5 ms·

Why mercury is forbidden aboard airplanes

94 points by rogercosseboom 18y ago

schtono 18y ago
<irony>I'm glad we have a 100ml limit on liquids to be carried on airplanes</irony>
- framiere 18y ago
  You would do a remake of "snake on a plane" with your 100ml ? http://www.break.com/index/burning-mercury-experiment.html http://www.break.com/index/burning-mercury-experiment.html
wallflower 18y ago
This is really scary stuff (and I was hoping that it would never make it on HN). I heard from an aeronautical engineer once that if one drop of mercury somehow gets let loose in an airplane that the whole plane needs to be basically taken apart (and possibly scrapped). Mercury by itself is very toxic. There was a custodian who broke a thermometer in our office building once. That would have been ok - had she not spread it everwhere by playing with it. And, speaking from experience, as someone who broke a thermometer as a kid in his room and was mesmerized by the liquid, I can't blame them. Whole building had to be detox'd - almost spaceman suit E.T. style.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  This is really scary stuff (and I was hoping that it would never make it on HN) I saw this on reddit today and a few of the better comments debunked the scare mongering hype: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08ahms http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i... And yet here we are with popsci near the top of HN. I blame Jeff Atwood.
  - cdr 18y ago
    PopSci from 2004, no less. Did Atwood finally break HN?
    - tom_rath 18y ago
      Atwood is starting to become Emmanuel Goldstein around here. Am I in time for today's Two Minute Hate?
  - jcl 18y ago
    Note that the comment "debunking" the article is by the author of the article itself (or so he claims). The debunking seems to consist of repeating what is in the article: the FAA doesn't allow large amounts of mercury, as is present in a professional barometer. The scariness of the article seems to reside mostly in the comments here and choice of headline. (although the picture of the dissolving I-beam isn't particularly reassuring...)
    - Xichekolas 18y ago
      Well the comment biohacker24 linked to wasn't really debunking it, but it was by the popsci author (supposedly). Both of these comments (in the same thread) do debunk it: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08agdw http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i... http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08agl8 http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i...
      - JacobAldridge 18y ago
        Wow. That was my first Reddit experience in a long time - I appreciate the links, because I wouldn't have come close to trawling through the conversational inanities to find the nuggets of perception buried in a shit-storm of self-flagellation. Dear HN - I love youse guys.
        Xichekolas 18y ago
- bd 18y ago
  Whole building detoxification because of a single broken thermometer seems like overkill (unless it was some unusually big one). It's important to clean it properly (good ventilation, don't spread it around, don't vacuum clean), but unless you do something really stupid (that would get significant amount vaporized and inhaled), it should be ok. Perhaps the most important thing to remember if you break a household thermometer is do not panic. The amount of mercury contained in an oral thermometer is small and does not present an immediate threat to human health. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs46.html http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs46.html (CDC Public Health Statement for Mercury)
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    I broke one by accident when I was around 15, the total amount is about the size of a penny because the liquid is heavy and doesn't form a nice 'bubble' like water does. IIRC I used a paper towel (whilst wearing rubber gloves, with the windows all open) to absorb the mercury and slid it into a plastic bottle and bagged it like 10 times before I went outside to make sure I wasn't exposed too long. From my understanding they recommend all the precautions, not because like one drop will kill you, but because "it's better safe than sorry". You have an entire lifetime, just like you shouldn't be exposed to a huge dose of radiation, you shouldn't expose yourself to a huge dose of mercury, because fish contain mercury (and my lack of eating fish has likely balanced out any mercury I was actually ever exposed to) and if you eat tons of fish, sucking on broken thermometers and breaking florescent bulbs might just get enough mercury into you to make you nuts... although if you're purposefully exposing yourself to raw mercury to begin with I believe it's probably a moot point.
  - Tangurena 18y ago
