> The mercury is elemental mercury which isn't very toxic, and extremely poorly absorbed on top of that. That's fortunate. When I was a kid, we used to amuse o

> The mercury is elemental mercury which isn't very toxic, and extremely poorly absorbed on top of that. That's fortunate. When I was a kid, we used to amuse ourselves by coating pennies with elemental mercury. Very shiny! Of course, some organic compounds of mercury are a different story, e.g., dimethylmercury. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn