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United Nuclear 263

Posted by michael from the even-the-name-is-perfect dept.
goombah99 writes "Hey Mr. Science, need a rocket pack for your bicycle? Look no further than United Nuclear scientific supply where under their dangerous products category you can purchase your own radioactive uranium ore, as well as a two million volt generator if you need one. Or what mad scientist can do without his own particle accelerator (which they advertise can mutate DNA in seed, explore the atom, or simply transmute elements)"
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United Nuclear

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  • All of these samples measure over 40,000 CPM and we'll occasionally have some as high as 300,000 CPM.
    This is 2 to 15 times the radiation level as our "High Radiation Level" samples.
    Do Not store these samples on your person, and wash your hands after handling them.

    Yeah, if I'm touching uranium that they label as being "Super High Radiation Level" I'm thinking I may want more than a "hand-washing".

    Mike

    • Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, handwashing helps get rid of any particles that may be on your skin.

    • Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please. (Score:5, Funny)

      by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:35PM (#6475353)
      Everyone is way too paranoid about radiation. Sure you wouldn't want to handle it every day, but a piece of uranium metal is not the same thing as a nuclear bomb, ok?

      You can hold plutonium metal in your hand [cosmos-club.org] and you can even eat uranium metal with minimal harm. [theodoregray.com]

      Wow, huh?

      Even though these samples may be very radioactive, most likely, the handwashing as they say is all you would really need. They're the experts, they deal with it. Trust them.

      • the handwashing as they say is all you would really need. They're the experts, they deal with it. Trust them.

        From their text:

        They should only be attempted by those who are highly experienced in the field and very familiar with each individual topic.

        Health risks:
        In the former German Democratic Republic, thousands of miners were working with Uranium ore. Twenty years earlier they died than the rest of the people, by average.
        See health hazards [antenna.nl].

        • Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please. (Score:5, Funny)

          by Sayjack ( 181286 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @09:09PM (#6475863) Homepage
          In the former German Democratic Republic, thousands of miners were working with Uranium ore. Twenty years earlier they died than the rest of the people, by average.

          They should have washed their hands more.
        • In the former German Democratic Republic, thousands of miners were working with Uranium ore. Twenty years earlier they died than the rest of the people, by average.

          That would probably be because they were breathing the crap. If I recall correctly, the GDR was the eastern portion of Germany, so safety precautions probably weren't the greatest, and miners have a way of kicking of early anyway. Alpha particles(the most common product of natural uranium decay) are generally stopped by the skin, and in fac

      • My father was a heavy metal chemist at a national labratory, working with radioactive material.

        He said, "you can always tell the heavy metal chemists, they wash their hands before and after, urinating".

        There are somethings you don't want contaminated!
      • Interesting. I know for sure (well, 99% sure) that plutonium is not particularly dangerous outside the body (Alpha particles are so strongly interacting they skin blocks most of them, so not many get through to damage internal organs). But inside the body, well, a dose measuring in micrograms is fatal. A kilogram of plutonium in a water supply would kill far more people than a bomb would.

        Any physicists here care to comment on what the difference is? I thought uranium emitted alphas too? Is the parent

        • Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Phanatic1a ( 413374 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @10:16PM (#6476145)
          Gah.

          Saying a kilogram of plutonium in a water supply could kill thousands of people is like saying the water in the oceans could kill every person on earth. Technically, it's true, if you divided it up into nice doses and deposited it specifically in the body where it could do the most harm, you'd kill a bunch of people, but that's not going to happen just by drinking the stuff.

          Chemically, plutonium follows pathways similar to calcium. If you ingest it in a readily absorbable form, it can wind up in the bone marrow, and there it can do bad things. But most forms aren't readily absorbable; divide it finely enough to dissolve in water, and you're going to end up with plutonium oxide, which isn't readily absorbable and won't stay around in the body too long. There were accidents during the Manhattan Project of workers inhaling significant quantities of plutonium, and their death rates by lung cancer weren't any different from the norm. It's a very bad idea to ingest plutonium, but that's probably due more to its heavy metal toxicity than to its radiological hazards.

