Polonium-210 Available Through Mail Order

Knutsi writes "InformationWeek is reporting that Polonium 210, the radioactive material used to poison former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko is not as hard to get your hands on as some have previously stated. American family business United Nuclear is actually selling the stuff, and other equally exotic materials, on their company website. Could come in handy for the xmas shopping season."

New level of cheating.

I wonder how XBOX LIVE will dectect this?

UberL337: hey thanx 4 sendin over teh drinks!
TehD00d: NP mang.
[...]
UberL337: ug feel sick oh fukkk call ambulsafeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
TehD00d: Polonipnwed!!!

A Lump of Polonium 210...

When a lump of coal just won't do...

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

There is already clarification on how they sell Polonium 20

http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm [unitednuclear.com]

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

There sure is.

You would need about 15,000 of our Polonium-210 needle sources
at a total cost of about $1 million - to have a toxic amount.

Thanks!

Nuclear Isotope - Alpha Isotope Type: Polonium-210 Qty. 15,000

Subtotal: $1,035,000.00 USD
Shipping & Handling: $19.95 USD

• Bill Me Later!

Re:Loose lips sink ships

Surely not someone advocating "Security through Obscurity" on Slashdot of all places?

Re:Loose lips sink ships

Which is why the phrase "loose lips sink ships" was coined. There have been numerous headline-grabbing items like this article on Slashdot and in the media in general which serve no purpose to anyone unless you're making money from the article or you're a terrorist looking for ideas.

Not to mention that this will draw unwanted government attention to United Nuclear which is already under investigation. So that people with a legitimate need for alpha sources (and, yes, I consider the needs of amateur scientists legit) will find them harder to obtain. If you want to murder someone with poison, there are far easier ways to do it than with polonium-210.

-b.

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

What makes you think it's a KGB operation?

For simple minds, it's KGB because an exotic poison like radioactive polonium seems kind of a signature it's no ordinary killing.

For smarty people, it couldn't be a KGB operation because KGB is not so stupid to poison people with exotic stuff when they have ways to make appear it an ordinary killing.

For chess playing soviet russia folks it could be a KGB operation because KGB could use the polonium as a too obvious link to make people think they're being framed while they're behind it all.

But, the odds are 50%. So I'd not point the finger at Putin so fast.

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

bet you weren't saying that when mossad squirted poison in that arab guy's ear.

Mossad uses Zunes on arabs? And Poison, of all distasteful bands... They seem always to reach new lows.

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

Do you read TFA? You would need about 15,000 of our Polonium-210 needle sources
at a total cost of about $1 million - to have a toxic amount.

Not anymore

I stopped in a few weeks back to buy some and some Russian dude in line ahead of me bought the last of it.

Re:Not anymore

This company imports it from Russia

You're talking out of your ass again. The radiation sources sold by this company come from Oak Ridge, Tennessee where they are made to order in an NRC licensed reactor and shipped directly to the customer.

You should educate yourself before you speak again on this subject.

Ross

Feh

The Polonium available on United Nuclear's site can be purchased without a license because the level of radioactivity, 0.1 microcurie, doesn't pose a danger, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says.

Thanks slashdot, but if I wanted baseless scare mongering about the threat of nuclear material falling into the wrong hands, I'd join the Republican Party.

Re:Feh

Nah, at Republican Party meetings, all they do is smoke big cigars and laugh over how easy it is to dupe the proles. Afterwards, they go out and throw rocks at hobos.

Re:Feh

Damn! I never knew what I was missing. Where do I sign up?

a great Wired article on United Nuclear

Check this out: http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.htm l [wired.com]

Re:Feh

No doubt. The United Nuclear company is great, and this isn't the first time that fearmongering affects their very small and valuable business. That, and clueless frat boys who order the largest magnets they can find, just because it's fun to buy objects which have warnings with phrases like "serious injury will occur if you just carry this magnet through a room without planning your route carefully." Science is already being dumbed down by the nanny state; it's the reason that Mr. Wizard didn't endorse a modern update to his old chemistry sets. Timmy doesn't want to see what happens when boring baking soda mixes with boring tap water, but the school gets in trouble for anything more exotic and meaningful.

No you got it backword.

The fear of all things nuclear is the Democrat or even better the Greens stance. "Why should we worry about terrorists explosives in their shoes when you can by deadly Po210 by mail order".

