The Salmon, Please, and Hold the Mercury

So you can't eat anything these days. That bag of chips has just given you cancer, that candy bar has just turned you into a blubbery whale, oh, and the fish you had for dinner last night had toxic levels of mercury in it.

Or did it? You're still fat and have cancer, but it looks like the fish in our neck of the woods (crook of the creek? bend of the bay?) finish pretty far back in the old mercury races. Just look at the map! Yes, it's pretty small- is your eyesight going, too?

Scientific American says that,

For mercury to get methylated and enter the food web, it must be processed by bacteria that thrive on sulfate, a sulfur compound. This means that dissolved organic matter and sulfur enhance methylation, as do acidic waters such as those in the Northeast. Scientists finally understand methylation well enough to map out vulnerable areas at a national level.

So basically, those fish-chomping chumps back east get all the dangerous mercury, and our charming and friendly Northwest bacteria refuse to methylate. The lesson is to eat locally-caught fish and skip the skanky east coast cod. Apparently, the Great Mercury Ponds (or, Great Lakes, as they were once called) are pretty awful, too. Chicagoist, you've been warned.

Pursuant to this post's aims (fear-flaying, worry-withering), you should also know that the largest European study to date has found no links between cell phones and cancer. Seattlest imagines you all happily gabbing into your hands-free headsets, mouths full of fresh salmon, attempting to console your inconsolable eastern relatives.