Elemental or metallic mercury is a shiny, silver-white metal, historically referred to as quicksilver, and is liquid at room temperature. It is used in older thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs and some electrical switches. When dropped, elemental mercury breaks into smaller droplets which can go through small cracks or become strongly attached to certain materials. At room temperature, exposed elemental mercury can evaporate to become an invisible, odorless toxic vapor. If heated, it is a colorless, odorless gas. Learn about how people are most often exposed to elemental mercury and about the adverse health effects that exposures to elemental mercury can produce.
Mercury Man
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In its inorganic form, mercury occurs abundantly in the environment, primarily as the minerals cinnabar and metacinnabar, and as impurities in other minerals. Mercury can readily combine with chlorine, sulfur, and other elements, and subsequently weather to form inorganic salts. Inorganic mercury salts can be transported in water and occur in soil. Dust containing these salts can enter the air from mining deposits of ores that contain mercury. Emissions of both elemental or inorganic mercury can occur from coal-fired power plants, burning of municipal and medical waste, and from factories that use mercury. Inorganic mercury can also enter water or soil from the weathering of rocks that contain inorganic mercury salts, and from factories or water treatment facilities that release water contaminated with mercury.
Although the use of mercury salts in consumer products, such as medicinal products, have been discontinued, inorganic mercury compounds are still being widely used in skin lightening soaps and creams. Mercuric chloride is used in photography and as a topical antiseptic and disinfectant, wood preservative, and fungicide. In the past, mercurous chloride was widely used in medicinal products, including laxatives, worming medications, and teething powders. It has since been replaced by safer and more effective agents. Mercuric sulfide is used to color paints and is one of the red coloring agents used in tattoo dyes.
Human exposure to inorganic mercury salts can occur both in occupational and environmental settings. Occupations with higher risk of exposure to mercury and its salts include mining, electrical equipment manufacturing, and chemical and metal processing in which mercury is used. In the general population, exposure to mercuric chloride can occur through the dermal route from the use of soaps and creams or topical antiseptics and disinfectants. Another, less well-documented, source of exposure to inorganic mercury salts among the general population is from their use in ethnic religious, magical, and ritualistic practices and in herbal remedies.
When inorganic mercury salts can become attached to airborne particles. Rain and snow deposit these particles on land. Even after mercury gets deposited on land, it often returns to the atmosphere, as a gas or associated with particles, and then redeposits elsewhere.
As it cycles between the atmosphere, land, and water, mercury undergoes a series of complex chemical and physical transformations, many of which are not completely understood. Microscopic organisms can combine mercury with carbon, thus converting it from an inorganic to organic form. Methylmercury is the most common organic mercury compound found in the environment, and is highly toxic. Learn about how people are most often exposed to methylmercury and about the adverse health effects that exposures to methylmercury can produce.
Mercury becomes a problem for the environment when it it is released from rock and ends up in the atmosphere and in water. These releases can happen naturally. Both volcanoes and forest fires send mercury into the atmosphere.
Human activities, however, are responsible for much of the mercury that is released into the environment. The burning of coal, oil and wood as fuel can cause mercury to become airborne, as can burning wastes that contain mercury.
Since mercury occurs naturally in coal and other fossil fuels, when people burn these fuels for energy, the mercury becomes airborne and goes into the atmosphere. In the United States, power plants that burn coal to create electricity are the largest source of emissions; they account for about 44 percent of all manmade mercury emissions (Source: 2014 National Emissions Inventory, version 2, Technical Support Document (July 2018)(414 pp, 10 MB, About PDF; discussion starts on page 2-23 of the PDF document).
The burning of municipal and medical waste was once a major source of mercury emissions. A reduction in the use of mercury along with state and federal regulations, however, has led to a decrease in emissions from this source by over 95%.
Every year, industrial and commercial facilities are required to report their releases of chemicals through EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program. You can view a chart showing the annual amount of emissions of mercury and mercury compounds into the air from facilities throughout the United States from 2007 to 2017. The 2014 National Emissions Inventory, version 2, Technical Support Document (July 2018)(414 pp, 10 MB, About PDF) also describes trends in mercury emissions since 1990 in Table 2-14 (see pages 2-28 - 2-29 of the PDF document) and in Figure 2-4 (see page 2-30 of the PDF document).
