Benzene's wide-ranging negative health effects have been known for a long time. It's far from clear why this article reporting the results of a mouse study with rather unremarkable findings is on the front page.
HN makes much more sense if you think of it as a collection of chat rooms with titles. People are upvoting the topic and discussing benzene, mostly unconnected to the actual article. (Serious question: did anyone who upvoted the post read the article first?)
My guess is because there was a study reported on last week that talked about benzene emissions from gas stoves.
I thought it was related to a discussion on HN last week about an article that discussed the unreported and untracked levels of benzene in hand sanitiser, after regulations were eased during Covid.
Because someone posted it at the right time and not everyone knows benzene toxicity has an endocrine component.