Day 25: Interesting Facts About Manganese
Atomic Symbol: Mn; Atomic Number: 25; Atomic Mass: 54.938

1. Take a deep breath and thank manganese. As an essential element in photosynthesis, without it, there would be no free oxygen on earth.
2. In our bodies themselves, there is only a tiny amount of manganese (10-20mg), which, comparatively, weighs less than a 100th of a dime! Yet, without manganese, we not only are unable to breathe, but we also could not perform vital metabolic functions.
3. Archeologists studying cave paintings that date back 30,000 years have discovered that not only did these early humans use manganese-based pigments, but they also used it as a cosmetic. In addition, the use of the element to remove green hues from glass was first implicated in the stone age, a technique that is still in use today.
4. Common uses include being used for drying black paints, preparing oxygen and chlorine, strengthening steel and other metals, gasoline additives, quantitative analysis, depolarizing dry cells, various medicines, and making colorless glass.

Image: Manganese is a silvery-gray metal resembling iron. It stimulates spontaneity.

Manganese May Thwart Deadly E. Coli Infections

In a recent study, mice exposed to lethal doses of Shiga toxin, a compound made by E. coli and other bacteria, suffered no ill effects of the toxin if they had been treated with manganese, suggesting that the element might prevent the serious effects of these infections.

Though the study was done in mice, the researchers said manganese may be effective at treating Shiga toxin infections in humans, which afflict more than 150 million people each year, many in the developing world.

Previous research has shown that Shiga toxin wreaks havoc on cells because it has found a way to avoid being degraded by the in the cell’s trash bin, called the lysosome. However, in the new study, the researchers found that manganese counteracts this mechanism, causing the Shiga toxin to be sent to the lysosome and dismantled.

In experiments on cells growing in lab dishes, manganese treatment yielded an almost 4,000-fold increase in the amount of Shiga toxin required to induce cell death.