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Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

How would it have poisoned just his rival and not also him? Touching it doesn’t do much unless you’re submerging your skin in it for long periods. The fumes would affect everyone. And it’s very unlikely his opponent would have licked the board to ingest the mercury.

floofloof ,

How would it have poisoned just his rival and not also him?

Don’t know, but both players were women.

mightyfoolish ,

Suicide chess player?

general_kitten , (edited )

Organic mercury compounds can look like water and absorb quickly through skin, they can be potent enough for just a drop on your skin being deadly, even if you have gloves as it can penetrate quickly through many different rubbers. Metallic doesn’t kill you even if you ate it*. With metallic mercury highest risk is vapours but unless you heat it it will only become a problem in poorly ventalated areas.

*assuming you have no open wounds on your digestive tract and minor chronic damage might be still caused depending on amount and frequency.

HomerianSymphony ,

Metallic doesn’t kill you even if you ate it

The article says it’s safe to touch and even swallow, but inhaling it causes problems consistent with the victim’s symptoms.

The_Picard_Maneuver ,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world avatar

What a bizarre way to try to murder someone. And over a chess game? I know Russians take their chess seriously, but this is insane.

ohwhatfollyisman ,

wait till you hear about their approach to roulette!

the_post_of_tom_joad ,

Ok, this was really good

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Oh boy, just wait until you read up on Russian politics/polonium toxicity!

homesweethomeMrL ,

I told y’all in 2020 - build a giant fence around there and nobody go in for 100 years. After that we’ll check on ‘em. But nooooo “it’s too expensive” pfffft. And now look - it’s . . . whatever this is!

Empricorn ,

We could have had Australia 2!

DoctorButts ,

What an imbecile. Mercury is a planet. It is too large to be hidden anywhere on a chess board

homesweethomeMrL ,

I hear it’s in Gatorade

cdf12345 ,

This comment is an underrated gem.

Bravo sir.

Bocky ,

Gators are too big to fit in the bottles, can’t be that

strawberry ,

not in microwave?

some_guy OP ,

Wrong. Mercury is a god. He’s much too powerful to do the biddings of a puny mortal.

makyo ,

You’re both wrong, it’s a car. I’m pretty crazy about one though.

perslue ,

You all were close but, still wrong. Marie Curie was a scientist.

wildncrazyguy138 ,

And that scientists name? Albert Einstein.

veloxization ,
@veloxization@yiffit.net avatar

You’re also wrong. He’s a singer known as Freddie. And I don’t know what kind of necromancy was used to get him on a chess board.

Evil_Shrubbery ,

what kind of necromancy

This whole thread is a clue about that.

The necromancers used myrrh & curry.

x4740N ,

Your wrong about that

She used mer-curry which she got from mer-people

It’s a mer-people specialty

Evil_Shrubbery ,

Is mer-curry really worth all the murmaider?
(Prob yes)

Chee_Koala ,

Marc Anthony is a singer/songwriter, pfffff.

todd_bonzalez ,
@todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee avatar

Furthermore, you can’t poison a chess board. It’s only poisonous if it kills you when you eat it. That chess board is venomous.

bdonvr ,

Seeing as mercury fumes are the real danger (you can fairly safely handle elemental mercury, it won’t absorb into the skin) this seems like an exceptionally poor poisoning attempt. Maybe if you put a fan behind you so the fumes only waft into the opponents face…

Hikermick ,

Yeah I have so many questions. How would both players not get poisoned? Does mercury evaporate? I played with thermometer mercury as a child, does that explain things?

AshMan85 ,

Sounds Russian.

Gsus4 , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

It’s a product of the state of a country that calls Gary Kasparov a terrorist. chess.com/…/russia-issues-arrest-warrant-for-kasp…

catloaf ,

I’m surprised it actually worked. Liquid mercury isn’t really that harmful, it’s the vapors that get you. I’d be concerned about it affecting me too, since I’d also be sitting at the board.

TheBigBrother ,

Kamikaze poisoning… people at both sides will be suspects, seems like a good plan.

TriflingToad ,

ever watched the princess bride?

KazuyaDarklight ,
@KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world avatar

Filters shoved deep in the nostrils maybe?

stoly ,

I’m no chemist but understand the liquid mercury is safe to handle for short periods provided you wash your hands well. It can absorb through your skin over time though.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

It just says attempted poisoning so I’m not even sure it did actually work.

scarabic ,

Comments above say the opponent was hospitalized but not killed. I can’t swear to the veracity. There are many forms of mercury though and they vary in toxicity.

