School locked when student brings mercury-filled thermometer to class for project

[Dude111]

http://iowntheworld.com/blog?p=159430

Boca Ciega, Florida — A chemistry project caused a big problem at Pinellas’ Seminole High School Tuesday morning.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says students were given an assignment to bring in a substance from the Periodic Table of Elements.
One student brought in mercury — contained within a thermometer — and the school went into lockdown. [more]

Lockdown??

I dont have words..........

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

...Ok... For a f*cking gram or so of mercury... I remember playing with multiple ounces of murcury in school.

I love the comment after the article of banning dihydrogen monoxide because it kills people. Hopefully someone takes up the cause...

[Jimru]

I think one of those broke in my mouth as a kid.

May explain a lot about me. So, all this time I thought it was from my brother smacking me in the forehead with a nine iron...

[Markb]

Originally Posted by Dude111

http://iowntheworld.com/blog?p=159430

Lockdown??

I dont have words..........

Dude. It's Florida........... -

Seriously, another example of ridiculous overreaction.

[W2NJS]

Lockdown, which in this case translates to:

1. Ignorance
2. Total stupidity
3. Political correctness (a variant of the above two conditions)
4. Or, alternatively, morons being in charge of schools and/or public safety.

[CapStar362]

what a joke!!!!

[kb2vxa]

A reader's comment says it best:

"They don’t have fluorescent lights in EVERY room in the school? What about thermostats?"

What about Project Mercury? What about Mercury cars? What about the god with wings on his heels? OMG!

[Thayne]

I always liked the reliability of those 60 amp mercury relays that were installed in the auditorium panel in the SCHOOL--they gave you a "new" contact every time

[kb2vxa]

Now they use triacs, rather spoils the fun.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by kayn1n32008

I remember playing with multiple ounces of murcury in school.

Indeed....I dont think its dangerous UNLESS IT GETS INGESTED! (The organic compounds)

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Originally Posted by Dude111

....I dont think its dangerous UNLESS IT GETS INGESTED! (The organic compounds)

BINGO

[kb2vxa]

Multiple ounces? My school chem lab had a big bottle of the stuff that was difficult to lift.

You hit on something there, the metal is non toxic, you can drink it and find strange silver blobs in your poo a few days later. I heard a story about that years ago, don't remember the details about the poo. On the other hand the salts can be anything from toxic to deadly, mercurious nitrate was used for blocking felt hats, the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland wore one which was the clue. The phrase mad as a hatter was popular before this was discovered and other compounds used.

Mercury nitrate was used to process animal fibers used for making felt. This is where the hatter's mad partner comes in, this too is toxic and produces symptoms imitating madness and gave rise to the phrase mad as a March Hare.

Now how did Lewis Carroll's vivid imagination come about? I refer you to one of his lesser known books, Confessions Of A Hashish Eater.

And to think this revelation was inspired by paranoid reaction to a drop of mercury... WOO HOO!

[rafdav]

In school, we used to get an old dime and dip it in mercury, and voila, nice and shiny.
(Warren, I think "Confession of a Hasheesh Eater" was written by Fitz Ludlow. I've not heard of this writing in a long time, so I could be wrong. If so I apologize.)

[mikepdx]

Originally Posted by kb2vxa

A reader's comment...
What about thermostats?"

Not a mercury problem at all.

They've spent many millions replacing them
in public buildings nationwide
with "energy efficient" t-stats to help save us from global warming.

Then they hound us incessantly for even more tax dollars to go "green".

oooh, that nasty, nasty mercury.

You wouldn't want your small children to suck on a thermostat at school.

Vore Yes on tax measure Hg80 !

[mikepdx]

Originally Posted by mikepdx

Not a mercury problem at all.

They've spent many millions replacing them
in public buildings nationwide
with "energy efficient" t-stats to help save us from global warming.

Then they hound us incessantly for even more tax dollars to go "green".

oooh, that nasty, nasty mercury.

You wouldn't want your small children to suck on a thermostat.

So vote Yes on tax measure Hg80 !

Ooops - Pushed to wrong button. Sorry