Quick Science Sift 11:Absurdly dangerous liquid mercury demo
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Stumble ThisJust watching this video gives me the chills. A HUGE amount of mercury metal is used to demonstrate its density (other metals float on it!), free flowing behavior and high surface tension. This little vat must be giving off mercury vapor inside that house like crazy! The choice to use a zippo lighter is particularly troubling as some Hg certainly must have leaked into it, it will be vaporized with the flame the next time its used, only to then be directly inhaled by the smoker!
The detectors most people use to scare people with detect the mercury vapor a levels much smaller than are biologically relevant.
Would I recommend leaving a tub of mercury out? No. Is a fume hood recommended for general safety? Yes. But... is this demo "absurdly dangerous"? Nowhere close. Especially when you compare it to the videos on here of people randomly setting themselves on fire, etc.
Now... he put his Zippo in the mercury, and I don't know if I'd use that lighter again - I'm not sure what would happen with the heat from the flame on residual mercury...
When I was like 6 years old, for a little while there, I had a small amount of mercury (maybe 1/10th of an ounce) that I used to play with. Shit! I knew it wasn't something you should ingest but I handled it without gloves or anything. Now I'm slightly nervous.
The best part? It was our family doctor that let me have the mercury in the first place, after I caused it to leak out of his blood-pressure device.
What if you chugged the whole bottle?
As for the suggestion of drinking it, there's a folk remedy in Mexico that involves ingesting mercury, which of itself is relatively harmless. I'm not sure about the whole bottle, but there are several things that are fine to ingest in small amounts that will kill you quickly in large amounts (Salt, Iron, Nicotine/Caffiene). Heck, if the end of a thermometer comes off and empties when being used rectally on a baby or small child, you just wait for it to pass back out. Being dense, it settles out of the lower intestine fairly quickly.
(which, by the way, is why it's dangerous - it doesn't really go the other way either, so you're stuck with it if you get it in your lungs/blood/etc)
The vapor is much more dangerous, as it doesn't really have anywhere good to go from your lungs. That infinitesimal amounts, though, and not relevant unless you breath it all the time. (and as Anti_Climax said, ventilation will do a lot)
Now... mercuric nitrate... that's scary stuff. That compound is the stuff that was used in hatting, and probably the source of most of the "mercury is horribly dangerous" theories.
I must have spent many hours overall fooling around with it -- even spilling a fair bit, where the droplets must have gradually evaporated out of the cracks in the floorboards....
And I'm still completely *twitch* normal.
*twitch*
btw nice video but not awesome, nothing especial, and i don't understand very well how it got so many votes.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=5762
In January 2004, residents in northern Nevada found out first hand how dangerous mercury can be when dozens of middle school children in Gardnerville were exposed to the element and the vapors it gives off.
Less than a week later, severe poisoning from long-term exposure to mercury vapor sent a Las Vegas 17-year-old youth to a hospital's intensive care unit for a week, and the exposure may cause lifelong effects.
The quarter cup of mercury brought to the Gardnerville school by a student contaminated not only classrooms and a school bus, but the clothing and belongings of more than 50 of his classmates.
The state and federal governments spent more than $100,000 on decontamination efforts; the school was closed for more than a week; local businesses made donations to those students whose belonging were too contaminated to take home and had be destroyed.
As for mercury vapour, yes, inhalation of this is the most dangerous thing, ingestion is not quite as dangerous since body cannot digest it, and skin contact is the least of the dangers, because of its density mercury can't be absorbed by the skin.
As for the zippo coments, well, there's no problem since the surface tension and density is so high it wont go inside of the lighter itself (it would be different if it was submerged, since the high presure it generates will force it's way inside.
No, i'm not Portuguese, I'm from Mexico.
I've had this bottle of mercury for years now, and no, i don't leave it open (or just laying in the box as in the video) all the time. It had been years since I last opened the bottle to mess around and I decided to record it to avoid doing it again.
And I am aware that small droplets might be spilled around some places, but the quantity of vapour they might produce until they dissapear is extremely low.
Mostly, people that get poisoned by mercury get this because of chronical exposure, this means large quantities of mercury that produce large quantities of vapour and ppl are exposed to it for years. Sure it would be dangerous to spill the whole bottle in the floor, or in a piece of furniture, since it's a lot of mercury, but no, I repeat to you it is on a sealed bottle.
One cool thing about mercury is that if you blow your breath into it it will get misty, just as if you were doing it to a mirror, next time you have the chance to play with mercury (even a small drop) try it
Thanks for watching anyway!
You're all welcome to see this other video I made documenting surface vibrations of that same mercury being exposed to low frecuencies... kinda cool...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ZVz8rM8lY
I almost forgot, here's another demo showing frozen Mercury, (at least freezing it wont produce as much vapour) First a small dropp gets frozen, then a larger amount is frozen. Hope u like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-K5buIxuUY