Make yourself a barometer or manometer. If you've got a test tube, you probably know how to bend flint glass. Failing that, just store it in the test tube. It's pretty benign stuff to store, and anything 'they` don't want you to have is likely to develope some monitary value with time. MadDog
On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 05:48:39 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Ted Edwards quickly quoth:
Excellent point, Ted. Expand that to cover silicone breast implants and asbestos as well. Who's getting rich? Doctors, lawyers, and the pharmaceutical blocks.
Are our only clear and present dangers our own fearmongers, our Congress, & our Execs?
-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-
Metallic lead doesn't taste of anything (try it). Lead salts may taste, and if this lead had been used for keeping vinegar then it would indeed taste sweet. Look at the Roman history of making the first artificial sweeteners by reducing grape juice in thick lead pans. Look at Somerset or Dorset and the quantities of lead in some cider processes.
The poisoning from mercury in fish is from *organic* mercury compounds. It's called Minimata's Disease from the doctor who figure it out in japan, where the problem occured.
You won't find organic mercury compound poisoning from the metal alone.
Jim
========================= There is the prase 'as mad as a hatter' and the wonderland character character The Mad Hatter. Mercury compounds were apparently widely used in processing felt and/or bever hats at one time. There is also the case of Newton [calculus/gravity] who went quite mad for a time after is apartment was repainted in red. The only red pigment in paint at that time was mercury sulphide. Nothing to fool around with, but the regulators have applied the American addage "If somes, good, mores better, and too much is just enough," when responding to the problem.
Uncle George
Minamata is a town in Japan, wheree Chisso Chemical had a plant.. they dumped waste from the 50's onward including methyl (organic) mercury compounds into the bay where the town's fishermen operated. The results:
IIRC some dude tried to commit suicide by injecting metallic mercury into their veins and it just pooled in their lungs without causing much in the way of immediate difficulty*. OTOH, there was a woman chemistry professor who died a few years ago from a single drop of organic mercury compound (dimethylmercury) spilled on the outside of an unbroken latex glove. Enough got through to kill her**.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
Citation or trophy ? I shot competition with a citation for a few years, along time ago. Finally left the muzzle brake off, it got to much of a bother cleaning it. ...lew...
================================= I thought I'd do a Cliff and reply to my own post
From Yahoo:
Fri Jan 6, 8:51 PM ET
WAUSAU, Wis. - A woman shaking pepper onto her potato at a fast food restaurant had a startling discovery ? metallic mercury came out ? and a teenager is now charged with two felonies in the apparent prank, according to court records. ADVERTISEMENT click here
The discovery of mercury, which can cause health problems, in the food late last month prompted responses from firefighters and the county's hazardous materials team, authorities said.
No one was harmed in the Dec. 30 incident at a Wendy's in Weston in which liquid mercury spilled through the holes in the shaker. When the little balls it formed were rolled together, it amounted to about the size of pea, said Marathon County Emergency Planner Jerome Boettcher. No one ingested the substance.
Zachariah Barrett, 17, of Wausau is charged with two felonies ? second-degree reckless endangerment and placing a foreign object in edibles, according to court documents. His preliminary hearing was scheduled Tuesday.
Exposure to high levels of mercury can damage the brain, kidneys and a developing fetus. But, Julie Willems Van Dijk, the county's health officer, said someone who ingests mercury in its metallic form is at minimal risk for health problems because it slides through the body and is not absorbed.
Investigators do not know where the teen got the mercury, Boettcher said.
"It could have come from a lot of sources, like a thermometer or from some switches for heating that use it," he said.
Went? For a time? Newton was an evil bastard and barking mad for most of his life.
Although mercury sulphide (as cinnabar (natural) or vermillion (synthetic)) has been a red pigment for a long time, it's certainly not the only red pigment in use at that period. It's also unlikely that it was even used here - it has always been expensive and red ochres were much more likely.
If an English gentleman in that period showed symptoms of mercury poisoning it was more likely to be from quack apothecaries, probably from treatments for syphillis (although unlikely in Newton's case). For a scientist it was even more likely to be from some dabbling in alchemy.
(don't get me started on 17th century pigments - I can bore for hours)
Metallic mercury is not too bad when compared wit some of its organic compounds
Regards,
Boris Mohar
Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)
snip I offered to make a mercury-pool electric motor as a demo for my son's high-school physics class, but the teacher nearly had a heart attack when I suggested it.
That's the typical hysterical over reaction so common these days. I remember when someone at Hill AFB saw a .22 cartridge laying on the floor of an office. Rather than picking it up and either taking it home or dropping it in a trash can, the idiot (supervisor) called the Explosive Ordinance Disposal people and evacualted the whole building. No bull this really happened. My room mate was on the EOD team. What ever happened to common sense?
73 Garysnip I offered to make a mercury-pool electric motor as a demo for my son's high-school physics class, but the teacher nearly had a heart attack when I suggested it.
That's the typical hysterical over reaction so common these days. I remember when someone at Hill AFB saw a .22 cartridge laying on the floor of an office. Rather than picking it up and either taking it home or dropping it in a trash can, the idiot (supervisor) called the Explosive Ordinance Disposal people and evacualted the whole building. No bull this really happened. My room mate was on the EOD team. What ever happened to common sense?
73 Gary
I once made a mercury pool 'motor' using the earth's field as stator. I think I used it to calculate the horizontal component of the earth's field.
You take one lousy week off to join Thorax at the Elvis concert, and this is what happens: MOP CAP writes on Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:38:54 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :
Sounds like another case of a technology being managed by people who don't understand it.
can't believe nobody suggested fulminate...
etc
'Sounds cool. That's the kind of stuff that made physics my favorite class in high school
-- Ed Huntress
can't believe nobody suggested fulminate...
etc
The most striking thing to me in that photograph is the obvious love reflected in the face of the woman holding the (presumed) child. ERS
Bottom feeding fish do in fact get this mercury and it is stored in the fatty tissue. This is just under the scales.
The fish see the silver ball in the sand and think it is air or a bug. Never heard of the East Texas Slows ? - It was from the early iron works and junk metal works - running their trash off into the rivers. The poor (late 1800's and early 1900's) ate catfish and ? buffalo ? got mercury poisoning. It presents itself in slow mental reactions.
If you remember the Jack Benny show - The great actor - Rochester - he was a little that way (in the show) - but there was a friend - Lighting! - actually 1/Lighting was his speed. He showed the effects - likely just good acting - but obvious.
In the East bay they have had problems for years - and since the dams were put in - the bay didn't get flushed during storms - so it has become a dangerous area. One always wonders what were on all of those ships that fill the bottom of the bay -
During the Gold rush - almost every ship that came to port lost all sailors. The ships were tied in long rows - and it was said one could walk across the bay.
Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
M> When I was in high school in the early 50's, one of the chenistry
Yes, that's Tomoko Uemura's mother. Here's more on the famous photo:
Here's an article of his published in _The Digital Journalist_ (originally in _Camera Arts_ ):
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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