Lick the Rock! Lick it!
August 18, 2018 8:25 AM   Subscribe

Geoscientist Mika McKinnon felt hurt by the viral tweet mocking rock licking for science, so she explained (threadreader) why you might lick rocks, noted which rocks will kill you, and judged pop culture rock-licking technique. Bonus Last Jedi content (threadreader).
posted by Eyebrows McGee (20 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Licking agates is practically a sport in northern Minnesota! How else are you going to get a good look at the bands to tell if it's a keeper? I suppose you could dip them in water, but the best agates are found in gravel pits and alongside washed-out roads. You'd have to carry a bunch of water with you in order to do that.

I work at a ceramic studio, where I will sometimes lick a piece of ceramic work to see if it's dry enough to fire. If my tongue sticks, it's ready for the kiln. If it slides, it goes back on the shelf for a few more days.
posted by Elly Vortex at 8:40 AM on August 18, 2018 [10 favorites]


A rock-identification exam is how I know what HCl tastes like. Someone had tested the halite sample to see if it reacted to acids just before it got to me.
posted by frimble at 9:10 AM on August 18, 2018 [7 favorites]


Why stop at rocks? There's so much to lick out there.

For those too lazy to click, their abstract says:
"Lickable Cities is a research project that responds to the recent and overwhelming abundance of non-calls for gustatory exploration of urban spaces. In this paper, we share experiences from nearly three years of nonrepresentational, absurdist, and impractical research. During that time, we licked hundreds of surfaces, infrastructures, and interfaces in cities around the world. We en-countered many challenges from thinking with, designing for, and interfacing through taste, including: - how can and should we grapple with contamination?, and - how might lickable interfaces influence more-than-humans? We discuss these challenges to compassionately question the existing framework for designing with taste in HCI."
posted by rbanerjee at 9:11 AM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I thought people mocking shit they don't understand is just how the world works these days.

Did I miss a memo?
posted by humboldt32 at 9:33 AM on August 18, 2018 [9 favorites]


Hutchinsonite: sulfosalt of thallium, lead & arsenic

Now I'm glad I don't lick rocks.
posted by saysthis at 10:05 AM on August 18, 2018


Tasting things is also a factor in how I do plant ID (yes, by the time I get to tasting I've determined none of the options are something that will kill me). I entertain students by eating sidewalk weeds and chewing on twigs. I did tone down this approach a lot when I heard a tale from a colleague - he uses the tasting approach far more often than I do, but a student trying to imitate him apparently ate poison ivy.
posted by pemberkins at 11:10 AM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


"Lick it" is further down the list that starts with "Poke it with a stick".
posted by The otter lady at 11:21 AM on August 18, 2018 [10 favorites]


I’ve known that rock licking is a thing but I didn’t realize how many dangerous rocks are out there. So I could be walking around and there’s just arsenic and uranium laying around out there in the world????
posted by gucci mane at 11:31 AM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Seriously though. Would a single lick of the majority of the dangerous minerals actually cause poisoning or death? Other than cinnabar I mean. Wouldn't it take ingestion of a relatively large quantity to get enough into your system?
posted by Splunge at 12:13 PM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


She forgot to mention the legendary licking skills of Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:28 PM on August 18, 2018 [4 favorites]


So I could be walking around and there’s just arsenic and uranium laying around out there in the world????

it depends on where in the world you are, exactly, but yeah! (and you often find those two in the same spots!)
posted by halation at 12:33 PM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Most of those exotic "poisonous" minerals occur in very distinctive and rare geologic settings that any geologist would easily recognize. Unless you are actively prospecting for ores, one would be very unlikely to encounter them.

Most of the field work for paleontologists, stratigraphers, and structural geologists involves examining bog standard limestones, sandstones, siltstones, and granites, etc. Licking them wets the surface and gives you a much better view with your hand lens into their grain size and mineral type which can be important for identification and mapping purposes.
posted by JackFlash at 12:36 PM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Licking peppermint is highly diagnostic....

Loved this. I don't think I've ever intentionally licked a rock but I can't wait to "Well, actually...." some SW nerd on that scene from Last Jedi.
posted by amanda at 1:06 PM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Why stop at rocks? There's so much to lick out there.

As our cat figured out years ago.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:39 PM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


*Steven Universe and Houseki no Kuni fanfiction writers furiously taking notes*
posted by picklenickle at 3:12 PM on August 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


On a related subject, one can also get a good idea (with practice) of grain size in dirt/clay by mixing it with a little saliva and rubbing it on your incisor.
posted by skyscraper at 3:29 PM on August 18, 2018


I kneeled up to lick first one stone (peppery, with an aftertaste of mint), and another (the cool inertness of most rocks), and another (the ashy saltiness not of sodium chloride but of some potassium substitute). Santine gave me the fourth to hold and taste at my leisure, and I leaned back on the cushions, much more relaxed now that I had experienced some kind of familiar greeting.
Samuel R. Delany, Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand
posted by runcifex at 7:45 PM on August 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Licking agates is practically a sport in northern Minnesota! How else are you going to get a good look at the bands to tell if it's a keeper?

Also Minnesotan and I’ve totally licked agates from right off the ground.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:37 PM on August 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I started following Mika on Twitter when she last talking about rock-licking about a year ago. She is hugely informative about all kinds of things from disaster prep, to volcanology, and her work is definitely checking out.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:52 AM on August 19, 2018


Here in cow country, for the rocks right off the ground we tend to prefer the 'spit and wipe' method.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:49 AM on August 19, 2018 [4 favorites]


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