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Urine Led to the Foundation of Chemistry
One alchemist's search for a whiz-bang method to produce gold accidentally unlocked the central science instead.
He now considered a radical, yet surprisingly simple idea: That gold could be found within the human body itself, and the easiest way to harvest it was by distilling down a warm, golden-hued liquid widely and thoughtlessly discarded each and every day. With her money and an unabashed willingness to be “that guy,” he procured more than fifty buckets of urine, roughly equal to 5,500 liters, and retreated to his basement laboratory. That secret eventually made its way to the alchemist Robert Boyle, who not only refined the method of producing phosphorus, but realized that the element could be used to create fire on demand.
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