Comment on brilliant as silver
kowcop@aussie.zone 9 months ago
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.
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.
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.
wahming@monyet.cc 9 months ago
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.
sukhmel@programming.dev 9 months ago
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.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 9 months ago
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.
idiomaddict@feddit.de 9 months ago
And currency!
sukhmel@programming.dev 9 months ago
Forgot about that, this certainly
adds insult to an injuryspices it upFilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I think chubbyemu did a video about this lady. Absolutely tragic and heart breaking.
Neato@ttrpg.network 9 months ago
Yeah. Elemental is mostly harmless if you aren’t around it for long and don’t inhale vapors.
MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
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 toy touch it.
xkforce@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Chemist 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.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 9 months ago
I think they are saying it depends what you mean by “mercury” because some compounds are both toxic and readily absorbed through the skin.
Godort@lemm.ee 9 months ago
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
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 9 months ago
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.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
you can always consult the Material Safety Data Sheet
its not going to kill you if you touch it- wash hands and call a doctor. they’ll probably be like, “Take two asprin and call me int he morning so I can bill you twice.” you definitely don’t want to inhale it, but outside of something like a fire or being heated, adequate ventilation is sufficient; if ventilation isn’t possible a respirator is a good idea.