
Heavy water tastes the same as ordinary water (1935) - bookofjoe
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/81/2098/273.2
======
genmon
Reminds me of one of my favourite stories:

> A US nuclear laboratory is said to maintain a "heavy dog"\--fed with heavy
> water and "heavy" food, and with the heavy isotope deuterium replacing
> normal hydrogen throughout the whole body.

\-- New Scientist, 1976 [1]

And:

> [it] would be invisible to a MRI scanner. The dog would still be clearly
> visible to the naked eye so apart from confusing the staff operating the
> scanner I can see no advantage to this.

\-- source [2]

[1]
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AhC9t3Q3YMcC&lpg=PA480&o...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AhC9t3Q3YMcC&lpg=PA480&ots=vIjfN55PE-&dq=%22heavy%20dog%22%20deuterium&pg=PA480#v=onepage&q=%22heavy%20dog%22%20deuterium&f=false)

[2]
[https://scicommstudios.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/hydrogen/](https://scicommstudios.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/hydrogen/)

~~~
nabla9
Unlikely to be true.

Deuterium is toxic in high concentrations. It slows down metabolism and
inhibits cell division. Mammals die within week if half of the water in the
body is replaced with deuterium oxide.

~~~
tyingq
From the story: _" This is obviously bollocks, and not even the dog’s
bollocks."_

------
repsilat
Heavy water is also clear, where normal water has a very slight blue colour.
You'd notice it in a swimming pool of it, but not a glass.

[https://i.stack.imgur.com/J4gay.gif](https://i.stack.imgur.com/J4gay.gif)

~~~
eganist
Interesting; it's as if the band was stretched out. Would the same presumably
happen for Tritium?

~~~
repsilat
Apparently colourless too:
[https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/31587/are-
ther...](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/31587/are-there-any-
known-chemical-properties-of-tritium-water-that-make-it-unusually)

Some other neat things I found along the way, mostly on Wikipedia: heavy
waters freeze at 4-5 degrees Celsius, the heavier the higher. Frozen heavy
water will sink in liquid normal water, and pure "tritiated water" ("super-
heavy" water, with tritium hydrogen isotopes) is radioactive and will boil
itself if pure enough.

------
effie
Cody says heavy water is sweet.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXHVqId0MQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXHVqId0MQc)

~~~
skykooler
Apparently it's a subtle taste, though; you can only taste the sweetness if
you haven't tasted anything else recently.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
That's peculiar, given that I didn't think tastebuds could perform nuclear
fission or fusion.

And chemistry pertains to modification of electrons and bonding energies.

I'm seeing placebo or contamination.

~~~
yomly
As is with all things, once you start getting down to the details most our
mental models are just that - mental models.

I am guessing other people have downvoted you for adopting an ignorantly
confident tone on something you are not a specialist for - this is probably a
bit harsh but perhaps this can be a friendly reminder to keep an open mind
about these things.

Yes, Chemistry is effectively the study of electrons, but nature has been
shown to be isotopically sensitive. Moreover, I have heard of chemistry on
radioactive chemicals being a nightmare to reproduce because there are certain
reactions where there are competing reaction pathways which are kinetically
controlled and so isotopic interactions can wreak havoc on your products.

------
deeg
Did anybody else immediately think of the episode in Hogan's Heroes where
Hogan convinces Col. Klink to drink heavy water?
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0602322/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0602322/)

~~~
maxlybbert
I thought of the scene in the old Adam West Batman movie where Batman
reconstitutes dehydrated bad guys with heavy water and they are unable to take
their feet off the floor (because they’re so heavy).

Batman’s scientific content wasn’t all that high.

~~~
onychomys
Sadly, you're remembering wrong. The dehydrated pirates vanish as soon as
they're punched! Two of them even pop like bubbles when they accidentally run
into each other! Clearly much more scientifically valid.

~~~
maxlybbert
Thanks!

------
bookofjoe
H.C. Urey — one of the authors of the above-cited publication — (April 29,
1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work
on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery
of deuterium. Heavy water is a form of water that contains a larger than
normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium rather than the common
hydrogen-1 isotope.

~~~
libria
Lived to 87, well above life expectancy for 1893'ers so a loose correlation
suggests it extends the average lifespan.

I expect to find this on the shelf right next to Dirty Lemon Charcoal water
shortly.

~~~
nkozyra
> a loose correlation

That's generous.

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baalimago
So how will i know if I'm drinking heavy or ordinary water from my tap??

~~~
ben509
Keep a very accurate scale handy, or a mass spectrometer.

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LeonB
N=2, but if you tried to replicate you'd never get approval today ;)

~~~
taneq
This just underscores the lack of understanding between "we need to measure
this value" and "we need to understand how this value is calculated" these
days. :(

~~~
tomxor
> understanding between "we need to measure this value" and "we need to
> understand how this value is calculated"

We also need to re-enforce that "how this value is calculated" is just another
level of correlation with reality, it is not an absolute, i.e is not how
reality "calculates" it for anything except for things that exist purely in
the realm of the abstract - where our abstraction is also the definition.

I believe it's this lack of understanding that results in the distorted view
of science being the practice of recording absolute truths.

------
JoeAltmaier
Next test: Does urine taste the same as water? Can we get somebody to try that
experiment?