          The water in the oceans could kill far more people than a bomb would, also, if you split it into handy 2-liter doses and crammed it into everyone's lungs.

          It's not only an alpha emitter, however. Plutonium undergoes significant spontaneous fission, and depending on the fission mode can spit out betas, gammas, or neutrons depending on its whims.
      • The main problem with (pure) plutonium and why I would not handle it is because its very poisonus. However if you put it in a nice thin steel jacket, its not much problem at all. However don't leave in on the shelf to long as the many of the decay daughers like amerisium are nasty gamma emmitters and you don't wanna be arround those.

        James
    • Reminds me of a story one of my old geology professor told. For a long time the geology department of the university I used to go to stored all of their radioactive rocks in one room. So one day an inspector from the main campus came up and was planning on inspecting the radioactive materials the Medical Department. The inspector came up to the campus and the head of the Geology Department suggested that the inspector come over and check out the room with the radioactive rocks. The inspector came out of
    • Can I store these samples in my shoe?

      Does that count as part of my person?

    • Personally, I'd be more concerned about washing my hands after wearing lead gloves.

  • important safety tip! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:03PM (#6475108)
    > Or what mad scientist can do without his own particle accelerator

    If you get more than one, don't cross the streams. It would be ... bad.

    Cats and dogs living together ... MASS HYSTERIA!

  • Potential Advertisement (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheOnyx ( 689726 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:04PM (#6475115)
    "Well, you can't find weapons of mass destruction, but now, you can build one with our at-home kit!"

  • Happy Fun Rock (Score:5, Funny)

    by citking ( 551907 ) * <jay AT citking DOT net> on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:04PM (#6475116) Homepage
    Disclaimer packed with each ore sample:

    Do not taunt happy fun rock. If happy fun rock starts getting hot, turn and walk calmly but quickly towards the nearest bomb shelter...

    • Re:Happy Fun Rock (Score:5, Funny)

      by el-spectre ( 668104 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:20PM (#6475265) Journal
      When I was in high school, a teacher handed around a rock for us to see, and once it was 2/3 of the way around class, said 'oh, if you think you might be pregnant... don't touch that. It's mildly radioactive'

      Thanks prof!
      • On a similar note, my high school biology teacher passed around an orange dinner plate and revealed that the plate was radioactive. He said that many years ago, he used to nab lunches from his students by telling them of some nuclear accident that may have contaminated their sandwiches. He would place the sandwich on the plate and detect radioactivity with a Geiger counter, then promptly confiscate the sandwich for the student's safety (and for his consumption).
        • ...And now his wife wonders why "that part" of him glows in the dark...
        • My high school physics teacher had a coffee mug from this set. The fiestaware orange ones were orange from some uranium glaze I think. Smart.

          In his first radiation lecture he would pull the sucker out of storage for his coffee that day. He'd bring out the geiger counter and explain how it worked etc. and start writing stuff on the board while it ticked away background radiation. Then he'd casually take a sip from his mug and then set it back down next to the geiger counter, which proceeded to go mad.
      • You know, it wouldn't even occur to me warn high school students in case someone might be pregnant...
        There's your cultural difference.
  • This kinda looks like one of The Onion's [theonion.com] sponsors.

  • Oh no, now you've done it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Elpacoloco ( 69306 ) <elpacoloco&dslextreme,com> on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:05PM (#6475122) Journal
    The government spooks have seen this and will take very cool products of the market in 3....2...1...

  • Disappointing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:05PM (#6475124) Journal
    This category contains samples of the most sought after Uranium ore, Pitchblende. Pitchblende is a jet-black, very heavy, semi-crystalline Uranium ore that is pure Uranium Oxide...Very rare and nearly impossible to find at any price. We've been searching all over the world for more Pitchblende for over a year now, and these are our last samples... when they're gone, they're gone....
    Sorry, there are currently no samples for sale in the category.

    I'm surprisingly disappointed given that I had no idea I wanted a piece of pitchblende. But they made it sound so enticing, and then I discover they're out...