Get your fear mongering right.

Remember if you outlaw child pornogr

Re:Feh

No!!! Go read their website before talking:

Each order is custom made to a LICENSED reactor, and shipped directly form the licensed reactor to the final customer.
You would need to order 15000 of there samples, and spend 1 Million dollars in order to get a toxic amount.
Then you would have to somehow manipulate the isotopes to put them in a form convenient for poisoning.

xmas gift

I think Bolonium is a much more appropriate holiday gift. After all, its atomic weight is deliciously snacktacular.

Re:xmas gift

I think Bolonium is a much more appropriate holiday gift. After all, its atomic weight is deliciously snacktacular.

You said "snacktac-u-lar", it's "snackta-cle-ar", dummy.

Moo

Who cares about Uranium, when we can have supermagnets!

Read the page, see the bait:

Two of these magnets close together can create an almost unbelievable magnetic field that can be very dangerous. Of all the unique items we offer for sale, we consider these items the most dangerous of all. Our normal packing & shipping personnel refuse to package these magnets - our engineers have to do it. This is no joke and we cannot stress it strongly enough - that you must be extremely careful - and know what you're doing with these magnets.

They even say "beware" elswhere. It must be good.

Can you even resist?

Luckily therse things cost money, or noone would care about the Flying Spaghetti Monster anymore. The Flying Magnetatorus would rule supreme.

Re:Moo

I did buy magnets from there. They are freakin' awesome.

I accidentally held them too close to each other with nothing in between and they slammed together with such a force that they made sparks and got chipped. I couldn't for the life of me get the magnets apart again until I realized that I could set one on the edge of a table and put my weight on the other to slide them apart but it still hurt my hands to do that.

The strength will amaze you and I only bought the 1" cube magnets. I can't even begin to imagine the strength of the really big ones.

Re:Moo

Among the most dangerous things you can give your small child are magnets - particularly the small pea-sized sort that are used in toys that are moved around on a platform by other magnets placed underneath.

If a child swallows more than one of these magnets, they can find each other through bowel tissue and clamp together, eventually killing the tissue that ends up between them due to lack of blood flow and possibly perforating the bowel.

The magnets they are talking about can break bones if you don't handle them correctly, and if you've ever handled smaller magnets before (who hasn't), you know that it can be tricky trying to arrange more than one magnet (even small ones) without allowing them to collide. You could probably also kill yourself with these magnets in freak circumstances.

Magnetic hazards

Modern magnets are so powerful there are real hazards. When magnets were iron or, at the high end, AlNiCo, they couldn't retain a strong enough field to make much trouble, so people thought of magnets as safe. Neodymium magnets, though, can be made strong enough to be dangerous. The Magnetix building set [wikipedia.org] killed several kids when magnets came loose from the plastic parts and were ingested. The CPSC had to order a recall.

One question, comrade

Will work on moose and squirrel, yes?

Polonium and Smoking

I found it a bit amusing when they stated that Polonium was hard to obtain. It is actually drawn from the soil into Tobacco plants and is one of the Really Bad Things implicated in smoking and cancer (along with
the also-radioactive Lead-210, which emits gamma rays and decays into Polonium eventually.)

Polonium-210 is an alpha emitter - something you really don't want to ingest.
I'd have to look up dose-equivalents, etc, but if I remember correctly, it was estimated a two-pack-a-day smoker gets the radioactive equivalent of something like 300 chest X-rays a year. And remember that these are heavy metals that stay in the body for a long time!

Re:Polonium and Smoking

Oh come on, why don't you people stomp my only joy in life some more. It causes cancer, it smells, it yellows your teeth, it stunts your growth, it makes you sterile, it slaughters small puppies with a chainsaw...and now its radioactive. Son of a bitch! I'm about to start smoking crack...seems less harmful.

Selex

Does the United Nuclear's webpage sell that too?

in soviet russia ...

... polonium-210 find you!!

antistatic brushes

Theorore Gray (of wooden periodic table fame) also says that Polonium 210 is used in antistatic brushes for film negatives [theodoregray.com]

Re:

Yes, available here [2spi.com] for example. The 3" model ($47.84) has 500 uCi of polonium-210.

Wow...

