The WSU Humanities Center invites faculty, students, staff, and the community to a Brown Bag talk given by Diane Cress (Associate Professor, Nutrition and Food Science) on the topic of "Demon metal or essential nutrient?"

Abstract: Eating metal is toxic. Not eating metal will kill you.

This work is a storytelling project about metals. Taking inspiration from talented science storytellers like Oliver Sacks, Mary Roach, and Bill Bryson, I tell stories about metals that are both toxic to life and essential to life. I aim to connect previously unconnected dots and tell the science of these stories. I have followed one particular metal, cobalt, down many fascinating rabbit holes. This crucial metal at the heart of a vitamin essential to life may also be the metal that cost Matisse his ability to hold a paintbrush. A few more dots that cobalt connects: beer foam and goiter, tapeworm, human rights, batteries and the green revolution, nitrous oxide and the famous chemist Sir Humphry Davy, cyanide poisoning, and even the Montreal Canadienes! I hope I have your interest, though I know I may have lost you at tapeworm