WhimsicalSofa ,

Probably not pure mercury but one of the extremely nasty mercury compounds that is easily absorbed through the skin. The victim was very sick.

TheBigBrother ,

If chess players do this, what do you think Russian secret service it’s capable of?

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

this was a death in paradise episode!

s11e08

Moonrise2473 ,

Lol just learned about that series. 100+ murders in the span of a few years in a remote Island with 10k population? Sounds plausible

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

haha yeah, the murder rate is a bit steep. as someone else said who had pointed it out to me on lemmy, its like comfort food. you kinda know what youre getting, but the characters are well written.

jaybone ,

Sounds like a Dexter type show.

breadsmasher ,
@breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

russians prove they can’t win anything legitimately

circuscritic ,

…this was a regional tournament, in the Caucasus Republic of Dagestan.

So calling them Russian is technically accurate, but really they are a brutalized and subjugated colonial subject of Russia.

Also, you’ll find this kind of crazy anywhere you go. She literally just dumped mercury around her opponents chess board when she thought no one was around to notice.

I get why it’s catching headlines, but give me a break. It’s just crazy being crazy.

HomerianSymphony ,

So calling them Russian is technically accurate

The word Russian has two meanings in English. It can mean relating to the country of Russia, or relating to the Rus ethnicity.

The Russian language distinguishes the two. The first is росси́йский. The second is ру́сский. Both words are translated as “Russian” in English, which causes confusion in English, but there’s no such confusion in Russian.

These people (Dagestanis) are Russian in the first sense, but not the second sense.

Historically, the second sense of “Russian” included Ukrainians and Belarussians (so you could say Ukrainians were Russian in the second sense, but not the first sense) but it’s become controversial to do so since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Chee_Koala ,

Interesting! thanks for elaborating. A week or month ago, a local Ukrainski politician, I thought it was a lady person, proclaimed that using the Russian language the invaders use is like spitting in the face of your home country. She got a hell of a lot of pushback on that. That made it seem that a lot of locals still prefer Russian to Ukrainian language. Can you shed some light on those conflicting sentiments?

Was inspired to educate myself a bit extra on Cyrillic script, so, from the english wiki:

"As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages. About half of them are in Russia. " … "The Slavic languages are conventionally (that is, also on the basis of extralinguistic features) divided into three subgroups: East, South, and West, which together constitute more than 20 languages. Of these, 10 have at least one million speakers and official status as the national languages of the countries in which they are predominantly spoken: Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian (of the East group), Polish, Czech and Slovak (of the West group), Bulgarian and Macedonian (eastern members of the South group), and Serbo-Croatian and Slovene (western members of the South group) "

circuscritic ,

I can only approach this from the English language, which is why I said technically correct. But I also feel the article should have done a lot better job explaining that they were Dagestani, which is not unreasonable as if this had happened in Chechnya, it would have said Chechen.

Also, I have never seen Russian used interchangeably with Ukrainian, or Belarusian, before or after, 2014. But again, maybe that’s just my English language only bias.

That said, I do appreciate you writing on the explainer for other users who aren’t familiar with the status of, or distinction between Russia and the Caucasus.

ChickenLadyLovesLife ,

they are a brutalized and subjugated colonial subject of Russia

TBF even Russia is a brutalized and subjugated colonial subject of Russia.

Mango ,

Dina would like a word.

breadsmasher ,
@breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

who?

Mango ,

youtu.be/AdGMUA-lGAM

Klear ,

Yeah! Take that Kasparov! You can’t win anything!

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Very not true, Kaspersky® just won a legitimate label as malware.

MP3Martin ,
@MP3Martin@programming.dev avatar

Kasperskyⓜⓐⓛⓦⓐ®ⓔ

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Except maybe the competition for most war crimes committed, but they are closely rivaled by the Israeli fascists

morphballganon ,

Is it a first?

Or is it the first time they got caught?

Johnmannesca ,
@Johnmannesca@lemmy.world avatar

Yes

MediaBiasFactChecker Bot ,

Ars Technica - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for Ars Technica:
> MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
> Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.Newshttps://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/08/in-world-first-russian-chess-player-poisons-rivals-board-with-mercury/

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