    One dorm at a university (fau is commonly called "find another university") I went to had to be shut down in 1994 for decontamination, as some students stole mercury from one of the chemistry labs and played with it. I can't find how much it was on the web, but I seem to remember it being about 1 quart of mercury (about 25 pounds).
timbowen 18y ago
Chemistry is fascinating. I'm really not too worried about mercury being the next terrorist secret weapon. It doesn't seem flasy enough to inspire terror, maybe just a creeping unease.
raghus 18y ago
So, those old-style thermometers with mercury - even that much mercury could shred an airplane? I know knowledge is power and all that, but I almost wish I hadn't found out about this.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Honestly with the mere fact that for a flight to count as a flight the pressure differential has to exceed 2 PSI. Any metal exposed to mercury (by a passenger) is likely going to weaken in a radial fashion from point of contact, which means in a pressurized cabin, it shouldn't take long before the air pressure ruptures the leak and the plane would be forced to land due to depressuring. I doubt this would do serious harm to a plane before landing. I doubt if this would even matter in an unpressurized cargo hold because I was always told it evaporated quite quickly at low pressures.
spoiledtechie 18y ago
"The few-micron-thick layer of aluminum oxide is the only thing holding an airplane together." Jees.
pbnaidu 18y ago
We also should be careful with Macbook Pros especially the unibody ones...
jodrellblank 18y ago
Guess I'd better leave my fillings behind next time I fly. (Side: Why is it that so many people go "ooh it's neurotoxic!" and when I mention fillings they say "oh but that's different, it's a stable form of mercury mixed with {arsenic, radium, cyanide, other weird thing I don't really want embedded in my flesh}?)
- tlb 18y ago
  Well, it's true -- mercury in an amalgam (normally with silver & tin) doesn't leach out. Most of the heavy metals that are dangerous by themselves can by alloyed or chelated to make them biologically safe.
  - jodrellblank 18y ago
    This video from the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology - http://iaomt.org/videos/ http://iaomt.org/videos/ - shows mercury vapour being released from a filling under such ordinary situations as drinking a hot drink, chewing, etc.
    - mcaloney 18y ago
      This episode of Skeptoid - http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4036 http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4036 - discusses this very video and concludes that what we're actually seeing in the video is water vapour (since mercury vapour is much heavier than air, why is it rising in the video?).
Shaitan_Apistos 18y ago
Clicking on the link to the article crashes the browser on my tmobile g1 for some reason, anyone else?
mattmaroon 18y ago
So if you're Al Queda, the play here seems obvious. Get as many sleeper agents in the U.S. as possible (which I'm sure they're constantly working on) and each day send a couple on a plane armed with an old thermometer. How many could you take down before people realized what was going on? And after they did, how much damage would it do to the economy when nobody flew anymore? I sure hope I'm missing some secret reason why this wouldn't work well.
- imp 18y ago
  I wonder if the mercury in the thermometer would set off the metal detector. It might be hard to get it past security.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    Good wonderment, but I believe it wouldn't. I've broke one open before when I was about 15, I knew at the time mercury was dangerous so I opened the window and avoided direct contact completely (rubber gloves) and if you ever wondered, mercury does absorb into paper towels. The total amount was smaller than a penny, and I've forgotten to take my belt off before, left my phone in my pocket and even a few dollars in change one time, so I don't exactly see how it could set it off... or the airports I fly from are cheaping out on the security to save money, using sort of like a placebo effect like the fake cameras you can buy for $20 to 'protect' your home.
- Rod 18y ago
  Wouldn't it be easier to create a modified water-gun (a sort of super soaker on steroids, so to say) and splash airplanes at the airport with mercury from a few hundred yards away? Sounds crazy, I know, but it would be a lot cheaper and more discreet than using stinger missiles, right?
  - blasdel 18y ago
    Did you ever notice that aircraft are painted?
twopoint718 18y ago
This makes me think of mercury as the Ice-9 of aluminum. Does anyone have videos of this reaction?
tlrobinson 18y ago
Or, you know, because it's toxic?
tjmc 18y ago
This effect can be beneficial. Swap the mercury for gallium and you get a neat way of producing hydrogen on demand: http://cleantech.com/news/1205/gallium-and-aluminum-tigers-in-your-ta http://cleantech.com/news/1205/gallium-and-aluminum-tigers-i... Too heavy for aviation but potentially useful for fuel cell vehicles.

