Weekword- Pyrophoric via Cathy C at Musings in Mayhem

When Cathy choose this week's word, I was really excited because it's completely a word I have to function with at work on an intermittent basis, and any chance to marry my creative endeavors to my analytical science background is a treat. It's not often that I have a chance to delve into chemistry vocabulary, other than to define it and give examples to students as to it's meaning and cover safety instructions in its use-but I'm finding that it's hard to step away from my "teacher's hat",  so bear with me.



Pyrophoric refers to substances that spontaneously ignite when in the presence of open air (as an aside, this is largely due to reactivity with oxygen which also makes the substances anhydrous, or reactive to water) and are present as solids, liquids, and gases under standard temperature and pressure conditions. These chemicals are entirely fascinating and extremely dangerous due to the very nature of their being; they are very difficult to handle and control by carbon forms like us that are made up of 60% water and breathe air.

A young research assistant at UCLA last year died from mishandling one of these chemicals, t-butyl lithium, over the holiday break while carrying out lab protocols alone. She was a friend of a friend, and her death sparked an intense evaluation on our campus to be sure we were not exposing students to pyrophoric chemicals.

Depleted uranium (DU) is used on tank-piercing ordinance by the military because it's density is far greater than lead, allowing missiles tipped in it to penetrate through heavily fortified tanks. The depleted uranium (meaning a neutron has been removed from the normal atomic structure) incinerates on contact and has been the subject of intense concern that exposure to this metal is harmful to military troops. Depleted uranium as well as other pyrophoric substances and toxic chemicals have been linked as the main cause of Gulf War Syndrome that has affected almost a third of the U.S. troops who were deployed during the first Iraq invasion.  My Uncle Russell was affected with acute and chronic pain symptoms due to his time  overseas, and a very good friend of mine recently underwent surgery to remove parts of his thyroid due to cancer likely from exposure in the Gulf to DU weaponry.

I also realized as I looked at this post that I really wanted to point out that American troops are a small part of the equation when it comes to health effects of depleted uranium. Iraqi citizens, particularly children through terrible birth defects, have been devastated by our use of DU. Radiation levels are 10 to 100 times above natural rates in areas of the Iraq desert. The UN in 1999 considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative to ban it's use worldwide, but the initiative has remained blocked in committee by primarily the U.S. Belgium is the first country to outlaw the use of DU and I can only hope that others will follow their lead soon.


DU ordinance has even been used on U.S. territory on the small island of Vieques near Puerto Rico (my mother's home), which was used for 60 years by the Navy for live ammunitions testing. Cancer rates of the citizens of Vieques is more than 30% higher than cancer rates of  people from the main island.

Sorry this ended up not being very creative or colorful or fun-I guess it's just one of those days, ya know? Pyrophorics really are amazing and I'm such a lover of words, I think I just got into a little mind set and went at this without touching on my other, softer side. At least I deleted all the rambling about the Valerie Plame Wilson CIA case (has to do with incorrect intel/statements by Bush that yellow cake uranium was being obtained by Hussein from Niger) and the proliferation of nuclear arms bickering going on with Iran and other neighboring nations...
Hmm I think this week's word might be an excellent way to describe my reactive nature with politics-I get all fired up! Okay okay, I really have to get going and clean my house and make some good food for the holiday party I'm hosting tomorrow for my colleagues-fifty people in my little house!

Please go visit the other weekwording ladies and see what they've got going on today and have a great weekend everyone! Thanks Cathy for a fiery word!