Not so much a bond, but if I recall from what I’ve read, mercury dissolves gold. And then absorbs it.
Basically, the mercury will “eat” you wedding band. You can retrieve the gold by heating the mercury, however, which has a farily low temperature wherein it converts to vapor (ventilation. Very important here…).
I could be wrong though. I’m exceedingly tired and my shfit is almost over…
Basically, this chem teacher forced him to sweep up some mercury with a broom.
I submit to you one John Haas, who was either insane because of the mercury in his home or had mercury in his home because was insane.
http://www.thestarpress.com/tsp/news/local/03/feb/0204bombscare.php
Mercury is neato burrito. 
I’ve played with some when I was a kid (i.e. rolled some around in my hand), so I’m fairly certain that it won’t kill you instantly.
Yep, the Mad Hatter was based on the men who used mercury in hat making (no idea how, but I know they did), and the vapours eventually (for lack of a better word) rotted their brains.
It forms an amalgam with gold that turns crumbly over time. Soaking the ring in concentrated nitric acid will dissolve the mercury, and prevent any crumbling. Having actually done this, I can say that the treated ring is as good as new, 15 years after the incident.
Mercury itself is not very toxic in the short term. People used to slip a few ounces into glasses of beer, with amusing results. The problems arise from long term exposure to the vapors of spilled mercury, or consumption of biologically formed methyl mercury.
Add me to the list of people who have played with mercury.
I used to save up my allowance, go buy some thermometers, bust them open, and play with mercury. My husband used to rub it onto coins. It’s a total blast, and any kid who doesn’t play with it at ONE time or another cannot be considered a true kid. Mmmm… Makes me want to go out and bust some thermometers right now!
That’s also why Ivan the Terrible became such a nut. I mean, he was always pretty loopy (he used to torture animals as a child), but I believe he used to take mercury as MEDICINE.
If you have fillings, you have mercury in your mouth. (I’m not too crazy about the idea…heheheh…no pun intended!)
I too have played with Mercury, fun stuff.
And Guin, you can get fillings with composite materials these days. I am slowly replacing the mercury ones with 'em…
-Tcat
cuauhtemoc more or less summed it up. my lab mate accidentally broke a mercury thermometer, and I had to stay after class and clean it up with a broom. That chem teacher was a f’in sadist (everyone has already heard the hydrochloric acid story too).
Oh, yes - when I was in Barcelona I saw, at the Fundació Joan Miró, this really wicked looking artwork - essentially a mercury fountain - that had been exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair to denounce the Fascists who had taken over the town of Almería and its mercury mines. Suffice it to say this particular artwork was glassed off.
Well, I’m not concerned about it, plus the alternative fillings are extremely expensive, and from what I hear, not as durable.
Plus, I need a bunch of other things, too. I was just sayin’.
I remember swishing a good quantity of mercury back and forth in a glass tube during high-school chemistry. Even then I knew the stuff was toxic and I never felt tempted to break the glass or take the tube home.
Of course, I did get hooked on tartaric acid that year.
A friend of mine’s bedroom was in the basement of the house he grew up in. At some time during his childhood, his older brother (a wannabe chemist), broke a vial of mercury on the cement floor. There was mercury in the cracks of the floor and little dots of mercury everywhere. Much of it was cleaned up, but some little spots could still be found down there until he left at 18 to go into the Army.
He must’ve been exposed for at least 8 to 10 years. Can’t say it seems to have affected him much, if at all. 'Course, he was a little ‘different’ before the Hg was spilled, so maybe it’s hard to tell.
Dip a cigarette into a vat, smoke it, and you, too, can start coughing up blood just like the kids inTexarkana.
OK, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s it do?
Makes fish sticks taste better, I guess.
Mr. LadyDisco is getting some mercury test results back today from work.
Apparently at his workplace (years ago) someone broke one of the instruments and mercury went flying everywhere. I don’t think the proper clean-up crew was called in because the person who broke the instrument was embarrassed. Anyway, they thought it was cleaned up, but when they went to replace the light fixtures recently, they found some beads of mercury.
So he’s been working under that light fixture for the last year. I guess we’ll have to wait to see if there will be any ill effects.
Tartaric acid is to the sour taste buds what sugar is to the sweet taste buds. I can only describe is as pure sour flavour, which is not as odious as it may seem, since it is similar to dill pickles, lemons and vinegar.
Tartaric acid (or close variants) are sold as food additives generally under the name “sour salt” or “lemon salt”. A light sprinking in your soup will give that soup a sharp tarty flavour.
But like eating pure sugar, it’s very easy to overdo the pleasure, to the point where you start damaging your own teeth. In addition, overuse of tartaric acid was starting to burn my tongue. Thinking about tartaric acid gives me a Pavlovian salivation response, but I have to control that impulse.
Strictly speaking, I became hooked on it long before that high-school chemistry class. I was in Asia briefly in 1979 and was introduced to the large crystalline form, which I treated like a salt-lick. A few years later when I found out my lab had jars of the stuff in powder form (which was even easier to absorb in large quantites) I went nuts, and worked my way through the supply with the devotion of a demerol addict in a pharmacy stockroom.
I’ve found a store in Montreal which sells inexpensive lemon salt in powder form, but becoming an adult gave me a little better self-control.
A little.
Dude, you had me going by the time I read “sharp tarty flavor”. I’m gonna have to find me some of this stuff.