Haha, I will ask him. Thy why is actually very funny! My dad studies insects for a hobby, and one very small water-beetle in particular. It's like 3 millimeters tall, goes unnoticed by just about all mankind, but my dad actually travels around the entire globe to study on their whereabouts, environments and their variations! He went to Australia, Africa, Asia for a bug smaller then a pea! My hero...
Salt is made out of 2 different types of atoms, for example kitchen-salt is a combination of nitride and chloride. Gold and mercury are metals and consist out of 1 type of atom.
Salt does not conduct electricity, only when dissolved in a liquid. Gold and mercury do (and do not dissolve in water).
Gold and mercury only vary from each-other in their from at certain temperatures. Gold is almost solid at room-temperature, mercury is liquid and even evaporates at room-temperature. Below a certain temperature they will both be solid. Only at the melting-temperature for gold, mercury will be vapor.
Oh yeah, and gold is found in the human body, mercury is not, or at least shouldn't be. Salt is naturally very common in the human body.
Salt is a mineral, metals are ores.
How am I doing so far?
That's the final part. But to make the story whole: the 'beak' of the Venus Flytrap is actually 2 cleverly formed leaves, with imprisoning teeth at the edges. A fact worth knowing about this plant, is that one 'trap' will only function 3 times. Evolution has ensured a safety catch to put these traps to the best use, here we go:
The insides of the spiked leaves are covered with touch-sensitive hairs, in order for the trap to shut, at least 3 hairs on each side of the beak must be touched. This prevents something like a raindrop causing the trap to close without any prey indside and waisting one of the only 3 bites the trap can afford.
Even more sophisticated: the plant spreads certian aromas into the air to lure insects. When a bug crawls in to the oh-so-good smelling trap, it will most likely activate enough sensitive hairs in it to cause it to snap. The closing of the beak is caused by inflating the cells at the neck of the beak rapidly, making the trap close fast! This is a electrical activated osmosis progress, if you really want the details.
That's when the dissolving acid comes in, as this is released out of the sides of the trap to liquefy the pray and making it a nice milkshake for the plant.
When the prey is absorbed, the beak opens again for the next sucker to step in...