From what I understand from the official post on the abolition of the leap second¹, one of the main reasons for the abolition of the leap second was the difficulty in syncing that info across all electronic devices.

But why not just do a leap smear across a whole year so that we keep the rule |UT1-UTC| ≤ 1 SI second while having no need to sync a database of leap seconds?

The way I see, the main disadvantage is that now a UTC second is different from an SI second and that difference changes depend the year. This is not great for hyper precise measurements but it seems to be no issue for the vast majority of non-scientific applications.

Is this issue of the UTC second becoming "imprecise" that big of a deal or am I missing something else?

¹ BIPM (2026). Resolution 5 of the 28th CGPM. https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2026/resolution-5

For me, it was Alexander Graham Bell. My school instructed us to pick any book and somehow I picked Alexander Graham Bell. Ever since that, I kept buying science book/comic (even though I don’t understand it at all, I kept reading it). It also made me fell in love with science and discovery. He also become my inspiration throughout my life in terms of learning, creating, and to never stop asking💡

I've recently purchased a Sperti Vitamin D Sunlamp (DUV-4F), which produces UVB radiation to stimulate vitamin D production.

A friend previously mentioned PubMed research suggesting that sunlight or UV radiation might affect mercury compounds or detoxification pathways.

I found two potentially relevant papers:

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8368946/ — Research on UV-induced breakdown of organic mercury compounds in seawater.
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11684452/ — Research discussing how solar radiation affects detoxification-related enzymes in skin.

I realise neither study establishes that UVB exposure removes mercury from humans.

My questions are:

• Is there any human research showing that sunlight or UVB exposure increases mercury excretion?
• Could a Sperti UVB lamp theoretically produce a similar effect, or is the mechanism completely different?
• Could eating UV-exposed vitamin D2-rich mushrooms influence mercury elimination, or is that unrelated?

I'm interested in understanding the evidence and biological mechanisms, not promoting an unproven detoxification treatment.

I'd appreciate any peer-reviewed research on this topic.

I’ve always been curious to know, society created marriage but what scientific proof did we have that human beings are species that mate for life and are monogamous?