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280 – Canaries In The Coal Mine
Posted on January 20, 2016 by Dawn
If you've never come across the phrase, Lacey's referring to an old practice where miners would carry canaries with them as a primitive form of gas detection when checking out new seams of coal. Having a far lower tolerance than humans, a canary in the presence of odorless, colorless toxic fumes like carbon monoxide would swiftly drop dead in its cage, and the sudden quieting of its song would alert the people nearby so they could evacuate before suffering the same fate. Here it's noise rather than silence sounding the alarm, but otherwise the comparison seems apt.

3 thoughts on “280 – Canaries In The Coal Mine”

  1. Breezee

    Strictly speaking, the canaries don’t have a lower tolerance. They just breathe really quickly — and, more importantly, they’re tiny. In other words, I should never, ever go into the mining business.

  2. pikinanou

    Ignorance is bliss… until it bites you in the…

  3. foalfire

    Well… That went well for the whole McCarty family, didnt it.
    And Frank… I dont think the Hau-chu-chus cut their losses.

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