Re: Unpot (possible PCB content)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: tesla popp <teslas_lab@xxxxxxxxx>

Thanks, that's just what I was looking for.  And that
ends the paranoia that was said to me at the age of
7...  Around the time of my first coil, I was out
looking for NST's to start with. The rumor in the neon
shop was that tar was "deadly."  Even if it was that
toxic, I was still to stuborn to worry anyways.

Thanks for the info...
Coiler Forever: Jeremiah Popp

--- Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Original poster: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Jeremiah,
>
> Tar is a complex mixture of tens of thousands of
> nameless compounds
> left over from the distillation of petroleum.  It
> contains long chain
> complex hydrocarbon molecules, and many sorts of
> polycyclic aromatic
> compounds ("Tetramethyl chickenwire", as we used to
> call it in the
> mass spec lab).
> Certain polycyclic aromatics compounds (PCAs for
> short), with
> anthracene or fluorene (not fluorine) being
> particularly egregious
> archetypes, have just the right shape to slip in
> between two base
> pairs of a DNA strand, and prevent further
> transcription of said
> strand.  If an inhibitory portion of a DNA strand is
> thus damaged, it
> can cause its host cell to undergo cancerous
> transformation.  Some of
> the earliest demonstrations of environmentally
> caused cancers
> were  performed by painting solutions of coal tar
> (pretty much the
> same stuff) on the skins of lab animals.
> In the grand scheme of things, tar is probably not
> the most dangerous
> material that you will encounter in life unless you
> work with it
> every day, -- even ordinary gasoline fumes have many
> similar
> dangerous components, and you are likely to be
> exposed to them a lot
> more often.
> Still, I'd wear gloves, work outdoors, and avoid
> inhaling excess
> fumes when depotting NSTs.
> Dave
>
> Tesla list wrote:
>
> >Original poster: tesla popp <teslas_lab@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >Then with that in mind,  what IS in tar that makes
> it
> >biologically  harmfull to the human body?  I see I
> was
> >wrong about it being PCB's, another chemical that
> >becomes active/released when the tar is heated?
> >
> >If anything in tar was so deadly, I surely would be
> >feeling the effects by now :P
> >
> >If you know why they say tar is dangerous, speak
> up...
> >Coiler Forever: Jeremiah Popp
>
>
>