Amalgam (chemistry) with copper. A nitric acid solution of salts under investigation is applied to a piece of copper foil, and any mercury ions present will leave spots of silvery-coloured amalgam. Silver ions leave similar spots but are easily washed away, making this a means of distinguishing silver from mercury. The redox reaction involved where mercury oxidizes the copper is: Dental amalgam has been studied and is generally considered to be safe for humans, though the validity of some studies and their conclusions have been questioned. Amalgam (chemistry) An amalgam is an alloy of mercury with another metal, which may be a
Hypercycle (chemistry) Hypercycle (chemistry) In chemistry, a hypercycle is an abstract model of organization of self-replicating molecules connected in a cyclic, autocatalytic manner. It was introduced in an ordinary differential equation (ODE) form by the Nobel Prize winner Manfred Eigen in 1971 and subsequently further extended in collaboration with Peter Schuster. It was proposed as a solution to the error threshold problem encountered during modelling of replicative molecules that hypothetically existed on the primordial Earth (see: abiogenesis). As such, it explained how life on Earth could have begun using only relatively short genetic sequences, which in theory were too short to store