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Gallium is the metal that melts hearts (and soda cans)
Answers for Globle, Metazooa, Elemingle and more from Aug 4 - Aug 10
Abe Train
August 11, 2025
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
A fun fact inspired by Elemingle
Metazooa: Live is coming back!
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Metazooa: Live… is coming back!
This September, the hit feature of Toronto Games Week is going to a new park with new plants, new animals, and new players. Come find the amazing ecological scavenger hunt at Metagame 2025 in Berkely, Califofnia from Sept 12 - 14.
Do you want Metazooa: Live to come to one of your local parks? Let me know!
Gallium is the metal that melts hearts (and soda cans)
Never keep your gallium mad science kits next to your model airplanes!
If you ever wanted to feel like a wizard, you just need a little lump of gallium (Elemingle answer #200). This silvery, unassuming metal is solid at room temperature, but it melts at just 29.8°C (about 85.6°F)—meaning it will literally turn to liquid if you hold it in your palm! But gallium’s party tricks don’t stop there: it’s also notorious for its ability to “eat” through aluminum, a fact that has both delighted science teachers and caused headaches for engineers.
Gallium and aluminum don’t play nicely together. If you rub a bit of gallium onto an aluminum can or beam, the gallium seeps into the metal’s crystal structure, destroying its strength and making it crumbly and brittle. This “corrosion” isn’t dangerous to touch, but it’s so effective that gallium is actually banned from being brought onto airplanes, since it could compromise the aircraft’s aluminum body. There’s even a famous demonstration where a soda can, once treated with gallium, collapses in your hand!
Despite these shenanigans, gallium is incredibly useful. It’s a key ingredient in LEDs (including those in your phone and TV screens), solar panels, and medical thermometers that don’t use toxic mercury. And here’s one more fun fact: gallium was predicted by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev before it was discovered, based on gaps he left in his periodic table—a win for science and psychic powers alike.
Trivia
Which of these is another interesting property of gallium? |
Answers to last week's games
Monday, August 4 to Sunday, August 10.
Globle
| Globle: Capitals
|
Chronogram
| Fictogram
|
Metazooa
| Metaflora
|
Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#538 tonight → when → where → locate
#539 trade → trading → traveling → distance → distant
#540 partly → mixedly → race → speed
#541 prefer → preference → sexual → biological
#542 setting → passing → fail
#543 front → frontrunner → runner → hunter
#544 glad → accomplished → built → building
#545 Play now!
Elemingle
#194 Indium
#195 Cesium
#196 Silicon
#197 Fluorine
#198 Carbon
#199 Arsenic
#200 Gallium
#201 Play now!
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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