  • A cheaper alternative (Score:3, Informative)

    by Allen Varney ( 449382 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:05PM (#6475125) Homepage

    You can almost certainly get anything United Nuclear carries cheaper at Archie McPhee [mcphee.com].

  • 60 MPH on his Schwinn!? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AsnFkr ( 545033 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:05PM (#6475127) Homepage Journal
    Captian...she can't take much more...she's breaking up!!

  • Just what the radioactive Boy Scout needs.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by marbike ( 35297 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:05PM (#6475131)
    Perhaps it is a good thing that this company was not well known when Dave Hahn was working on his breeder reactor.
    http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/rad scout.html

  • PayPal (Score:2, Funny)

    by Vokbain ( 657712 )
    The main part of the site says they take PayPal. I wonder if I can pay for my Uranium that way?

  • Damn you people! (Score:2, Informative)

    by markclong ( 575822 )
    I got like five images into a mirror and you brought it down! Anyway this [massdebate.net] is what I have...not much at all!

  • Not again! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MerryGoByeBye ( 447358 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:10PM (#6475175) Journal
    You people need to stop posting stories that originated on memepool as joke material! Have you no journalistic character? Parroting is not news!

    Christ!
    • While I saw it on memepool and decided to skip it, plenty of news propagates from media source to media source.

      If one simply copied the entry verbatim, that would be lame. If one looked up the site and wrote one's own blurb, then one wrote one's own material.

  • Now it's not cool until it's a one-stop-shop for sharks with frickin' lasers!!!
  • Woo Woo! [unitednuclear.com]

    I think I heard the sound of a million ricer jaws dropping.

  • News Flash! (Score:3, Funny)

    by dapuk ( 603973 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:13PM (#6475204)
    It has been determined that the sudden shortage of uranium is in the hands of members from the slashdot.org terrorist organization.

    The military believe that they plan to build a nuclear warhead. George W Bush has asked for the slashdot.org terrorist communication and control center to be destroyed immediately. It is believed that Cmdr Taco is the mastermind of this attack.

    More news as we get it...

    • The government's mission to destroy the Slashdot terrorist organization has been code-named Government Nuclear Aggressor Annhilation.

      Almost looked like it might succeed a few days ago.

  • New favourite store (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cap'n Roger Wang ( 686938 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:13PM (#6475205)
    Sorry Thinkgeek, but I think that I've just found a new place to spend my discretionary income.

  • Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Terror (Score:5, Funny)

    by docstrange ( 161931 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:13PM (#6475207) Homepage
    Recent conversation between CMDR Taco and Donald Rumsfield.

    Rumsfield: Hey CMDR Taco, there's this website we need to take down that sells nuclear supplies. We think that terrorists might be using them to build weapons of mass destruction.

    Taco: No problem, i'll have a slashdot story posted immediateley. It should stop the website dead in it's tracks until we can permanently shut them down.

    Rumsfield: Excellent, thank you for protecting our country.
  • . . . my own interociter kit, I want nothing to do with them.

  • No responsibility (Score:5, Funny)

    by tarquin_fim_bim ( 649994 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:16PM (#6475228)
    "A few of these projects will instantly kill if precautions are not followed. Although we have personally conducted every experiment & built every project here, we assume no responsibility for your attempt to do so."

    I suppose a refund would be out of the question then.

  • Shipping? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jbfaninmo ( 540470 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:17PM (#6475230)
    Does UPS, Fedex or USPS ship Uranium? Bit of a nasty suprise for the delivery guy.
    • I was in the Bay Area a couple years ago when a FedEx truck overturned on the freeway. It was carrying some of the radioactive dies for an x-ray lab so the truck was placarded "radioactive." They did not, however, know how much radiation or of what type it was. Needless to say the freeway was shut down (I seem to recall it was 880 right by where 238 comes in) in both directions. One of my co-workers' normal hour commute became a 3.5 hour hell ride.

      So, um, yeah I think they deliver!

  • Are they hiring...? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by warriorpostman ( 648010 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:18PM (#6475247) Homepage
    I don't even know if these guys are on the up-and-up as it's already difficult to navigate their website... If they are legit...they would be added to the employment genre, of "ohmygod-whatacooljob-thatwouldbe". Here's a few of their products.