According to here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium [wikipedia.org]

"The maximum allowable body burden for ingested polonium is only 1,100 becquerels (0.03 microcurie), which is equivalent to a particle weighing only 6.8 × 10-12 gram. Weight for weight, polonium is approximately 2.5 × 1011 (250 billion) times as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. The maximum permissible concentration for airborne soluble polonium compounds is about 7,500 Bq/m3 (2 × 10-11 Ci/cm3). The biological halflife of polonium in humans is 30 to 50 days.[18]"

The toxic dose is 0.03 micro-curies

http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm [unitednuclear.com]

Lists their polonium source as 0.1 micro-curie. Now Polonium is only REALLY toxic when inhaled, where alpha particles do the most damage.

I know they probably track source sales like mad, but yeah, that seems a bit too convenient. I don't know what the disks are made off. If they are, say, ceramic based, it's probably resistant to most methods of extraction. Anything else, well...

I don't know how much longer then that this will be a 'legal' alpha source.

Re:Wow...

The toxic dose is 0.03 micro-curies

No it isn't. That's the standard set by OSHA which is several orders of magnitude below the toxic dose in order to prevent health effects in people working with the stuff.

-b.

Ripoff

Don't buy this stuff... it's some kind of scam. I ordered a bunch, and I set it aside until I got around to needing it. About one year later when I wanted to use it, more than 80% of it had mysteriously disappeared into thin air! Talk about planned obsolescence... and this stuff ain't cheap. This is worse than inkjet cartridges.

Since then, I've found a place that will send me Polonium *209*. It costs more, but so far it doesn't seem have the self-destruct feature that the Polonium 210 shysters build into their product.

Santa's Little Helper

OK, Christmas cookies. Or maybe free beer, probably even more popular in Chicago (like anywhere else).

At $69:0.1uCi, for a lethal dose of 0.03uCi, that's $66M to poison every Chicagoan. Before the volume rate discount.

I can split hairs with you all day long. It still doesn't get my toothpaste on a plane.

hilarious Independent editorial by Mark Steel

here [independent.co.uk] but pasted in full, in case it "disappears":

Polonium 210 was cancelled due to signal failure

If this was carried out by a state department, Putin will announce it's to be privatised

Published: 29 November 2006

They must be bemused in Chechnya. Because they had about 50,000 people blown up by Putin and no one gave a toss. They probably made countless attempts to interest politicians and reporters from the West, who said: "Hmm, you've had your hospital destroyed by a tank, have you? Well it's a bit 1940s I'm afraid. Have they killed any of you with rocket-propelled bird flu or a remote-controlled piranha - something a bit sexy?"

While Putin's army was destroying Chechnya, Tony Blair welcomed him to Britain, and described him as a "great moderniser". And that certainly applies to whoever killed Mr Litvinenko. Because there can hardly be a more modern way of murdering someone than with radioactive sushi. In many ways the two men are so similar that when Putin makes a statement on the incident, he might say: "This is not a betrayal of KGB values. It represents traditional assassination in a modern setting."

And if this was carried out by a state-run department, Putin will announce it's to be privatised so it can bid for outside contracts. By now they've probably already made a showreel to publicise their work called "Ready Steady Poison", in which a Russian version of Ainsley Harriott chortles: "Now you only need to add a pinch of this stuff. Too much is a waste. Not only that but it's a bit heavy on the palate, and just because you're killing someone, you don't want to drown out the subtle flavours of the salmon."

Most commentators have suggested the killing couldn't be linked to the hierarchy of the Russian government because it's too clumsy and risky. But this is to underestimate government agents. The CIA's attempts to assassinate Castro included placing a bomb inside an attractive sea-shell, in an area of the beach that he strolled on, in the hope it would catch his eye and he'd pick it up. So by comparison this effort was dry and straightforward. Maybe the world's older secret service agents meet up in gloomy pubs to drink bitter and complain: "Youngsters today have it easy. In the old days, if you wanted to murder someone with sea-food you were up all night making an exploding whelk."

But this case represents more than one murder, because it's forced much of the British establishment to acknowledge that Russia has gone wrong. This leaves them in some turmoil, because when the Soviet Union collapsed this wasn't just seen as the demise of a tyranny, but the ultimate triumph for capitalism. Big business had won so freedom and prosperity would surely follow. Businessmen scrambled for their piece of this private wealth, and this was celebrated as an example of the new liberty. George Soros, the West's most quoted financier of the time, wrote: "It's robber capitalism, it's lawless, but it's very vital and viable."