<irony>I'm glad we have a 100ml limit on liquids to be carried on airplanes</irony>

framiere 18y ago
You would do a remake of "snake on a plane" with your 100ml ? http://www.break.com/index/burning-mercury-experiment.html http://www.break.com/index/burning-mercury-experiment.html

This is really scary stuff (and I was hoping that it would never make it on HN). I heard from an aeronautical engineer once that if one drop of mercury somehow gets let loose in an airplane that the whole plane needs to be basically taken apart (and possibly scrapped). Mercury by itself is very toxic. There was a custodian who broke a thermometer in our office building once. That would have been ok - had she not spread it everwhere by playing with it. And, speaking from experience, as someone who broke a thermometer as a kid in his room and was mesmerized by the liquid, I can't blame them. Whole building had to be detox'd - almost spaceman suit E.T. style.

biohacker42 18y ago
This is really scary stuff (and I was hoping that it would never make it on HN) I saw this on reddit today and a few of the better comments debunked the scare mongering hype: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08ahms http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i... And yet here we are with popsci near the top of HN. I blame Jeff Atwood.
- cdr 18y ago
  PopSci from 2004, no less. Did Atwood finally break HN?
  - tom_rath 18y ago
    Atwood is starting to become Emmanuel Goldstein around here. Am I in time for today's Two Minute Hate?
- jcl 18y ago
  Note that the comment "debunking" the article is by the author of the article itself (or so he claims). The debunking seems to consist of repeating what is in the article: the FAA doesn't allow large amounts of mercury, as is present in a professional barometer. The scariness of the article seems to reside mostly in the comments here and choice of headline. (although the picture of the dissolving I-beam isn't particularly reassuring...)
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    Well the comment biohacker24 linked to wasn't really debunking it, but it was by the popsci author (supposedly). Both of these comments (in the same thread) do debunk it: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08agdw http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i... http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_is_forbidden_aboard_airplanes/c08agl8 http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/85clw/why_mercury_i...
    - JacobAldridge 18y ago
      Wow. That was my first Reddit experience in a long time - I appreciate the links, because I wouldn't have come close to trawling through the conversational inanities to find the nuggets of perception buried in a shit-storm of self-flagellation. Dear HN - I love youse guys.
      - Xichekolas 18y ago
bd 18y ago
Whole building detoxification because of a single broken thermometer seems like overkill (unless it was some unusually big one). It's important to clean it properly (good ventilation, don't spread it around, don't vacuum clean), but unless you do something really stupid (that would get significant amount vaporized and inhaled), it should be ok. Perhaps the most important thing to remember if you break a household thermometer is do not panic. The amount of mercury contained in an oral thermometer is small and does not present an immediate threat to human health. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs46.html http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs46.html (CDC Public Health Statement for Mercury)
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  I broke one by accident when I was around 15, the total amount is about the size of a penny because the liquid is heavy and doesn't form a nice 'bubble' like water does. IIRC I used a paper towel (whilst wearing rubber gloves, with the windows all open) to absorb the mercury and slid it into a plastic bottle and bagged it like 10 times before I went outside to make sure I wasn't exposed too long. From my understanding they recommend all the precautions, not because like one drop will kill you, but because "it's better safe than sorry". You have an entire lifetime, just like you shouldn't be exposed to a huge dose of radiation, you shouldn't expose yourself to a huge dose of mercury, because fish contain mercury (and my lack of eating fish has likely balanced out any mercury I was actually ever exposed to) and if you eat tons of fish, sucking on broken thermometers and breaking florescent bulbs might just get enough mercury into you to make you nuts... although if you're purposefully exposing yourself to raw mercury to begin with I believe it's probably a moot point.
- Tangurena 18y ago
  One dorm at a university (fau is commonly called "find another university") I went to had to be shut down in 1994 for decontamination, as some students stole mercury from one of the chemistry labs and played with it. I can't find how much it was on the web, but I seem to remember it being about 1 quart of mercury (about 25 pounds).

