Your thoughts on Mercury.

[Johnny SixPack]

It's the planet closest to the sun.

Named after the Roman god Mercury (Roman version of the Greek god Hermes).

It circles the sun at an average speed of 47.36  km/s (105 941.3 mp/h) and is the smallest of the four terrestial planets.



(from left to right: Mercury - Venus - Earth - Mars)

[dodge freak]

I recall reading about some high school kid in Las Vegas being in the hospital for weeks  cause he found some mercury in his basement, 2 or 3 years ago. His grand father left it there from his work. Guess its very common in mines. The EPA clean the whole house out , cost like $200,000 , they did it for free, something like it was a public health risk and the owners did nothing wrong. That poor kid was in very bad shape, he needed blood transfusions, some organs too. He played with it for just a few weeks.

You guys can go ahead and laugh about it and it does seems kind of far out that something like mercury can get you very sick or kill you just cause you look and fool around with it but it is true. Its not cause of the lawyers or people painking, health people have gotten very sick from it. If you had have contact with it and did not get sick you were Lucky thats all.

[Steve P.]

When I was growing up, my mother had a Mercury..   It just wasn't the same as the 62' Dodge Dart she had for years before that thing!!  Now that was a car.....

[bull]

See what happens when you play with chemicals!

What? I don't see nuthin' wrong.

[Chryco Psycho]

my thoughs on Mucury ? Darn it`s HOT

[mister bungle]

As a Zappa fan, it is right what they said before. He smashed it with a hammer and was surprised in "exploding" the stuff. Then he "assembled" the mercury again. And yes, explosives were intresting for him too. He was sitting right on top of it while it explode, and ended up aginst the wall of the garage were he "played" with that stuff.

Do i ever play with Mercury? Yes on my work, but also on the weekend when i get my 1969 cougar 428CJ out of the garage. (Don't be mad, i'm still building on the 69 Charger)

[CaptMarvel]

My thoughts on Mercury? The 67-69 Cougars are pretty cool. The old ones that have the big Desoto like grilles are kinda cool too, but everyone customizes the crap out of them though. Just once, I'd like to see an untouched 50's Merc. Other than that, Mercury cars pretty much blew...Mercury is also a decent outboard motor. I have a 1250 125 hp from 1968 and it used to really scream, but now I need to rebuild it and I'm finding out it probably isnt worth it, kind of ticks me off. Mercury was also, among other things, the fastest mythological god on Mt. Olympus, the hot headed member of the Metal Men (DC Comics 1960's), and a slightly "happy" rock opera singer from the 70's/80's. There you have it...

[4402tuff4u]

It's known to cause all sorts of impairments to humans so it should be avoided. There are several types and several ways of ingesting it. Check the link out and maybe you might start connecting the dots on some of your personal health ailments or health problems of someone or a love one you know. It's sounds very harmless since many of us did play with it, including me, but actually it scare the daylights out of me to know that such a small and common substance can really screw up your health. We all grew up with many several dangerous substance around the home, however as cancer rates grew and other mental ailments grew in numbers we have become more knowledable thanks to scientist that spend their life careers on finding out what starts these abnormalities and that's why sometimes we feel like it's nonsence and over reacting because of lack of knowledge. But actually it's very serious stuff and it's not make believe! Some of these ailments do not show their ugly head for many years after the exposure! 

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/effects.htm

[Lowprofile]

Could you Imagine the taste of Tuna w/o it?    It was bad enough when they took dolphin out!

[Mrfixit]

Work around it every day in one way or the other. Flourescent bulbs, boiler switches .... We have fish consumption advisories here as well. Walleye seem to be one of our notorious fish for containing mercury. In the oceans it is the sharks. The higher up on the food chain, the higher the mercury content. Humans can ingest small amounts of mercury and process it, for some reason when the fish are polluted with the stuff, they cant get rid of it, just builds up.  We had this stuff when i was a kid called mercurachrome or something like that, probably had mercury in it. Used as an antiseptic, turned your skin red and burned like fire.  I heard somewhere that there is enough mercury in one thermometer to contaminate a four acre pond, and seeing how this stuff scatters on dry ground i can see why. Nasty stuff yes, avoidable, no.  Between the asbestos, and lead paint, and mercury at work if one dont get me the other one will. Doesnt stop me though, just have to be safe with stuff.