You must log in or register to comment.
When I was young my Dad bought me some mercury home from work… I loved how it moved when I shook the bottle and the weight of it.
When I had my own kids I didn’t want it around, so our local council had set up a event where you could dispose of household liquids like old paints and solvents, so I took it down. When I drove up, the guy asked me what I was disposing of so I said mercury. It was bizarre. I was told to stay in the car and a guy came out of a shed in a full hazmat suit with one of those pairs of metal tongs to retrieve it from me.
I remember Dad telling me that miners used to collect gold pan tailings in mercury and then of a night they would hollow out a potato and put the mercury in, and then put that in the camp fire… it would burn off the mercury and leave a little ingot of gold.
Probably because they didn’t know WHICH type of mercury you had. Organic mercury can kill on touch with a single drop. Best not to take chances.
I had to search for “organic mercury”, it’s dimethylmercury and it doesn’t look like mercury at all. Do people really call it “mercury” or “organic mercury”? It’s on par with pounds as a measure of mass, weight, and force by the amount of confusion, I’d say 🤔
sad story
that was in the top of search results about dimethylmercury:
sad but also a bit ironic fate 🫡 that’s why I prefer not to do dangerous things even when protection and/or safety is in place.Do people really call it “mercury” or “organic mercury”? It’s on par with pounds as a measure of mass, weight, and force by the amount of confusion, I’d say
No, I doubt it. There aren’t very many uses for dimethylmercury due to its potential lethality. I would assume the people who actually use it in a lab setting are going to call it dimethylmercury, especially considering organic mercury usually refers to methylmercury, or one of the other less harmful organomercury compounds.
I think the confusion probably stems from the original article about the scientist who passed. Dimethylmercury is made from a reaction of methylmercury, and they are both organomercuric compounds.
And currency!
Forgot about that, this certainly
adds insult to an injuryspices it up
Yeah. Elemental is mostly harmless if you aren’t around it for long and don’t inhale vapors.
Source? I’m not sure who to believe. People on the internet who claim it’s safe enough that you can pick it up or people on the internet who claim kills you if you touch it.
I’m not going to go swimming in a mercury pool any time soon either way.
I think they are saying it depends what you mean by “mercury” because some compounds are both toxic and readily absorbed through the skin.
Exactly that. Elemental mercury (ie: the liquid metal form) doesn’t readily absorb through the skin. It gives off vapors which are harmful with extended or repeated contact, but generally it’s not super dangerous to be around.(Not totally safe though)
Organic mercury compounds (eg: methylmercury) are extremely toxic because they can be absorbed through the skin, and can traverse the blood brain barrier
Regular liquid mercury is relatively safe to handle, but I would still wear gloves. It won’t get through undamaged skin, but is dangerous if you have even a small skin laceration it can get through.
Chemist (and biochemist) here. Organometallic compounds of Mercury are primarily dangerous because Mercury ions bond fairly strongly to soft ligands like sulfhydryl groups found near the active sites of enzymes. This can result in the displacement of the metal ions or otherwise disrupt the structure needed for enzyme functionality. Mercury metal OTOH is considerably less reactive. It is not safe to breathe in for prolonged periods of time but it is no where near as toxic as its organometallic derivatives are. Dimethyl Mercury for example, is extremely dangerous. A single drop has 100+ times the organomercury content needed to kill someone.
Out in the edge of the lower mainland of BC by Hope, where there was a mini gold rush a long time ago you can find lots and lots of mercury sitting below the water levels when the streams dry out during the summer.
It is all left behind from the miners back in the day.
That sounds like it would look really lovely. Got any pictures?
Mercury sitting below the ground level sitting underground, potentially poisoning the ground water if it gets disturbed enough is beautiful or just the area of nature where the gold panning happens?
It’s a shitty situation, but that doesn’t preclude it from possibly being beautiful to look at.
It’s actually harmless if not ingested. They were being weird.
Its also harmless, generally, when ingested as the gastrointestinal absorption of elemental mercury is negligible. It is inhalation that is most concerning with elemental mercury.
Except eating paint chips with lead made a lot of kids dumb. Lead based paint held up awesome, but it was banned due to injection. Not inhalation. Even now, 40+ years later it’s still the leading cause of lead poisoning in children.
I mean… we’re talking about mercury here, not lead.
Oh, fuck me. Lol. I commented last night and then responded back today and in between my mind totally flipped to thinking it was about lead.
We also had an innocent looking little (maybe 100ml or 200) bottle of mercury at school. Mostly for the startling weight when it was passed around to demonstrate density.
If anyone else was reminded of that video of a 110lb anvil floating in a tub of mercury, here you go. Don’t try this at home.
Pure mercury metal is pretty chill, just done fuck with organic mercury compounds
Metallic elemental mercury (what you see in the picture) is relatively harmless to touch. Arguably, it’s more dangerous to rub a lead ingot, for example. However, mercury vapours (and mercury does evaporate slowly but consistently) absorb quite easily when you breath them with a ton of undesirable effects, often related to central nervous system, which is never a nice thing. Broken mercury thermometer won’t kill you. Playing with the puddle inside a non-ventilated room might kill you in several decades. Working in the non-open-air environment where mercury is always present will slowly worsen your health as mercury accumulates.
Organic compounds of mercury are what actually is nasty. A short contact with a few millilitres of that — and you will have to recover for a long-long time, if ever. However, the scary stories about methylmercury rarely mention that there are other organic compounds that are just as toxic or worse. I wouldn’t get close to any organic cadmium compound, for example, and would be extremely wary of its inorganic salts too. The thing is it’s extremely unlikely that you encounter any of these chemicals ever in your life, and if you do encounter them, then you are likely a professional who knows exactly how and why you are to deal with them.
Rip to that guy
Metallic murcury can’t actually be absorbed through the skin, and it can theoretically be handled without protective equipment if you know what you’re doing. Not that I would recommend it.
See the crazy stuff that Cody’s Lab does on YouTube, and he hasn’t gotten poisoned yet:
Nah, it’s the vapor that’s dangerous with elemental mercury. Touching it is basically fine. Just no open wounds and be in a well ventilated area
There are far more toxic forms of mercury you shouldn’t mess with though
Mercury can absorb through the skin, but it takes a very long time. (Generally safe to touch it, but still wouldn’t recommend it)
If you have the stuff in your bare hands you also inhale the stuff…
Is it more the inhalation than the skin absorption that would be toxic? Not too familar with mercury poisoning.
You’re correct
Is no one going to comment on the font rendering
Photo: Robert W. Madden
Oh, he be Madden alright.
Sure is hand outside today
I’ve played with mercury when I was a kid. Hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass when I’m old.
Both my parents have told me playing with mercury like this was pretty common when they were kids. One’s still alive. 🤷🏻♂️
My aunt even drank some and nothing happened.
Metallic mercury should be fine. Not the fumes though.
It has such low bioavailability…
Toxic as fuck.
Not as much
This kills the idiot.
