[Corvettaholic]

So who all here synthesizes stuff just because? (not job related). And how'd you all get started with it? I really like the element collection idea, but the wallet doesn't want to cooperate quite yet. I'm fascinated with chemistry for the flashy lights and loud sounds, but I one day I hope to build something actually useful with it.

[Scratch-]

I would like to collect salt crystals.  

[gregpawin]

hehe, you can do some distillations...

[Scratch-]

I wonder if you could form near perfect crystals in microgravity.

[Donaldson Tan]

Does cooking count? It involves chemistry too, u know
 

[Scratch-]

Mmmm... Pound cake!  

[Corvettaholic]

I know my cooking involves chemistry, let me count the elements I can find in my food starting with lead...

[Mitch]

lead will kill you if its in your food.

[Corvettaholic]

Heh, I know. I was just kidding. Usually the the element "badtastium" dominates. Seriously. It exists. Atomic number 321, melting point of sometimes room termperature.

[Mitch]

Seriously don't lick lead. Very small amounts of it can make you go insane. The romans aristocracy used it to sweeten their food and that is one reason attributed to the fall of Rome. It was believed Nero was insane from lead poisoning as Rome burned.

[AWK]

Mitch,
I doubt if the Romans used lead just for sweetening their food.
They used lead pipes for conduct water from aqueducts to their homes and (this was more dangerous) used lead for making food vessels and wine cups. Wine, that contains organic acids, can dissolve some lead.
4CH₃COOH + 2Pb + O₂ = 2(CH₃COO)₂Pb + 2H₂O
Organic salts of lead (especially acetate) are very sweet so this improved taste of wine (rather tasteless at that times).  And that weekness for wine drinked of lead cups may be the main reason of lead poisoning.
At our times some people drink tasteless coffee and try to improve their taste by smoking.

[jdurg]

Lead was definitely used in the pipes of Rome.  Where do you think the name plumbing came from?  (The latin word for lead, symbol Pb, is Plumbum).  So the word plumbing comes from the latin word for lead which was what the pipes in Rome were made from.  Lead is also much, much, much more poisonous to children as opposed to adults.  The same amount of lead given to an adult and a child would cause far worse damage to the child than it would the adult.  It's more the long term poisoning that is the bigger danger to an adult.  

[Corvettaholic]

Mitch, really now... would I actually lick lead? They taught us the hazard of the stuff back in elementary school. Aren't some pipes back from the early 20th century have lead in them? I think old car radiators do too, which is why its bad to use them for improvised still's.

[Mitch]

Awk: Yeah, the added sweetness of wine produced when adding Roman "sapa" was what I was referring too. Sapa was boiled down using a lead container.

[vanisaac]

I was under the impression that it was the Roman fittings that were lead, rather than the pipes.  For some reason, I think that the pipes were baked clay and affixed to each other using lead.