    From the suspiciously cool ...
    This device increases a vehicle's horsepower by an average of 23%. The system does not cause any damage to the engine, and only consumes about 2 amps of electrical power (about as much as your taillights use). The power increase is due to the introduction of large volumes of Ozone to the engine air intake.
    ...all the way to hehebeavis cool.
    Typical "Stun Guns" are handheld devices that produce a high voltage shock to incapacitate an attacker. They have a big disadvantage of requiring you to be very close to the attacker to use them. Our "Water Taser" is a cross between a high output Stun Gun, and a small "Super Soaker" type water pistol. High voltage travels down the conductive water stream and incapacitates the attacker from a distance.


    I gots to get me some of that.
    • only consumes about 2 amps of electrical power (about as much as your taillights use)

      Only 2 amps of power for my taillights? It's been a few years since had my EE classes, but from what I recall that's a helluva lot of current, so I sure hope my taillights use a lot less than 2 amps.
    • Thats cool and all, but does it look like a Phaser?

  • Oh great... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dereklam ( 621517 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:19PM (#6475253)
    ...now there's a database that's going straight to Ashcroft...

    • Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 )
      They claim not

      Privacy Policy
      We do not share any information we get from you with anyone... Period.

      Source [unitednuclear.com]. Of course, customers are expected to affirm that

      3. The undersigned will not use the chemicals and/or supplies in violation of any local, state, or federal law.

      Please confine your counter-revolutionary activities to non-federal states.

  • Invade Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by mobileskimo ( 461008 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:21PM (#6475268) Journal

    • Rumsfield: What do you mean these slashdot terrorist have no oil?

      CmdrTaco: They don't even have a country.

      Rumsfield: Oh well that's just dandy! Now I got two excurisions I need to explain!

      CmdrTaco: They have karma...

      Rumsfield: "karma"? Is it worth anything?

  • Do they sell a slashdot-proof server?
  • Look no further than United Nuclear scientific supply where under their dangerous products category you can purchase your own radioactive uranium ore...
    Is anyone else here thinking of the company Hacker Dynamics from Canadian Bacon [imdb.com]? :^)
  • Merchandise of Uranium
    Server of Talc

    Anyways, no way these guys can be for real. I think the editors need to get their BS detectors checked. While it is possible to sell refined uranium and uranium ores on the free market, it ain't easy, and it sure as hell doesn't use paypal.

  • Suppliers like in "Science Made Stupid"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by hiryuu ( 125210 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:45PM (#6475408)

    I can't help but be reminded of some of the "supply stores" mentioned in "Science Made Stupid" [besse.at] as the places to get various dangerous things. U-235 rods from "Bud's Scientific Supply," anyone?

    Footnote on page 25 (might not be in the web version linked above): "A fuller discussion of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle may be found in the Appendix. Then again, it may not."


  • What irony... (Score:4, Funny)

    by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @07:58PM (#6475487)
    ... they're selling this stuff online and I get my nailclippers confiscated before boarding my plane. What a world we live in ...
  • No interocitor part can be replaced. Bear this in
    mind while assembling. Use only genuine interocitor parts.

  • Holly smokes! Am I the only one who thinks that the dude on the bike on the rocket pack page [unitednuclear.com] looks like a teen-aged Bob Lazar [ufomind.com], the guy who claims to have worked at Area 51?!?!? Propane my eye... I'll bet that thing runs on antimatter for sure!

    On a side note, check out the lame-ass shifter and the headlight mounted on the bike. All I can say is that I sure hope the rocket worked, or that dude must have gotten beat up a lot.

  • Place an order (Score:3, Funny)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @08:28PM (#6475650) Journal
    Hello, I'd like to place an order for 30,000 tons of your uranium ore. I'll also need some good centrifuges.

  • Plenty of Radioactive items... (Score:3, Informative)

    by craenor ( 623901 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @09:01PM (#6475809) Homepage
    Original c.1950's Orange Fiesta Ware. Mantles from a Coleman lantern. The detection element from a smoke alarm. Old (c. 1900-1920) ceramic dental work. Rose tinted sunglasses from the 1950's.

