Gadgetory

who doesn't love seals those adorable marine creatures playing with beach balls reeling the ice are just generally blubbering about but could kissing a seal kill you researchers have traced methyl mercury a particularly toxic form of mercury found in some California coastal waters to elephant seal fur and humans mercury poisoning causes nervous system disorders kidney damage even death so are your dreams of a real-life recreation of this kiss sunk well for starters that's a sea lion and this study's about elephant seals but suppose you really wanted to kiss a seal what are the risks methyl mercury can be transferred from skin-to-skin contact or if you're into it seal kissing but chronic toxic concentration occur in humans at about 10 micrograms per gram study found these seals carrying 3.1 to 4.5 micrograms per gram dry weight and they're molded fur but basically because an individual seal doesn't have toxic levels of methyl mercury in their skin there's no way that making out with one could kill you so go ahead kiss all the seals you want well maybe not they're still pretty dangerous and you're not off the hook yet for over two decades scientists have puzzled over these annual mercury spikes along the California coastline now that they trace the mercury to the elephant seal there are a lot more questions and let's be clear these elephant seals have a lot of mercury in their fur and it's leeching out during their molting season toxicity in the surrounding water jumps to 17 times normal levels so how these seals getting so hyped up on mercury major sources of mercury pollution in the u.s. include coal-fired power plants boilers steel production cement plants and incinerators a lot of mercury is pumped in the air and falls into the ocean as deposits in rain or snow and then you've got the point sources like industrial and mining waste that straight up dumped mercury into the ocean once the mercury gets into the ocean tiny microbes convert it into methyl mercury a neurotoxin easily absorbed by animals when they Chowdown on those microbes as it moves up the food chain the methyl mercury accumulates and increasingly large quantities and then proceeded to just stick around because mercury doesn't break down easily this is why you see all those warnings for pregnant women on tuna fish cans out in the open seas mercury accumulates and a lot of fish that humans and seals like to eat now the study has shown us a mechanism for bringing that neurotoxin back to shore from the open ocean potentially introducing more ecosystems and speedy three dangerous chemicals we don't know what kind of affect that much mercury will have on these seals or how much this murky leeching will be infiltrating human food sources but knowing about the mercury in seal fur that it's in such high concentrations and affecting ecosystems is worrisome to say the least so kissing a seal won't kill you but it's probably worth us doing something about all that mercury and the best way to reduce that mercury in the environment toxifying are seals cutting emissions