Comment by m3047

> industrial uses of phosphorus

There seems to be a memory hole about what follows. Probably not the "key limiting factor for life" you had in mind.

There have been various incidents where soldiers or people generally in third world countries have developed neurological diseases when machine oil contaminates (or is mistaken for) cooking oil. This isn't new, it's been happening for 100 years. There have also been cases of pilots becoming, or allegedly becoming, disabled due to inhalation of jet engine lubricants which find their way into the cabin air supply (passengers are notably not mentioned in most reporting).

Although intentional use of the more toxic compounds is generally avoided, machine oils are subjected to harsh environments and compounds can change, new compounds created. Kind of like dioxin contamination in herbicides, I don't see much evidence that oil additives are rigorously tested for unusually toxic compounds incidentally occurring during the manufacturing process.

I'm glad they're burning that shit under an exhaust hood in the picture in the article, hope it's turned on!

Apropos the memory hole remark above, here are some articles I found briefly looking around although none of them were ones I remember previously seeing / reading (such as the "famous" case of the British machinegunners in North Africa).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_soldiers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organophosphate_poisoning

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/30448/know-lubrica...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11254977_The_Toxici...