porchrat
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 34,277
Yea but it probably still causes autism, better ban whatever that substance was to be sureThat's what I thought. The mercury result in that test is an order of magnitude below the safe limit though.
Out of interest the process they used to get that result is a form of mass spectrometry where they charge the sample (usually by bombarding it with electrons). The components of the sample then ionise (become charged particles for lack of a better term) and are passed through a sort of ionic filter that slows their passage depending upon their charge and mass. Basically it stretches the sample's components out so they each pass through the detectors at a different rate, thus allowing us to isolate them. We know of course through experience which components will pass through at a particular time. So this way we identify what is in the sample by what passes through at what time and how much of it is in the sample by how intense the reading is.
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