I find it interesting that mercury has apparently become several orders of magnitude more toxic since I was in high school. Back then, breaking a mercury thermometer was an occasion for everyone in the science class to play with the drop of mercury. Now, I suspect it's not even legal to own a mercury thermometer, and if you break one they evacuate the buiding and call in the hazmat team.
Perhaps the reason the world is so screwed up today is that I actually did die of all the hazardous substances I was exposed to as a child that everyone freaks out about today. In addition to mercury, there was asbestos, and the time I diluted hydrochloric acid the wrong way (adding water to the acid) and got a faceful of HCl(g), and burning myself on the glass tubing we got to shape over Bunsen burners, and I don't know what all else. Not to mention all the chemicals we could just reach into the cabinet and use. Dangerous stuff, chemicals, you know; these days high school students study them on video. And this is hell.
no subject
Perhaps the reason the world is so screwed up today is that I actually did die of all the hazardous substances I was exposed to as a child that everyone freaks out about today. In addition to mercury, there was asbestos, and the time I diluted hydrochloric acid the wrong way (adding water to the acid) and got a faceful of HCl(g), and burning myself on the glass tubing we got to shape over Bunsen burners, and I don't know what all else. Not to mention all the chemicals we could just reach into the cabinet and use. Dangerous stuff, chemicals, you know; these days high school students study them on video. And this is hell.