I can't tell if you're hinting that I'm making wild, shrill baseless accusations. I do do that, but here I'm just sort of wondering and suggesting caution, at least to my mind.
The circle of life really is a wonder. Those ants who cultivate and feed colonies of aphids that produce a fungus that is the ants only food is amazing. Tapeworms and trichinosis operate in the same way as the frog parasite, but I'm not too fond of them. Even though they too have Fathers and Mothers and Sisters and Brothers, I'm not about to invite them over for supper.
Chemicals and deformities bring to mind thalidomide. Agent Orange, DDT.
Recreational drugs like pot can surely bring up baseless accusations, but I do wonder about the chemicals that third world farmers spray on their product to keep bugs and molds from damaging it. DDT is banned in the USA, but not elsewhere. Arsenic makes a wonderful herbicide and insecticide, but I'll pass on smoking it.
I was the grounds keeper at the local school for awhile and Round-Up was one of the nasties I was required to use. I got to reading about it and apparently on the MSDS sheets required by the government, only the dangers of the active ingredients are dealt with. In the case of Round-Up, it uses a surfactant that is an 'inactive' part because it doesn't actually kill the plants, but only allows the poison to penetrate the plants easier. But the surfactant itself is deadly for small forms of animal life at the bottom of the food chain, and is accumulative, but since Round-Up is for killing plants, the fact that the inactive ingredients kill wildlife is irrelevant for MSDS purposes.
A grounds keeping book I had told of all the dangers of the various herbicides and pesticides and fungicides needed for healthy looking golf courses and sports fields, but then proceeded to show how much more deadly for humans plain old gasoline is. That made me think of all the times I've gotten a mouthful while siphoning it. The topic of this thread, the hydrophobic coating, may work wonders as a bottom coating. But these things have the potential of easily penetrating skin and then traveling around and collecting in very handy body parts like brains, livers, kidneys etc. I'm sure the ingredients are a proprietary, industrial secret, like Coca-Cola, but even if they aren't, there is no consensus or much study being done on their side effects.
That is a very interesting and challenging race. Good luck, let us know how it goes.