    All of those items are radioactive. In fact, the Orange Fiesta Wear is about 25,000-50,000 cpm of beta radiation.

    Beta radiation cannot penetrate through your clothes. Alpha radiation cannot penetrate through the dead skin cells covering most of your body (but avoid getting it near your eyes). Gamma's will go through you no matter what, but unless they are in high doses they do little damage. As for neutrons, you should never have a reason to encounter a neutron source...but if you do, you are likely screwed.

    NNPS - Class 9204!!

    • Re:Plenty of Radioactive items... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Phanatic1a ( 413374 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @10:31PM (#6476199)
      And by comparison, bananas shoot off about 3500 pCi/kg from Potassium-40. Beer, about 400, and beef about 3000. Some nuts, about 7000 pCi/kg from Radium-226. A Ci is a curie, 3.7 * 1010 disintegrations per second.

      So that bunch of bananas sitting on your kitchen counter is bombarding you with about 130,000 beta particles each second. Natural uranium has an activity level of 0.7 pCi/g, so a kilogram of uranium sitting on your counter would be spitting 26,000 alphas at you in that time frame. And, of course, organic matter has a natural activity of 6 pCi/g due to carbon-14, so you yourself are releasing, oh, about 15 million disintegrations per second (3.7E10 disintegrations per second per curie * 1E-9 curies per picocurie * 6 pCi per gram * 70,000 grams per average adult male).

      Just for comparison's sake.

  • Darwin's theory of natural selection beckons.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sayjack ( 181286 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @09:07PM (#6475850) Homepage
    I can hear Darwin's theory of natural selection beckoning me to resign from the gene pool as I salivate and fantasize over my jet engine driven bicycle spewing lightning bolts as I complete my newspaper route with unprecedented speed and precision.... Can you feel it calling you as well?
  • There used to be a company with the name "United Nuclear" located in Norwich, Connecticut. They closed up shop and disappeared about five or ten years ago. When they left, they donated some very cool stuff to worthy outfits; our local Fire Department received a hazardous gas sniffing device, which was quite advanced at the time.

    I think the original company is gone, and someone else has adopted their name.

    The original company used to also own property in Uncasville, Connecticut. That property was later b

  • Only a matter of time before some jury of creationist-level intellects awards $84 million in damages against this company for some kid setting himself on fire with their products.
  • That's a level of slashdotting I hadn't seen before. Every link to unitednuclear.com is now redirecting to the hosting company's suspended account page [mercyhosting.com].

  • Great job on the /.'ing guys... (Score:3, Funny)

    by SealBeater ( 143912 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @10:18PM (#6476149) Homepage
    This Account Has Been Suspended
    Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

    Way to go, nothing like kicking a cool website off the web.

    SealBeater

  • Boy Scout Who Built A Breeder Reactor In His Shed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RedSynapse ( 90206 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @11:33PM (#6476406)
    Personally I think this site is a hoax and it's already been taken down.

    But if you want to read a really good (and factual) article about a boy scout who built a breeder reactor in his back yard out of radioactive paint and old smoke detectors check out the Harper's magazine story here. [findarticles.com]

    It's a long article but a great read.

  • Terrorist Honeytoken? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RedSynapse ( 90206 ) on Friday July 18, 2003 @11:52PM (#6476456)
    A thought just occurred to me. I wonder if the goverment has set up any phony businesses like this as a type of terrorist honeytoken?

    Just throw up some page on the web that says it sells unrefined uranium ore as a novelty or bulk amounts of chemicals used in making a conventional bomb or chemical weapon - no questions asked - and see who it is who's interested in buying these things.

    If it we me, I'd create a site called ScienceSalvage.com. Sell a bunch of legit science junk, but then occasionally throw in that you just found a lot of powdered cyanide or an old cesium powered radiation treatment machine and see who's willing to shell out a fair chunk of change for something like that. If they eventually order you can just say sorry we already had another buyer and hadn't bothered to update the site. The next day white vans appear infront of the would be buyer's house.

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