Gallium is a metal that melts at 86 degrees F. It's more fun than playing with mercury, and probably safer, too (it *will* temporarily stain your skin gray though, because it's "wet" when liquid and will adhere to the crevices of your skin). My daughter's friend brought some over a couple of years ago, and it was such a hit at our house that we had to get some of our own. This 20 gram sample is [amazon_link asins='B00F3IXF9M' template='PriceLink' store='boingboing' marketplace='US' link_id='fcb360dd-d07b-42de-94fe-d2b70e1fefdc'] on Amazon.

Image: DaveHax/YouTube Read the rest

YouTuber DaveHax had some gallium lying around, so he wanted to see the chemical reaction when it was applied to an aluminum tennis racket. Read the rest

In this nifty YouTube video, Dave Hax talks through the properties of gallium, the metal that liquefies at just 86ºF and is safe to play with. (Just don’t eat it!)

Hax has a whole collection of videos about gallium on his YouTube channel.

If you want to give it a try yourself, you buy 20 grams of gallium for less than $10 on Amazon. Read the rest

Peter Clark collaborated on this cool cymatics video for Thump, but the even cooler stuff is the camera test and the behind the scenes footage: Read the rest

A cool addition to my growing cabinet of curiosities.