Salt. Yup, you read that right. Plain old salt. We use it on a daily basis, but we don’t really know salt, do we? It’s like that friend you see once a year whenever the old gang comes back together and you pretend to know each other but you can’t even remember if he’s married or not. Salt is that guy.
Thankfully, science cares enough about salt to actually research some of its unique properties. Let’s take a look at some of the amazing things you can do with salt. Or not so amazing things. They’re not all good, trust me.
Cleans Wounds Better Than Soap
Research shows that salt water used to clean out wounds reduces the risk of further infections when compared to regular soapy water. Naturally, this is good news for poor countries, since salt is way cheaper.
It Causes Brain Inflammation
Told you they weren’t all good. Research on rats shows that a high-salt diet turned them … well, stupid. Once the rats were off the salt, they once again performed well on their maze tests.
Salty Stars Have A Shorter Lifespan
Usually when a star dies, it burns hydrogen and helium, followed by a phase in which it sheds gas and dust. After this, they become white dwarfs. Stars that have high amounts of sodium don’t shed gas and dust, they just turn into white dwarfs instantly.
There’s Also a Salt Tooth
We all know about the sweet tooth, but there’s a salt tooth too. And it’s apparently linked to a specific gene that makes you love salt more than people without that gene!
Salt Could Cool Down Our Planet
Putting salt in the Earth’s atmosphere could cool it down enough to stave off climate change. Sadly, it would also ruin our troposphere and stratosphere, so it’s not a viable option.
It Gives Us Information On Droughts
Underneath the Dead Sea, some drilling was done for salt samples. The general idea is that periods of rainfall would make less salt pile up, where droughts wouldn’t wash away the salt. They discovered that in the past there’d been droughts that lasted for entire millennia, which might be catastrophic if it happens today.
It Could Become A Regulated Substance
Apparently, governments are contemplating turning salt into a controlled substance, because people are ingesting too much of it. This might mean that governments have to regulate it since neither the food nor the beverage sector are really looking forward to having us take in less salt.
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