Andrea Sella

Before health and safety, everyone seems in their chemistry class was allowed to have a little bit of mercury on the bench in front of them and then just flick balls of it around.

So chemistry professor at University College London and dear friend of this show, Andrea Sella, talked about how everyone when they talk about playing with mercury and sort of plunging their hands into it has this guilty but enchanted smile on their face.

It's clearly a very dangerous way, but an effective way of engaging kids with this bizarre metal.

He said that when he was a kid at school in Nairobi, they just had a broom cupboard with like a big bucket of this stuff.

Modern experiments have attempted to recreate what such a moment might have looked like in reality.

In 2006, chemist Andrea Sella at University College London simulated leaking alcohol vapors inside a replica cargo hold.

When ignited, the vapors didn't produce a traditional explosion.

Instead, they created a sudden pressure wave and a brief flash of flame with almost no lasting damage or scorch marks.

So whatever treatment you use, unless you die, it's going to look as though it's successful.

That was a programme from a series called Discovery, hosted by Andrea Sella again there.

Now, maybe a health warning, don't inhale mercury.

It's not a good cure for the pox.