Polonium-210 Available Through Mail Order 481
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."
Re:wow, and run by a loon too (Score:1, Informative)
Loon would be the polite phrase here on plant zogarth.
That amount isn't hazardous (Score:1, Informative)
On the other hand, I'm not sure of the biochemical effects of Polonium on the system. 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.
antistatic brushes (Score:4, Informative)
Wow... (Score:3, Informative)
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... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Moo (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Polonium and Smoking (Score:5, Informative)
Selex
Does the United Nuclear's webpage sell that too?
Re:antistatic brushes (Score:3, Informative)
a great Wired article on United Nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
hilarious Independent editorial by Mark Steel (Score:4, Informative)
More scary then cyanide (Score:2, Informative)
Bob Lazar is an alien (Score:1, Informative)
Magnetic hazards (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:That amount isn't hazardous (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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:Brighter Teeth, For a Price (Score:3, Informative)
No, 0.03 microcurie is _not_ the lethal dosis. 0.03 microcuries is the maximum that you are _allowed_ to swallow without the company you work at getting into trouble if it is found inside you.
Let's say you work at a company manufacturing rat poison. Obviously, some amount of rat poisin could enter your body. Tiny amounts _will_ enter your body. Health and safety authorities will have set a limit of how much rat poison is allowed to be in the body of the workers, without negative consequences to the company. That amount will be far, far, far away from a lethal dosis. It will be the maximum amount that doesn't affect you, not the smallest amount that kills you.
Quantity matters (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Polonium and Smoking (Score:1, Informative)
Re:A Lump of Polonium 210... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm [unitednuclear.com]
Re:Feh (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Not anymore (Score:4, Informative)
You should educate yourself before you speak again on this subject.
Ross
Re:Remember your Paracelsus: (Score:3, Informative)
Radon, as a heavier-than-air gas, obviously sinks. A person living in a basement apartment might have 1000% greater yearly environmental radiation exposure than someone living in a high-rise.
And I'm sure flight attendants who routinely work the long trans-Atlantic routes get hit with a lot from space. Etc.
Re:Loose lips sink ships (Score:2, Informative)
This [wikipedia.org] is mustard gas. Not the same. Mod parent down.
Re:A Lump of Polonium 210... (Score:4, Informative)
at a total cost of about $1 million - to have a toxic amount.