One flaw in this logic was that most of the newly rich Russian businessmen had previously held senior posts in the Communist Party, which is how they got access to this new treasure. Which means the attitude of the country's new owners was: "Under the old system I believed it was my right to be pampered in luxury, while most people were poor under communism. But now I realise it's actually my right to be pampered in luxury, while most people are poor under capitalism. Truly we should be grateful for this historic change."

If you pointed this out at the time, you were scowled at like someone who suggests the week before a World Cup that England aren't going to win. Now, 15 years later the place is in chaos, to the extent that life expectancy for men has fallen from 65 to 59. Which must be another sign of the new freedom, because in the old days people were forced to endure six extra years of turgid communism, but in the f

Re:hilarious Independent editorial by Mark Steel

This is not the first time that the West has had its Foot in Mouth delibrately.
After all history is ripe: the US state dep.t files describe Mussolini as a "Great Man" and Hitler as a "Great and Able Administrator".
This was in 1930s when Hitler enslaved Germany, and forced people into Labor at cheap cost,. Of coujrse companies like GE and others made a killing in Germany before the stupid Jap attack blew their plans.
Blair is not welcoming Putin: It is BIG business which is welcoming him.
 

FUD: Pity the Amateur Scientist

http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm [unitednuclear.com] Here's their explanation.

Not enough to poison someone, almost impossible to extract, etc. Poor United Nuclear will probably be run out of business just like everyone else who helps amateur scientists.

Re:I might be missing something.....

.... But *WHY* is this stuff freely available? Shouldn't it be a controlled substance of some sort?

Eh, why not? It's not like you need polonium 210 to kill someone. A big stick can be used for the same purpose, and rat-poison can also be bought over the counter. And unlike e.g. guns, polonium 210 has other uses than to kill people. Most of those reasons advance science.

Apart from that, why should everything you don't have a need for, need to become "a controlled substance"? I don't know about you, but I have no wish to live in a society where everything is regulated, over-regulated, and then regulated again. I'm for gun control, because guns are a big problem in todays society. I'm not convinced that polonium 210 is a big problem in todays society.

It almost seems that there are drugs and booze that have tighter restrictions.

Those things are addictive. Polonium 210 isn't.

Re:I might be missing something.....

.... But *WHY* is this stuff freely available? Shouldn't it be a controlled substance of some sort?

Eh, why not? It's not like you need polonium 210 to kill someone. A big stick can be used for the same purpose, and rat-poison can also be bought over the counter. And unlike e.g. guns, polonium 210 has other uses than to kill people. Most of those reasons advance science.

Polonium 210 doesn't kill people. People do.

If you want my Polonium 210 you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands.

Re:I might be missing something.....

And unlike e.g. guns, polonium 210 has other uses than to kill people.

Ugh. The vast majority of guns in the US have never, nor will they ever, be used for killing people. Seeing as how we have so few natural predators left, hunting is an absolutely vital element of the wildlife conservation effort in many countries. Hunting provides healthy, lean meat, untreated by growth hormones and antibiotics, it controls populations, reducing disease and famine, it provides funding for programs that preserve wildlife habitats....

Guns can be used for a lot more than shooting people.

Re:I might be missing something.....

Uhm, the vast majority of guns in the US have never, nor will they ever, be used for hunting. And a typical hand-gun is also completely useless for hunting. However, I have nothing against people who are gun-nuts either. If they want to spend their time down at the shooting range, firing at cardboard silhuettes of arabs, it's their choice. What I want to do, is to limit the number of people who choose to keep a loaded gun somewhere in their house, where it waits to be stolen, played with by their children, etc... just because they believe it will somehow "protect" them if 69 ninjas suddenly attack them.

And I didn't say anywhere that I was against guns. I said I was for gun control! Which is a completely different thing than being against guns in general.

Gun control would imply such things as

1. Every gun is registered in a central register
2. It is the responsibility of the owner to make sure this register is updated if there is a change of owner, etc...
3. Gun owners must have a police attest, declaring that they are not convicted criminals
4. Gun owners must get a license, which prove they know how to safely store, transport, and handle a gun
5. You are not allowed to own or handle a gun without that license, unless it is under supervision by a licensed instructor
6. Your license can be revoked if you fail to comply with regulations of how to safely store, transport, and handle a gun.

