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No. 256: Periodic Table: 20 Calcium

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Periodic Table: 20 Calcium

First | Previous | 2015-10-21 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/dinosaur/?comic=256

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar

T-Rex: T-Rex presents The Periodic Table:
T-Rex: 20 CALCIUM
T-Rex: The most abundant metal in the body, present in bones and teeth. Humans need to eat about a gram a day.
Utahraptor: It's in limestone.
T-Rex: Yes!
T-Rex: Leading people to grind up coral and market it as a "health" product.
Utahraptor: srsly? wut?
T-Rex: Yes. They pay po-lyp service to science!

The author writes:

This is true. Some people claim that ingesting calcium supplements derived from coral can, among other things, cure cancer*. But since coral reefs are endangered, you can't just go around breaking chunks off and grinding them up to sell to in your snake-oil business.

So instead they used fossilised coral. Sourced from deposits which are now above ground. In other words: limestone. Yeah. If you ever see any ads claiming health benefits for so-called "coral calcium", remember that it's ground up rocks.

* Wikipedia has a depressingly long List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments. It's a terrible disease, so naturally people look to find hope wherever they can. And unfortunately ruthless profiteers prey on the poor victims.