Post by @datum@zeroes.ca

2026-05-06 03:13 UTC

Imagine being a scientist, and being told that your mere presence in a facility would alter the crystals being grown, that no joke you cannot step foot inside: Scientists who had been exposed to Form II in the past seemingly contaminated entire manufacturing plants by their presence, probably because they carried over microscopic seed crystals of the new polymorph Fact, not fiction! In materials science, a disappearing polymorph is a form of a crystal structure (a morph) that is suddenly unable to be produced, instead transforming into a different crystal structure with the same chemical composition (a polymorph) during nucleation and points for being airborne! In a few cases, such as progesterone and paroxetine hydrochloride, the disappearance gradually spread across the world, and it is suspected that it is because Earth's atmosphere has over time become permeated with tiny seed crystals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_polymorph #science #TIL #crystals

Replies (24)

@NilaJones@zeroes.ca 2026-05-06 03:54

@datum Wow! Your first little paragraph there made me think you were documenting some woo woo fringe scam thing When it became clear this was real, I had to go back and reread from the start

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@Oggie@woof.group 2026-05-06 03:59

@datum I remember reading about this and thinking it was a premise for a sci Fi show, or a movie, only to realize holy shit this is real life. Does sort of remind that in most ways, despite our pretense, we really are just guessing

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@tito_swineflu@sfba.social 2026-05-06 04:06

@datum is this ice-9 we're talking about?

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@Tengu@snug.moe 2026-05-06 04:35

@datum Progesterone??? :neofox_googly_woozy:

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@gimulnautti@mastodon.green 2026-05-06 05:01

@datum Yeah this is fascinating. Some type of resonance, I guess. Particles are waves after all!

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@mediaevalfishsandwich@zeroes.ca 2026-05-06 05:17

@datum I read about this in the '80s, in a book of dubious scientific value (IIRC it listed other mystical properties of crystals/pyramids, contained cryptids, UFOs etc.), and discussed it with a friend. We tentatively concluded it was bit too difficult to believe, but it was borderline… Anyway very interesting to learn more about it, and multiple examples of it. (Edit: Wondering if the book may have referred to Rupert Sheldrake and Morphic Resonance? IIRC the book was basically saying that once the universe has learned how to form a certain crystal anywhere, the entire universe knows. I'm not going to touch that, but I'm a lot happier with airborne seeding of micro-crystals. 🥵)

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@sarathai@hessen.social 2026-05-06 05:34

@datum I should not go on Mastodon before my coffee. *Readssomethingwithmorphinit* *clicksonit* *surprised* *thishasnothingtodowithalien*

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@agatesfrommexico@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 06:00

@datum That's fascinating! Reminds me of how trace impurities can completely alter crystal formation - even parts per million of certain elements can change color, structure, or growth patterns. The human body carrying residual compounds that affect crystallization is such a wild concept. What type of crystals were they growing?

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@egonw@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 06:00

@datum Veritasium had a nice video about it last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksn5yrsC3Wg (sorry, I wish they had a PeerTube instance)

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@nikunashi@ieji.de 2026-05-06 06:17

@datum Ice-nine baby!

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@Illuminatus@mstdn.social 2026-05-06 06:24

@datum Quantum Physicists: "That's cute."

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@lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-06 06:45

@datum very schild's ladder

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@mynameistillian@plush.city 2026-05-06 07:02

@datum this is so unsettling

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@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space 2026-05-06 07:15

@datum oh yeah disappearing polymorphs are quite something

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@moritz_negwer@mstdn.science 2026-05-06 07:24

@datum It's one of those "if you look into it too deeply, you'll find another layer of complexity" things. For a view of how this works in practice, I'd recommend this blogpost from Derek Lowe, always worth a read: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/stalking-polymorphs

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@heals@indiepocalypse.social 2026-05-06 07:53

@datum accidental coordination with the Veritassium YT channel? They had a video on the same topic about a week ago! /cc @aeva

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@NicelyManifest@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 08:22

@datum Recently finished 'Stuff matters' book on materials. What an insanely fascinating domain. There was me thinking that polymorph was only the stuff of Red Dwarf...

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@pa27@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 10:08

@datum Fascinating! Thanks for the post, gets my vote for interesting fact of the week.. or month even!

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@kechpaja@social.kechpaja.com 2026-05-06 14:25

@datum One takeaway here is that rising atmospheric CO2 is going to have far-reaching consequences beyond just global warming. Things like this might absolutely depend on i.e. some small thing that will change as a fifth-order effect of higher CO2 concentrations.

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@Canageek@wandering.shop 2026-05-06 22:34

@datum I've been very skeptical of that last one, just based on my experiences as an inorganic crystallographer. I do want to talk with some colleagues this summer at the international union of crystallography meeting about what the smallest thing that can count as a crystal is that would still be able to act as a seed.

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@RachelThornSub@famichiki.jp 2026-05-06 23:30

@datum https://inv.thepixora.com/watch?v=ksn5yrsC3Wg

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@Crovanian@mastodon.social 2026-05-07 00:33

@datum I think those scientists just had the cooties.

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@f4grx@chaos.social 2026-05-07 06:53

@datum popularized recently by veritasium inc.

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@androcat@toot.cat 2026-05-07 14:42

@datum wow!!!

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