I've been searching online for seven and a half hours, trawling through scientific papers about unrelated subjects because the journal search engine is rubbish. Please, someone out there must know the answer.
2007-10-20 10:38:26 · 7 answers · asked by Katri-Mills 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
I'm looking at what happened in Camelford in 1988. Apparently, after aluminium sulphate was dumped in the water supply, it turned acidic when in solution and stripped zinc, copper and lead ions from inside the pipes. So I'm hoping the answer will be either zinc, lead, copper, aluminium (which I'm pretty sure it's not) or sulphate ions. So copper sulphate sounds likely, is it possible anyone can give me the title of a scientific/government based journal/paper on the subject?
2007-10-20 10:53:59 · update #1
The people who complained of blue hair also complained of skin adn finger nail discolouring.
2007-10-20 10:55:27 · update #2
I found this quote.
"Hair exposure to chemicals may produce hair discoloration
as in the case of green hair (copper from water or
cosmetics) or blue hair (cobalt workers)."
I'm not sure if this is to do with swallowing it or not: The rest of the article is mostly about poisoning and which swallowed drugs can be detected in hair... it is hard to tell.
2007-10-21 06:25:40 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi
Metals are deposited in the hair and nails, so copper would do this and indeed it has a reddish/blue hue to it, however it would be systemically very toxic.
There are some aluminium-copper complexes which may cause this effect.
I would contact the Royal Society of Medicine in London for help with your literature searches.
I recall the Camelford disaster well and it made a lot of people very ill didn't it.
You could engineer a dye which bonds to the protein kerratin. Tetracycline the antibiotic bonds to kerratin and calcium so perhaps a copper or chromium salt of tetracycline or even an organic dye adjunct would produce this effect.
It is possible to genetically engineer hair colout - the Chinese have enginered mice with glowing green hair for example.
2007-10-22 22:20:22 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Check the story again. They WASHED with the stuff to get the blue hair... the contaminant was gone in a few days, not long enough for ingestion to turn the hair blue.
2007-10-20 10:59:54 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your hair wouldn't turn blue from something you ingested. Hair only changes colour with the natural pigmentation in your body, or with hair dye. I don't even want to know of a chemical that could mess around with that. And, if you managed to find a chemical that could do it, it would also change the colour of your skin.
2007-10-20 10:42:54 · answer #4 · answered by Shayna 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Digesting system is breake down the water soluble organic color substances. Mineral material (i.e. cooper suphate) is toxic if taken over dose..
2007-10-20 11:20:41 · answer #5 · answered by Tarik 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Copper sulphate maybe?
2007-10-20 10:47:04 · answer #6 · answered by Sal*UK 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
thats sounds rather odd... i wouldn't think that is possible with any natural product anyway.
2007-10-20 10:47:35 · answer #7 · answered by AnneShirley03-03-07 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