Oscillating reactions are neat; I should write up one of my favorites sometime... Here, electrons flow from iron metal to mercury (I) sulfate to chromium (VI) oxide. Listen to the video for a step-by step explanation...
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Lead and chromium (VI) - you can't do much better for toxicity.
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Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on February 10, 2005. Enjoy!
A few days…
Could some kind reader send me (lambert-AT-cse.unsw.edu.au) a copy of this article:
J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2003 Jul 25;66(14):1295-339.
Human health risk and exposure assessment of chromium (VI) in tap water.
Paustenbach DJ, Finley BL, Mowat FS, Kerger BD.
This post will self destruct when I…
In comparison to other science shows, Brainiac is quite effective at appealing to the visceral compulsion to play with fire. In this case, they pitted scorching hot thermite against molten metal. What could be better than a battle between two of the most enjoyable science demonstration tools of all…
That is very cool. I especially like how it depends upon the changing surface tension of mercury.
Ah, memories! We did this experiment in public high school in the UK, 1963 or there-abouts. All of us, ourselves, not just watching the teacher do it. We used a lot more mercury, and got a correspondingly slower beat. Our teacher believed in what he called "bucket chemistry" - or "we doan need no stinkin 5 ml test-tubes!".
And then I have not heard of it again until this year, and suddenly many references.
This one's probably my favorite, and the neatest demonstration of it that I've seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch93AKJm9os
I have a book from 1932 "Experiments for Boys" where this is experiment is described as something boys could do at home. Quite a lot of good stuff with mercury in that book. It was better in the old days, before everything turned so dangerous.