this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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brilliant as silver (mander.xyz)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 123 points 11 months ago (23 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 111 points 11 months ago (12 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 11 months ago (4 children)

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 🤔

::: spoiler sad story that was in the top of search results about dimethylmercury: Wikipedia excerpt: Karen Elizabeth Wetterhahn (October 16, 1948 – June 8, 1997), also known as Karen Wetterhahn Jennette, was an American professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, who specialized in toxic metal exposure. She died of mercury poisoning at the age of 48 due to accidental exposure to the extremely toxic organic mercury compound dimethylmercury (Hg(CH3)2). Protective gloves in use at the time of the incident provided insufficient protection, and exposure to only a few drops of the chemical absorbed through the gloves proved to be fatal after less than a year. 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.

[–] FilthyHookerSpit 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think chubbyemu did a video about this lady. Absolutely tragic and heart breaking.

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