And currency!
Comment on brilliant as silver
sukhmel@programming.dev 9 months agoI 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.
idiomaddict@feddit.de 9 months ago
sukhmel@programming.dev 9 months ago
Forgot about that, this certainly
adds insult to an injuryspices it up
FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I think chubbyemu did a video about this lady. Absolutely tragic and heart breaking.
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.