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No. 548: Periodic Table: 47 Silver

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Periodic Table: 47 Silver

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/dinosaur/?comic=548

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar

T-Rex: T-Rex presents The Periodic Table:
T-Rex: 47 SILVER
T-Rex: One of the seven metals of antiquity, used for coins and bullion and lots of industrial stuff too. In 1980 some dudes owned a third of all the silver supply, causing a stock market crash.
Utahraptor: Silver is also an approved food colouring, labelled E174.
Utahraptor: And the source of my all time favourite word: vark! Edible silver foil!
T-Rex: Right.
T-Rex: Not approved in the US though, so you have to hide it.
T-Rex: It's a secret argent.

The author writes:

There's a lot of interesting stuff about silver. Unlike some elements... scandium, I'm looking at you...

Another interesting thing about silver is that during World War II the US government released large amounts of its silver bullion reserves, to replace metals such as copper, tin, and nickel in various applications where silver made an acceptable substitute, such as electrical contacts, solder, and coinage, so the other metals could be freed up for industrial uses related to the war effort.

And further on the topic of edible silver: Silver coated dragée balls are also approved for human consumption in Europe, but not by the United States. So they are sold as cake decoration supplies in the US with a warning label stating they are inedible and "not for human consumption". But you can totally eat them if you want. The rest of the world does.