timbowen 18y ago

Chemistry is fascinating. I'm really not too worried about mercury being the next terrorist secret weapon. It doesn't seem flasy enough to inspire terror, maybe just a creeping unease.

raghus 18y ago

So, those old-style thermometers with mercury - even that much mercury could shred an airplane? I know knowledge is power and all that, but I almost wish I hadn't found out about this.

electromagnetic 18y ago
Honestly with the mere fact that for a flight to count as a flight the pressure differential has to exceed 2 PSI. Any metal exposed to mercury (by a passenger) is likely going to weaken in a radial fashion from point of contact, which means in a pressurized cabin, it shouldn't take long before the air pressure ruptures the leak and the plane would be forced to land due to depressuring. I doubt this would do serious harm to a plane before landing. I doubt if this would even matter in an unpressurized cargo hold because I was always told it evaporated quite quickly at low pressures.

spoiledtechie 18y ago

"The few-micron-thick layer of aluminum oxide is the only thing holding an airplane together." Jees.

pbnaidu 18y ago

We also should be careful with Macbook Pros especially the unibody ones...

jodrellblank 18y ago

Guess I'd better leave my fillings behind next time I fly. (Side: Why is it that so many people go "ooh it's neurotoxic!" and when I mention fillings they say "oh but that's different, it's a stable form of mercury mixed with {arsenic, radium, cyanide, other weird thing I don't really want embedded in my flesh}?)

tlb 18y ago
Well, it's true -- mercury in an amalgam (normally with silver & tin) doesn't leach out. Most of the heavy metals that are dangerous by themselves can by alloyed or chelated to make them biologically safe.
- jodrellblank 18y ago
  This video from the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology - http://iaomt.org/videos/ http://iaomt.org/videos/ - shows mercury vapour being released from a filling under such ordinary situations as drinking a hot drink, chewing, etc.
  - mcaloney 18y ago
    This episode of Skeptoid - http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4036 http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4036 - discusses this very video and concludes that what we're actually seeing in the video is water vapour (since mercury vapour is much heavier than air, why is it rising in the video?).

Shaitan_Apistos 18y ago

Clicking on the link to the article crashes the browser on my tmobile g1 for some reason, anyone else?

mattmaroon 18y ago

So if you're Al Queda, the play here seems obvious. Get as many sleeper agents in the U.S. as possible (which I'm sure they're constantly working on) and each day send a couple on a plane armed with an old thermometer. How many could you take down before people realized what was going on? And after they did, how much damage would it do to the economy when nobody flew anymore? I sure hope I'm missing some secret reason why this wouldn't work well.

imp 18y ago
I wonder if the mercury in the thermometer would set off the metal detector. It might be hard to get it past security.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Good wonderment, but I believe it wouldn't. I've broke one open before when I was about 15, I knew at the time mercury was dangerous so I opened the window and avoided direct contact completely (rubber gloves) and if you ever wondered, mercury does absorb into paper towels. The total amount was smaller than a penny, and I've forgotten to take my belt off before, left my phone in my pocket and even a few dollars in change one time, so I don't exactly see how it could set it off... or the airports I fly from are cheaping out on the security to save money, using sort of like a placebo effect like the fake cameras you can buy for $20 to 'protect' your home.
Rod 18y ago
Wouldn't it be easier to create a modified water-gun (a sort of super soaker on steroids, so to say) and splash airplanes at the airport with mercury from a few hundred yards away? Sounds crazy, I know, but it would be a lot cheaper and more discreet than using stinger missiles, right?
- blasdel 18y ago
  Did you ever notice that aircraft are painted?

twopoint718 18y ago

This makes me think of mercury as the Ice-9 of aluminum. Does anyone have videos of this reaction?

tlrobinson 18y ago

Or, you know, because it's toxic?

tjmc 18y ago

This effect can be beneficial. Swap the mercury for gallium and you get a neat way of producing hydrogen on demand: http://cleantech.com/news/1205/gallium-and-aluminum-tigers-in-your-ta http://cleantech.com/news/1205/gallium-and-aluminum-tigers-i... Too heavy for aviation but potentially useful for fuel cell vehicles.