Thread: gallium spoons - how does the human body metabolize gallium?

Someone's selling spoon molds & gallium to make gallium spoons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbYiO5BRYk); before I buy, Id like to know about the effect of gallium metal/ions in the human body, how it's metabolized. Ive read quite extensively about gallium metal, but who can tell me about gallium ingestion? what would the effects be? how much of it would be dissolved in the stomach?

Gallium melts at just over room temperature. You can hold it in your hand and it will melt. A pure gallium spoon would not work as an actual eating utensil, as it would melt quite rapidly if you tried to eat anything other than cold food with it. Even then it might melt just from the heat of the inside of your mouth. The purpose of these gallium spoons is likely to pull pranks on people. They don't realize that the spoon is gallium, dip it into the soup, pull it out and the spoon head is missing.

Taken from the Wiki article..."While not considered toxic, the data about gallium are inconclusive. Some sources suggest that it may cause dermatitis from prolonged exposure; other tests have not caused a positive reaction. Like most metals, finely divided gallium loses its luster and powdered gallium appears gray. Thus, when gallium is handled with bare hands, the extremely fine dispersion of liquid gallium droplets, which results from wetting skin with the metal, may appear as a gray skin stain"

HAHA