this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Today I Learned

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A healthy human liver contains 575 international units (IU) of vitamin A per gram while a polar bear's liver contains between 24,000 and 35,000 IU per gram. Compare that to the tolerable upper level of vitamin A intake for a healthy adult human: 10,000. Signs of toxicity generally occur when approximately 25,000 to 33,000 IU are consumed.

Illness severity depended on how much liver the explorers consumed, but symptoms typically included drowsiness, sluggishness, irritability, severe headache, bone pain, blurred vision and vomiting. While milder cases merely involved flaking around the mouth, some accounts reported cases of full-body skin loss. Even the thick skin on the bottoms of a patient's feet could peel away, leaving the underlying flesh bloody and exposed. The worst cases ended in liver damage, hemorrhage, coma and death.

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[–] NABDad@lemmy.world 257 points 9 months ago

Luckily, if you try to eat a polar bear liver, the polar bear will stop you.

But don't worry, human liver is safe for polar bears to consume.

[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 105 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Vitamin AHHHHHHH MY SKIIINNNN

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Vitamin ayyye 👉😎👉

[–] ElJefe@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago

Vitamin eh 🇨🇦

[–] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

👉💀👉

[–] funkajunk@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago
[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 81 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

Am I the only one seeing the opportunity regarding billionaires? Of course we have to use a polar bear who is already dead so we don't have to kill the poor thing to get rid of billionaires. We can start by leaking the rumors that when a polar bear dies due to old age its liver releases certain enzymes that make it extremely delicious. Also eating a spoon of that liver each day for a week has been shown to elongate telomeres and greatly reduce, even revert, aging.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 56 points 9 months ago

...greatly reduce, even revert, aging.

There's a case to be made that it does stop its consumer from aging much further if applied correctly.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 33 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I'd sacrifice a polar bear to get rid of a billionaire, ngl.

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's an interesting statistical question, too. Are there more polar bears still alive than billionaires?

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Sure, tons of them in zoos. Well more than billionaires.

Tho I’d like to see them in zoos instead. Rare animal and all. Worth gawking at the way people back in the day would gawk at the strange “savages” from distant lands..

[–] Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'd pay to see Elon musk jumping up and down in a zoo enclosure, throwing his shit at the visitors.

[–] Random_German_Name@feddit.de 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You would pay to see Musks Tweets?

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[–] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

By an order of magnitude.

WWF estimates around 26,000 polar bears remaining (22,000-30,000). And there are 2640 billionaires globally according to Forbes.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The way things are going they won't be around much longer anyhow.

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[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"Sacrificing a whole other species is a chance I'm willing to take"

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

If we don't get rid of rich people many more species are going to be sacrificed.

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[–] Ejh3k@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

Stops the ageing process immediately!

[–] Twinklebreeze@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Do you even need to involve an actual liver? We could just start a rumor and then skin some billionaires the old fashioned way.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 11 points 9 months ago

You don't even need to make all the marketing bullshit, just slap a US$ 5k price per serving and the rich will flock to it

[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 months ago

Would be amazingly ironic too... To be killed by eating the flesh of a species that they played no insignificant part in making endangered.

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Couldn’t we just skip the middle man so to speak and feed some billionaires to a few polar bears out right?

[–] nulluser@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

No, no, no. "It's extremely delicious to the hunter, and only the hunter, when the hunter kills the bear with their bare hands. Oh, look, there goes a cuddly delicious liver bear right now. Bon Appetit, Mr Bezos."

[–] bane_killgrind@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago

It's 1g, you could do laparoscopic biopsy to get that amount of liver, and you wouldn't expose the bear to trace cocaine and hair loss supplements

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[–] bob_lemon@feddit.de 62 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The reason that polar bear liver has toxic levels of vitamin A is that seal liver does and polar bears eat those.

So don't eat seal liver either.

But I want super gout to demonstrate my wealth!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sGRZ29YZl68

(Pipeo bot help me out here)

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[–] jak@sopuli.xyz 50 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Theat found the bone-hurting juice. It’s a polar bear liver milkshake

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sounds more like skin hurting juice.

What vitamin overdose would cause bones to fall off? 🤔

[–] cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

but symptoms typically included [...], bone pain, [...]

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 5 points 9 months ago

My only regret.

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[–] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That problem is easily solved. Don’t eat polar bear

[–] Omgarm@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

HelloFresh just delivered one for this week :(

[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's just a spray-painted sun bear.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] wjrii@kbin.social 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"Tolerable upper intake" is based on more than a single does. One gram would almost certainly be fine. There's some slightly sketchy 1940s "fuck them lab-rats" science going on, but some scientists at Cambridge guesstimated it would take making it into a significant side-dish or main course to REALLY fuck you up:

It is questionable what factor should be taken to convert doses used for rats to the corresponding doses for man, but the ratio of 75 taken from the relative food intakes of the 100 g. rat and 70 kg. man would seem reasonable. If we take 100,000 i.u. of vitamin A as sufficient to cause immediate illness in the rat, then about 7,500,000 units should cause illness in man. This amount would be present in 375 g. of bear liver containing 20,000 i.u. of vitamin A/g., not an excessive portion to be eaten at a single meal.

[–] Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 9 months ago

scientists at Cambridge guesstimated it would take making it into a significant side-dish or main course to REALLY fuck you up

I actually heard about this from a YouTube channel referencing the diary of Gerrit de Veer from 1597 where he recounted his expeditions' encounter with eating polar bear liver and nearly dying from it in 1596.

I can't find the actual diary entry, but I think it's behind a pay wall on the Wikipedia link as a reference.

The story the YouTuber told was presumably in the diary. He said their ship got stuck in ice and they used wood from the ship to make a cabin. Sometime later, they had a run-in with a polar bear and ended up shooting it from inside the cabin. Sometime after that, they had a group meal consuming the polar bear liver and everybody's skin started falling off.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_de_Veer

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How many people are trying to eat polar bear liver?

[–] Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Very few actually! Apparently some Dutch explorers back in the 1500s trying to sail over the top of the globe got stuck in ice and ended up killing and eating a polar bear and documented their illnesses

We didn't figure out what happened to them until the 1940s

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm more surprised with how they managed to kill a polar bear. Those things are ferocious.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] kia@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)
[–] De_Narm@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sure. Each gram means death and since death is a negative, they cancel each other out!

(Don't try it though.)

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is true. It's why you never see dead people with an even number of fatal bullet wounds.

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[–] Marsupial@quokk.au 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Shalt thou count to one no more no less

[–] Jerb322@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

Five is right out...

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