Posted on 08/30/2026 6:53:46 AM PDT by DFG
A student at MIT claimed he synthesized one of the world’s deadliest chemicals last week — sparking a massive hazmat response and the closure of the lab where he worked.
The unidentified grad student arrived at a local emergency room, saying he had synthesized dimethyl mercury, a highly toxic compound that can be fatal if exposed to humans in even the smallest amounts, NBC Boston reported.
The student was not authorized to be working with the compound and it was not part of his research, according to school officials.
MIT closed off Building 18 where the experiment took place on Wednesday and called in city emergency responders to begin the cleanup.
Common areas in the student’s residence hall were also professionally cleaned as a precaution, and the student’s room was sealed off.
Building 18 remained closed through Sunday as testing and investigations continued.
“Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized,” an MIT spokesperson said on Saturday.
“We are also able to disclose, with the student’s permission, that while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury,” the spokesperson continued.
Dimethyl mercury can pose “a serious environmental and health hazard,” according to studies in the EPA’s Health Environmental Research Online database.
It was previously responsible for the death of Dartmouth College chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn in 1997 after she got just one to two drops on her hand while wearing gloves.
It was also used in the assassination of a German labor union boss in 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Thanks for that information....I probably knew that at the time but a lot of years have gone by since then....
DMSO. I remember when lots of QUACKS were trying to sell it as a cure all in the 1970s.
Does this stuff have any practical uses?
Let me guess. He has a scruffy little beard and thinks communism is cool.
“...petitions to ban Di-Hydrogen-Monoxide!”
Maybe muslim or chinese infiltrators have similar chemicals stashed at strategic location across the US. Good reason to remove these people from the Country.
Reminds the time years ago in a chem lab where I was asked to clean plastic diffusion plates with Methyl Alcohol. Instead I went to the storage room and pulled out Ethyl Acetate - what a mess that was. I was quietly demoted to the X-Ray lab.
I think you meant, EUREEKEEKEEKA!
I’m mortally terrified of di-hydrogen monoxide.
It’s one of the largest killers known to mankind.
Damn right! You breathe in that shit and you’re screwed.
Yes.
... a soon-to-be former grad student...
It is only deadly if you get in it over your nose.
He’ll be telling this story for ages...this one time in college...
“unidentified grad student”
Translation: Foreigner, probably from the Third World.
Dimethylmercury easily crosses latex and rubber gloves and can be absorbed rapidly through the skin. Even a tiny drop can cause fatal neurological damage.
And it can take up to year to succumb to the effects of dimethylmercury, depending on how one is exposed to it. If any drops touched the student, life expectancy is as few as two weeks or maybe up to six months.
Dimethylmercury was first discovered by the chemist (Sir) Edward Frankland in 1865. He lost two members of his laboratory who tried to clean up a small spill of the stuff they had created. One lived two weeks before succumbing to the exposure. The other died almost a year later after experiencing the same symptoms from being poisoned by it: slurred speech, degrading motor skills, coma, and death.
Frankland ultimately invented devices to build a system of creating synthetic compounds without exposure to the open air and to contain such compounds if they somehow leaked during the synthesizing process. Modern chemistry is built upon his pioneering discoveries and inventions.
…As I have just learned through light internet researches relating to this article this morning! It’s a fascinating topic!
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