With all the talk about Mercury contamination of fish, I thought you might love to hear from my beautiful and talented niece, college student, Rachel Lund. She was involved in a research project at her college to look at methyl-mercury contamination in rivers. Here is she is presenting as a guest Blogger. Mercury contamination in fish and a brief look into methyl-mercury research Mercury: the only element besides bromine that is a liquid at STP, it looks like liquid silver, and it is 13.5 times denser than water. The Romans named it after their god of speed and mobility. It is second only to lead as a leading cause of heavy metal poisoning. It has historically been used in mining, industry, and medicine. However, because of its toxicity, it has been widely taken out of manufactured products. Mercury is found naturally in the environment in cinnabar ore and as a product of volcanic explosions. 6 But it is also a very dangerous by-product of burning fossil fuels. So despite