Depending on these factors, mercury in the atmosphere can be transported over a range of distances -- anywhere from a few feet from its source, to halfway around the globe -- before it is deposited in soil or water. Mercury that remains in the air for prolonged periods of time and travels across continents is said to be in the "global cycle."
The main way that people are exposed to mercury is by eating fish and shellfish that have high levels of methylmercury, a highly toxic form of mercury, in their tissues. A less common way people are exposed to mercury is breathing mercury vapor. This can happen when mercury is released from a container, or from a product or device that breaks. If the mercury is not immediately contained or cleaned up, it can evaporate, becoming an invisible, odorless, toxic vapor.
Mercury exposure at high levels can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system of people of all ages. High levels of methylmercury in the bloodstream of babies developing in the womb and young children may harm their developing nervous systems, affecting their ability to think and learn.
General GameplayThe gameplay of The Mercury Man bases itself around a series of mini-activities that are part of your daily life, first as a taxi driver, then as a police officer, and again as a mercury hunter.
Merco, the Mercury Man, was the last of a race of people from Mercury. His people were much like humans, ruled by greed, hatred, and fear. They developed ever more powerful weapons until they destroyed themselves and reduced their world to a desert. The only survivor was Merco, who had accidentally discovered a way to transform himself into pure mercury. He experimented on himself and the metallic Mercury Man. His powers include flight, the ability to survive in a vacuum, near invulnerability, nuclear powers, and limited telepathy (he could contact Dr. Penn but not determine her gender). He looks different from humans because of his wing-like ears and small ankle wings (similar to the Roman god Mercury or the Greek god Hermes).
It is well-documented that when mercury levels surpass the permissible value, individuals experience a myriad of symptoms that include chronic fatigue, dizziness, and loss of appetite. Mercury is also known to be one of the most potent neurotoxins. This case study depicts a 91- year-old who presented with cognitive decline diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease. This patient was found to have severely elevated mercury levels caused by consuming high mercury containing fish. Following diet adjustment and detoxification, this patient's cognitive impairment significantly improved in proportion to the decline in methylmercury level. One year later, his cognition and functional status rapidly and unexpectedly declined. A computed tomography (CT) scan revealed multiple new lacunar subacute strokes. Thus, it is critical to address biological etiologies such as mercury toxicity in the elderly population diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but end organ damage may not be reversible.
Five volunteer male subjects who were 24 to 78 y of age exposed the skin of their forearm to mercury vapor (203Hg) at concentrations of 0.88-2.14 ng/cm3 for periods of 27-43 min. Approximately 216 to 844 ng was taken up by the skin at rates of 0.0101 to 0.0402 ng Hg per cm2 per min per ng Hg per cm3 air. About half of the mercury taken up was shed by desquamation of epidermal cells during several weeks. The remainder diffused into the general circulation and could be measured as systemic mercury. When the total skin area (of which the forearm skin was assumed to be representative) was compared to the lung as a route of entry for mercury vapor at the same concentration, the rate of uptake was estimated to be 2.2% of the rate of uptake by the lung. A model is proposed that describes the growth and loss of skin-derived systemic mercury.
The story is set in the 24th century, after a major biomedical breakthrough occurred in 2310: all of the once-terminal diseases suddenly became curable through a treatment that replaced their blood with mercury, with the people who have undergone it known as "mercury men". However, it soon became clear that while that treatment may have saved those people's lives, it turned them into a walking hazard for everybody else. Thus, the world government had resorted to not only banning the mercury transfusions, but had also set up police squads devoted to exterminating the mercury men.
Global riots were sparked once it became known that the politicians and the global rich directing such extermination in public nevertheless couldn't resist extending their lifespans in this manner in private. This eventually led to the government overthrow by the hunters and their establishment of a police state, which compromised by rounding up everyone who had undergone the mercury treatment and deporting them to Mars. Martian colonies were also split into the inner zone for the former elite, and the outer zone populated by the poor people who could only afford the transfusions from underground clinics. Since these were often botched, and the outer zone was poorly terraformed with toxic air, the people sent there began to devolve into mutants. 2ff7e9595c
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