15/04/2009

Dangers in the lab

It is always good to read about dangers in the lab, and Nature in it's issue of 2 April has a nice feature about it on page 664-665 (subscription necessary). Note the following passage about the dangers of a mercury compound:
Chemist Karen Wetterhahn spilt a drop of dimethylmercury on her gloved hand in 1996 at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At the time, it was not known that the chemical passes through latex, so she did not realize it had reached her skin. She fell ill five months later and died within the year.

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