Dimethylmercury was spilled at MIT on August 26. It seems one person was exposed and taken to MGH Wednesday night. Dimethylmercury is incredibly toxic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn). I don't know of any confirmed cases of someone exposed surviving, but I hope they are able to treat this person. There doesn't seem to have been any emergency declared or alert by MIT at the time. Students were informed of potential contamination the following morning, but more recent information suggests the spill was fairly localized. Dimethylmercury is not allowed on MIT's campus so it is unclear why this person had it. The building is closed for decontamination.

There's also an alert on the MIT emergency page, though it doesn't mention the substance by name: https://emergency.mit.net/

Wow, I wonder if chelation therapy early enough can reduce the damage to the student's nervous system. I'm not aware of how quickly organic mercury crosses the BBB once it enters the bloodstream, but my guess is "faster than you'd like".

I hope it was worth working with such a notoriously unsafe compound against regulations and all sense.

Why were they working with an unauthorised potent neurotoxin? MIT didn't "permit" this, although you could ask how student supervision allows it to arise.

Is there some interesting aspect which danger aside might motivate this or was it just a dick move? Were they possibly motivated for bad reasons, seeking to commit harm?

  > "Can't imagine why"

Other "sources" (using the word loosely as their provenance is unclear)

  > "based on the information available, this was a localized issue with only one student directly exposed. Their reported use of dimethyl mercury was unauthorized. MIT does not allow the purchase or synthesis of dimethyl mercury." [1]

Karen Wetterhahn's exposure and death [3] is a cautionary tale of the extreme toxicity of dimethyl mercury, and was instrumental in new safety recommendations, including strongly discouraging the use of dimethyl mercury for any purpose.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/1w12gb9/dimethyl_mercu...

[2] https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/hazmat-crews-respond-to...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn

Derek Lowe mentions dimethyl mercury as the first substance that's not worth the risk:

https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/a-risk-not-worth-taki...

Back in 1998, I scored a consulting job at a silicon plant outside of Salem, OR. Now I was working as a systems admin and I was expected to be responsible for the computer systems, which were basically located in the normal offices, rather than a dedicated machine room floor.

However, since it was an active silicon manufacturing plant, all employees and contractors were obligated to complete safety training sessions. And I swear now that these safety sessions were designed to weed out the faint-hearted guys who weren't serious about supporting this silicon brand.

The safety sessions were simple lectures, with some handouts and PowerPoints, and some of the chemicals they described were absolutely insidious stuff. They were colorless, odorless, and some could melt or disintegrate bone without noticeably affecting the skin or muscles. They said you would just end up with a limp and useless appendage if you spilled some of this stuff on you. Other stuff was highly toxic and you didn't want to breathe anything. Basically it was a big warning to just stay out of the manufacturing floor, especially if we didn't know what we were doing.

I never went near the manufacturing floor. It was a pretty cool job and I wish I lasted longer there. They couldn't scare me away with a safety session, since my Dad had worked for decades in Environmental Health and Safety. Dad knew all about the nastiest stuff and he was always responding to hazardous laboratory accidents. Dad made us the safest home in our ZIP code.

Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49484912

Note that it seems increasingly unlikely that it was actually synthesized.

> Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized.

> while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury.

Taken from https://emergency.mit.edu/