• Question: Have you ever come over a dangerous particle that could kill in you life

    Asked by mbscientist to Hywel on 25 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      I once worked in a school science lab and came across many quite dangerous chemicals. Probably the most dangerous of these was Bromine. Bromine is the only other element apart from mercury which is liquid at room temperature and is used in school experiments to demonstrate ‘gaseous diffusion’ as it gives off a brown vapour.
      Bromine in liquid form is very dangerous – it can boil your skin if you come into contact with it. I found this out first hand when I accidentally splashed some onto my arm while preparing an experiment. Even though I washed it off straight away, I had pretty bad blisters for about a week afterwards. 🙁
      It’s lucky I didn’t breathe in any of the fumes as these are even more dangerous than the liquid and can burn your lungs and kill you quite quickly! Dangerous stuff…

Comments

  • Photo: Keith

    Keith commented on :

    Lots of biological toxins are very potent and effective at killing, because animals and microorganisms have evolved ever better ways of killing each other for food or nutrition. For example botulinum toxin has an lethal dose of around 0.0000001g (or even less) if injected in the wrong place, so its rather surprising that it is injected into people all the time – as “Botox”, to treat people’s wrinkles!