There was also a real-life scare in the 70s around "polywater" [1][2] that some people worried could "infect" other water.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater
[2] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-s...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater
[2] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-s...
>The story "Polywater Doodle" by Howard L. Myers (writing under the pseudonym "Dr. Dolittle") appeared in the February 1971 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It features an animal composed entirely of polywater, with the metabolism described by Richard Feynman. (The title of the story is a pun on "Polly Wolly Doodle".)
There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish Feyman was still alive to help slash through the nonsense.
Polywater wasn't the "source" for Cat's Cradle. The book was published in 1963 and (per Wikipedia) the West didn't take notice of polywater until 1966 at the earliest.
> By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater gap" in the USA.
I find it illuminating to understand that "journalists," or the "popular press," were ratcheting up the "fear sells" / fake news bullshit at least as far back as 1969 (and I'm sure it goes back much further). If you were ignorant, and I certainly am, you would think that this is a wholly new phenomenon. I mean, that is what the same "popular press" is telling us today, right?
From the wikipedia article. Frank Luther Mott (of the same era) on the five main characteristics of yellow journalism:
1. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
5. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.
It's almost as if there's some fundamental social-system dynamic by which information, information mediation, cognitive capabilities (particularly at the population level), and other information-theoretic and psychological dynamics are deeply rooted in human, and arguably all systems function.
A good capsule summary of this is H.L. Mencken's brief "Brayard vs. Lionheart", written of the 1926 U.S. presidential election, from which the infamous line about an idiot someday being elected to the office is found, but whose real value is in clearly describing the dynamic. And also, IMO, tying it to Gresham's Law.