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One educator and researcher suffered a terrifying demise from just a minuscule droplet, no bigger than a raindrop, of a single chemical that came into contact with her skin. ‌

Employed as a research chemist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, US, Karen Wetterhahn was meticulously examining how heavy metals affect living creatures when she inadvertently became part of her own study. ‌

During the summer of 1996, the academic was handling a substance called dimethylmercury when a microscopic bead dropped from a pipette tip and touched her latex glove. ‌

Despite following all necessary safety protocols for such work and instantly discarding the gloves before donning fresh ones, it appeared too late as the toxins had already taken effect.

The substance had penetrated

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