
It really doesn't take that large of a pile of grass clippings or wood chips to get some steam coming out and a lot of steam if you disturb the pile.
today at 10:18 PM
Yep, many hay barns have caught fire because the hay was bailed while too wet and it is fermenting so vigorously.
today at 8:17 PM
HowStuffWorks used to be full of expert animations of automatic transmissions and helicopters around 2006 but they had a multipart article on spontaneous combustion, with anecdotes of 1890s people who retained too much ethanol.
today at 9:37 PM
Here it is: https://web.archive.org/web/20090510082422/http://science.ho... (3 pages, and refs)
today at 7:32 PM
Human spontaneous combustion is a silly myth. Other kinds like oily rags and apparently fishmeal are very real.
today at 7:38 PM
Grain dust and flour also come to mind. Essentially anything with the appropriate fuel/air mixture can combust, often explosively, even if we otherwise think of it as food!
today at 8:11 PM
Those events aren't spontaneous combustion, an ignition source is needed to cause a dust explosion with flour, grain, or sawdust. Spontaneous combustion of something like linseed oil happens with no external ignition source. Spontaneously combustible substances undergo exothermic reactions in normal conditions, e.g. when drying, curing, being exposed to air, or similar. They have low enough flash points that their own heat is enough to cause ignition, which is why you never hear about concrete spontaneously combusting despite having an exothermic curing process.
today at 10:25 PM
> which is why you never hear about...
It might help that concrete is not combustible to begin with. Vs. (say) linseed oil definitely is.
today at 10:23 PM
Exactly. Grain dust is very dangerous because a small spark can make it explode, but the spark is absolutely necessary. If you leave a pile of oily rags in your garage and wait a few hours, your house could burn down. No spark needed.
today at 7:42 PM
Maybe it was more of being a middle schooler than a wider social phenomenon, but silly myths got a lot of play in the days before Google!
today at 8:09 PM
Arguably even more now…
today at 9:57 PM
There's a video of Vietnamese fish farmers on the side of the screen that clearly relates to this story but I don't speak Vietnamese so I guess I just have to wonder how.
yesterday at 6:21 PM
I don't know why they don't just use nitrogen in the storage vessels. Ship holds, for example, already have this capability.
last Saturday at 8:20 PM
I make a lot of chili. Ethoxyquin is a good reason to mix your own chili powder.
today at 7:39 PM
How does Ethoxyquin get into chili powder?
today at 7:43 PM
It's used as a preservative/additive for chili powder, paprika, and ground peppers in the US.
today at 8:13 PM
I just find it wonderfully weird that no process has been found to just handle powdery flammable things better, instead of adding stuff to it to make it less risky to handle it wrong.
today at 9:49 PM
There's lots of ways to make handling such things safe: climate control, inert atmospheres, (in cases like this were degradation is involved) rotating out material, compartmentalization, automatic fire supression etc. The problem is that these are very expensive compared to the dirt cheap methods used in commercial fisheries
today at 8:28 PM
In this case, handling it wrong simply means letting it sit there in a pile.
today at 7:53 PM
Americans' breast milk is full of fire retardants, found in 100% of samples taken.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/24/1194759...
today at 9:54 PM
These articles are often misleading. With the modern detection methods, we can find seemingly anything in everything. Mass spectrometers can detect individual atoms and molecules, after all.
It's always important to check the quantities detected and the corresponding safe limits.
today at 9:36 PM
probably not only Americans. The EU imposes fire retardants on furniture and clothing. It is not a health hazard in the long run because these might be the last human generations to be born due to GW
today at 9:30 PM
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today at 7:27 PM
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today at 8:32 PM
been looking at the title, but didn't want to read more bad news, bug then my brain thought this about something other than the actual real planetary food chain, and sure enough it's about industrialy made food substitutes. as to the fish meal catching fire, there are other solutions, pulling a partial vacume and flooding with CO², refrigerating/freezing, or useing other (fuck me), antioxidents, like various oils like chiken grease or hey!, fish oil, but of course Muney, jingle jangle muney muney muney, and the kind of people who own ship loads of fish meal, will never, see, smell, or eat any of the resulting comodities, so it's fine right. tried that janky salmon a few times, but never liked it, and stick to local caught fish from the ocean I could see if I were to stand up.
re: spontainous combustion, there is a biological process called 'the heat of evolution" that is used to describe the heat given off by ALL ripening and oxidising biological materials, and MANY foods will combust if packed too tight and insulated, case in point are bannanas that must be kept seperate and refrigerated and the whole bannana industry was built on specialy designed refrigerated ships, as there was no good way to ship them before refrigeration. as for 'heat of evolution' there are charts that give the btu's/ton per hour used in refrigeration design, as the heat is substantial and will overwhelm the systems, with fire a real possibility. this is different than dusts and powders exploding due to the 'right' mix and a spark, which might just possibly coincide with a decomposition fire, if a ship was that unlucky. but with so many ways that things can go wrong, it is astounding to find out someone got the idea to prevent food fires by covering everything in poison.