It's amazing that we have this for cars, but not for guns.

Re:I might be missing something.....

if 69 ninjas suddenly attack them

Hmm... how would I provoke such an attack by this particular type of ninja?

Re:

Uh, right. And we should just give nukes to every country in the world, because then we wouldn't need to worry about Iran and North Korea having them.

Re:I might be missing something.....

Because there is nothing special about radiation.

Too many people think of radiation as this magical, unstoppable death ray; I call this the OMG RADIATION!!1! attitude.

Fact is, there's a whole whackload of far more dangerous things you can get your hands on legally and easily, not least of which is any number of guns, which are also very dangerous when handled carelessly or by an unskilled/untrained operator.

Cigarettes and alcohol are pretty dangerous too, and I couldn't even begin to list the deadly poisons we can stroll into any store and buy completely legally. You can start with the pest control isle, then add the majority of the cleaning isle, and then maybe a lot of the automotive liquids (antifreeze in particular is a dangerous thing if you've got pets or children around), then tack on much of the agricultural isle. Note that I'm not listing products, I'm listing store sections, because that's how readily available these things are.

Honestly, the only reason to prefer radioactive substances to poison someone is because it plays right into the OMG RADIATION!!1! attitude, which even here on "enlightened" slashdot is in ample supply. It's just another deadly poison; no less, but no more.

(To break yourself of the OMG RADIATION!!1! attitude, I recommend the following: Learn about background radiation levels. (If you think that "normal radiation" levels are "zero", you are firmly in the grip of OMG RADIATION!!1!.) Learn how X-Rays work and how they compare to background. Learn about how smoke detectors work; odds are very good that you are within a few tens of meters of an OMG RADIOACTIVE! substance. This will either break you of panicking, or give you a heart attack; either way you'll be free of OMG RADIATION!!1!.)

Re:I might be missing something.....

I avoid radiation at all costs. Most of the time I sit safely in front of this CRT screen here reading Slashdot.

Here's what you're missing...

But *WHY* is this stuff freely available?

It isn't. It's only available in very tiny quantities.

Shouldn't it be a controlled substance of some sort?

It is. Maybe you should read the article, or at least think a bit more critically that perhaps both Slashdot and Information Week are just trying to sell eyeballs here and are willing to overlook the fact that the amount available in incredibly tiny.

It almost seems that there are drugs and booze that have tighter restrictions.

Funny, I don't recall being able to buy arbitrary quantities of Polonium down the street from my local drug dealer (liquor stores included).

I'm curious. Are you always so reactionary to news stories, assume the worst, and don't bother thinking critically, or only when the word "nuclear" or "radiation" is in the article?

Re:That amount isn't hazardous

Often times these heavy elements have worse biological properties from their chemical interactions than from the radiation they emit. It might well be that it will be chemically toxic to you long before radiation becomes a worry.

In most cases it's a combination of the two...the chemical properties will ferry the isotope to a sensitive location where the radiation can wreak havoc.

For example, a weak alpha emitter can be held in the palm of your hand without any effects. An element that acts as a drop-in calcium replacement in the body can benignly sit in your bones. Combine both properties, and you'll have irradiated bone marrow and a world of hurt.

Re:Brighter Teeth, For a Price

They're selling 0.1uCi for $69, which is 3x the 0.03uCi lethal dose.

Umm, NO. 0.03uCi is not a lethal dose. Perhaps you are misreading that crap on wikipedia?

"maximum allowable body burden" is NOT the same thing as "Lethal dose".

The government regulates the maximum allowable yearly exposure of workers who handle radiation (I'm one), and the maximum allowable exposure is far far below the lethal dose.

0.03uCi is NOT a lethal dose of Polonium-210

Are we really discussing the operational details of poisoning 10-100% of Chicago?

I don't know what you are talking about, but I'm talking about how the poisoning of one spy is being overyhyped by people like you into 'terrorists can buy enough radioactive material from illegitimate companies on the internet to poison everyone in Chicago!'.

No. They can't. Simple enough.

Re:wow, and run by a loon too

great to see the man who runs this place is certifiable

What, you mean Taco?

Won't detect Po210...

Po210 is an alpha emitter, so the radiation from it won't penetrate the walls of a Geiger tube to register a reading. Geiger counters are only useful for Beta and Gamma sources.

What you need to detect an Alpha source is a scintillation detector.