CAMEO Chemicals. Fun With Chemistry: The Amazing Pharaoh’s Serpent Reaction. By Marshall Brain | May 18, 2010 The reaction you can see below is called Pharaoh’s serpent, and it is both bizarre and amazing to watch: So how does this work?
The starting chemical is mercury thiocyanate (also known as mercuric sulphocyanate – Hg(SCN)2). Which sounds really bad, because it contains the poison mercury combined with a cyanate (i.e. cyanide). 10 of the Most Dangerous Chemicals in the World - StumbleUpon. Interesting — when I was in the Army, it was called CBR (chemical, biological, radioactive).
I wonder why they changed the order and the initials? Pressure from Jay Leno? NBC was for Nuclear, Biological, Radiological. I think it might have been for memory's sake, which might have something to do with the tv studio indeed - but maybe just for giggles. The military does not always make sense.