I know the ng means nanogram

But I’m curious how would I say the above line of 2.1 ng/kg

For context I got it from this paragraph

a lethal dose of 1.3–2.1 ng/kg in humans

Would it be

2.1 nanogram per kilogram?

Also if I wanted to write that as a decimal number how would i write that?

  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    27·
    16 days ago

    “A lethal dose of one point three to two point one (or one and three tenths to two and one tenth) nanograms per kilogram in humans.”

    • andrewta@lemmy.worldOP
      8·
      16 days ago

      So are they saying nanograms of the stuff per kilograms of the human?

      In other words are they saying it’s a ratio compared to the weight of the person?

      • RegalPotoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        16 days ago

        Yeah - the dose is the poison (if you drink enough water it becomes toxic), so if you are talking precisely you need to describe the concentration of a substance in which it is likely lethal to a person, and that’s typically expressed as mass of a substance per mass of bodyweight. A lot of the time you will also see this expressed as an “LD50” value; the dose at which you’d expect 50% of people to die. This accounts for the fact that people’s metabolisms vary quite widely.

        ~1ng/kg ~= 0.08ug for a typical (~80kg) person, which is a very tiny amount - whatever you are talking about is incredibly toxic.