Can someone who knows a thing or two about chemistry explain why one would need to synthesize or purchase this chemical. Given that it involves a student I'll take "because of bragging rights to impress everyone" as a valid response, but wondering if it has any value is otherwise? Is it one of those "well despite its danger it's still the best at X, Y and Z and nothing else comes even close"?
I forget the guy's name, but he writes entertaining articles about chemistry things he'll never mess with. I wonder if Dimethyl Mercury is one of them. Edit: reading further down the comments, Derek Lowe is guy.
Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Less than 0.1 mL is capable of inducing severe mercury poisoning resulting in death Holy hell. I would've have believed it was possible for a non-biological substance to be so toxic.
The density of Dimethyl Mercury is almost 3g/ml, so 0.1 mL is like 300 mg. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_poisoning > A fatal dose for humans is on average 1.52 mg/kg of body weight Assuming 80kg(175pounds), that's like 120mg of Cyanide. There is probably even more nasty stuff.
well, easily. any organophosphorus stuff for example.
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#43Mods censoring the post for being trolling "disrespectful to the community" is classic Reddit. Some guy's in the hospital from handling droplets of instant liquid death and they're worried about feelings being hurt?
Apparently the article was, in fact, trolling with inaccurate speculative 'information.'
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#44Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#45Derek Lowe has comments about this incident, https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/alleged-dimethylme... ( "The Alleged Dimethylmercury Incident" ) Seems the initial reporting may have been misleading. There was apparently *no* dimethylmercury exposure, after all: and MIT doubts it was synthesized in the first place.
Oh thank goodness. I was honestly shaken just thinking about how horrifying it would be to be a college-aged student who managed to expose themselves to dimethylmercury. Even if they were doing something stupid and reckless, that's a horrible way to go.
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#46Mods censoring the post for being trolling "disrespectful to the community" is classic Reddit. Some guy's in the hospital from handling droplets of instant liquid death and they're worried about feelings being hurt?
Apparently the article was, in fact, trolling with inaccurate speculative 'information.'
The deleted post was a "Dear Colleagues" letter written by an MIT chemistry faculty member. It's the same letter posted here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/labrats/comments/1w1ukrv/mit_studen... ("A message sent out from the chair of the department of chemistry...")
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#47Note that it seems increasingly unlikely that it was actually synthesized. > Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized. > while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury. Taken from https://emergency.mit.edu/
Imagine thinking you'd killed yourself, and then breathing the intense sigh of relief when you realize you're bad at chemistry and you didn't manage to synthesize the compound correctly.
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#48Other "sources" (using the word loosely as their provenance is unclear) > "based on the information available, this was a localized issue with only one student directly exposed. Their reported use of dimethyl mercury was unauthorized. MIT does not allow the purchase or synthesis of dimethyl mercury." [1] Karen Wetterhahn's exposure and death [3] is a cautionary tale of the extreme toxicity of dimethyl mercury, and wa…
> Less than 0.1 mL is capable of inducing severe mercury poisoning resulting in death Holy hell. I would've have believed it was possible for a non-biological substance to be so toxic.
If you're worried about >100mg (0.1ml) then, don't think about the dosages people use for botox!
It's 1x,2x,3x 80picograms per injection.
I guess it's a biological product, but it's certainly not "living".
Then there's carfentanil and similar which are deadly only at much higher 100 microgram levels.
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#49Derek Lowe has comments about this incident, https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/alleged-dimethylme... ( "The Alleged Dimethylmercury Incident" ) Seems the initial reporting may have been misleading. There was apparently *no* dimethylmercury exposure, after all: and MIT doubts it was synthesized in the first place.
She had very high levels of mercury in her blood, and all attempts at chelation therapy to remove it were ineffective. That’s surely because it had spread throughout her body by the time the problem was recognized, but frankly no one can be sure if there were any measures that could have been effective enough after the initial exposure.
Is this accurate? I read the original Wetterhahn report (it's the first search result on Google) and chelation did appear to reduce whole blood mercury, but didn't do anything for the CNS exposure.
That would be important because it suggests immediate Succimer treatment could avert fatal CNS exposure (it takes hours/days for the blood/brain transfer to occur, apparently).
Obviously, not an expert.
Re: Dimethyl Mercury Exposure Incident at MIT
#50Back in 1998, I scored a consulting job at a silicon plant outside of Salem, OR. Now I was working as a systems admin and I was expected to be responsible for the computer systems, which were basically located in the normal offices, rather than a dedicated machine room floor. However, since it was an active silicon manufacturing plant, all employees and contractors were obligated to complete safety training sessions.…
I think Hydrofluoric acid is probably the substance you're describing which leaches the calcium out of your bones. It will certainly burn you too though. It's a common byproduct from heating fluorinated gases and is sometimes used in its own right for wet etching. As an aside, I love it when they tell you in the safety WBT what the highly toxic gas smells like.
Reminds me of something from chemistry class but I can"t remember exactly what it was (this was several decades ago now), I think it was sometimes used for etching glass, but if it got into your body -- I'm not sure if getting it just on your skin was necessarily a lethal hazard -- it would leech the calcium from your bones and was considered an especially nasty way to go. Our prof was helping her father in law clean out his garage and he had a bunch of it in a container, bought in the 60's or 70's for a glass etching kit, and was like "Okay I'm getting rid of this, but have you got any other hobbies you've been meaning to get around to that I should know about?".