Posted on 03/09/2005 8:39:22 PM PST by Txshep
A mercury spill at Farrington High School sent students and a teacher to the health office.
It happened when a ninth-grader cracked a 12-inch thermometer during a science experiment.
Hazmat crews say about a teaspoon of mercury spilled onto the floor.
A handful of students were exposed before the teacher cleaned up the mess.
No one complained of itching skin or headaches -- effects of extended exposure to mercury.
But the teacher and eight students were taken to the health office as a precaution.
The classroom remained off-limits until an environmental firm did a thorough clean-up.
Farrington uses mercury thermometers in physics and science classes.
Every last one of them.
Well, that explains me.
Not in the old days. They all contained mercury.
I had a four month old kitten swallow about a tablespoon of elemental mercury and live for another 18 years. She chased the stuff around on the floor licking it up until all the siler drops were gone. Later she had six kittens who all live 15 years plus.
I must admit my favorite mercury compund is mercury fulminate. That's a nice loud checmical.
Besides being exposed to broken Mercury thermometers for over 20 years of 30 years as a nurse, I have gold mined and been exposed to Mercury for years, as it is plentiful in the streams of the Sierra Nevada. As previously mentioned by some posters, it will vaporize slowly at room temp so I keep the containers closed, and only open them outside.
I also live in the Napa valley which is surrounded by old leaking Cinnabar mines which provided the ore that was roasted to produce Mercury. It's in the water table, the stream water and the soils. It's probably in the wines you or your friends drink.
Unless you consider replying to this thread a form of dementia I think I am functioning fine, have all my teeth, and have no neurological or health problems.
>>In the 1990s, mercury thermometers were found too risky to handle and have largely been replaced with electronic thermometers,
http://www.answers.com/topic/thermometer <<
In the 90's a group decided that fish were being over harvested and this was the result.
In high school, only last decade, our chem teacher had a canning jar full of mercury - probably 24 oz. worth. He put blocks of metal in it and passed it around the classroom. The metal floated in the mercury, demonstrating principles of density.
I'm still little!
I've sunk my hands into Mercury more times than I can remember when I was in school.
Crazy.....but still alive.
That's like the story of when I was circumcised. I couldn't walk for about a year! LOL!
"One time my teacher told me a story about a kid that cracked open a container with mercury in it and played with it in his hands and rolled it around. By the end of the night he was dead."
One time your teacher fed you a line of BS. Mercury is dangerous but it takes more than that. Or ...perhaps I am dead!
What does this story have to do with ants?
The article is about uncles.......uncles Sam and the foolishness we all pay for.
Back when I was a boy..... oh never mind!
I understood the metaphor. But we are advised at least 3 times per month to use the original title when posting a sourced article to make searching easier. The metaphor could have been saved for your comments to the article in post #1.
Not complaining...I ain't a Mod. Just sayin'.
Jeez, Bubba, we have the P.C. Police running rampant every where else, why do you do it here?
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