OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

I have a hard time getting my head around Dr. Wetterhahn's poisoning. How many molecules of the toxin could have possibly entered her body? How many molecules does it take to kill or fatally disable a cell? After it does its damage, does the molecule become available again to do more damage? How many cells in her body were actually killed? Do the molecules somehow target the cells required to kill an individual? If you killed just the "right" cells, how many cells does it take to kill a person? -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tapley, Mark via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:30 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11) On May 22, 2017, at 9:38 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: salts. Metallic mercury is actually pretty much harmless, even though bringing a thermometer into a US school can cause a major panic. Mercury salts are a different matter. Mercury vapor should also be avoided, at least in significant quantities and long term exposure, as my father found out as a university student in chemistry. To emphasize what Paul says, Mercury considered only as an element has a *very* wide range of toxicity. It depends entirely on the compounds it is bound into. (Similar to, say, Carbon and Nitrogen..). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn http://i.imgur.com/0dXdc.jpg Karen Wetterhahn spilled a drop of a Mercury compound on her latex glove, and died of it 10 months later. I don't know what happened to the guy who is pictured sitting in (on) a pool of Mercury, but at least it's clear that at the time, he considered elemental mercury not to be lethally dangerous. I remember seeing the photo in National Geographic, and the caption did say he was very careful to shake out his cuffs, etc after the photo was shot. NatGeo itself also is now clearly aware there is some risk: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160524-indonesia-toxic-toll/ One problem is that it's hard to ensure that *all* of the Mercury will stay in the non-toxic forms when handling it. - Mark --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus