You probably have heard about a special kind of alloy called amalgam. This type of material is formed when mercury is bonded with another metal.
What you probably did not know is how interesting some of these reactions are. Almost all metals can form alloys with mercury, and some of them do this quite unusually. Let’s take, for example, aluminum and mercury. No, there is no bubbling, boiling, excessive smoke, or explosions involved. Instead, something grows out of these materials.
Watch the following video for an interesting experiment, and please remember that mercury is highly toxic element and therefore you should not attempt similar experiments by yourself: