United Nuclear

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)"

Comments

on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[sweeney37]

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.

[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.

[gantrep]

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 and you can even eat uranium metal with minimal harm.

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.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Tycho]

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 the room with the rocks extremely frightened. After the inspector calmed down a bit he came up with all sorts of suggestions on how to safely store these radioactive rocks. It was decided that the implementation of these suggestions was too expensive. So one of the professors in the Geology Department decided to store the rocks in his backyard in an old filing cabinet. These rocks are probably still in his backyard to this day.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Clockwork Apple]

Are these the same experts that say that Depleted Uranium weapons do no leave any harmfull after effects after they are used? Are they the ones that say you can hide from an H-Bomb by crouching under your school desk?

YOU trust them.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[_Splat]

The depleted uranium used in weapons can be easily and verifiably shown to produce no hazardous levels of radiation. As far as I know, the amount of radiation produced by depleted uranium is indistinguishable from background.

People that claim that depleted uranium caused their illnesses are mistaken. The cancer rate among people exposed to depleted uranium is the same as that of the population. Any appearence of depleted uranium-caused illnesses is an illusion, just like the Gulf War syndrome. (Studies show that the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome are just as common among people who were not in the Gulf War.)

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Clockwork Apple]

I actually got this info from an interview I saw with an Army General (I think he was a general) who was incharge of the DU risk factor investigation team, and once he turned in his report it was tossed aside because we were already into destert storm. From what I hear he retired and is leading a movement to look into it in a more open manner.

Just saying I beleived what he said and the other reports they showed on the program.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[vpetersen]

As I was getting my hopes up about sending a quote for a bag fifty pounds of 'Super High Radiation Level' ore for personal enjoyment/entertainment, and scrolled down the pages, in big red letters it read:

'Sorry, there are currently no samples
for sale in the category'

Frustrated does not describe how I feel.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[yanestra]

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.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Eevee]

Who would you trust? How about The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists?

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[jdreed1024]

Are they the ones that say you can hide from an H-Bomb by crouching under your school desk?

See, everyone loves to bring this up but no one stops to think about it. "Duck and cover" was never supposed to protect you from radiation. No one ever thought that you could "hide" from an H-bomb. People knew that radiation would penetrate most things, and that the only useful place to be that was potentially safe was deep underground. And, in fact, if your school had a fallout shelter, you went there instead of crouching under your desk.

"Duck and cover" was designed to prevent you from getting maimed or killed by shrapnel, flying glass, and the like. Yes, if you're too close to the blast, you lose anyway, however a large number of deaths in an atomic bomb blast result from shrapnel, burns (from the heat), the pressure wave, etc. Crouching under your desk will help minimize some of that damage to your vital organs (again, if you're far enough from the blast to not get vaporized)

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can hold Plutonium in your hand. I won't, not due to it's nuclear properties, but due to its chemical properties. Plutonium Oxide is very toxic.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[adagioforstrings]

Are these the same experts that say that Depleted Uranium weapons do no leave any harmfull after effects after they are used

Uh, I thought that was the point? I know what you mean, though, it just seems kind of funny:

Scientist 1: Today we're testing to see if there are harmful effects from depleted uranium weapons
Scientist 2: Righto. Commence with experiment.
(Scientist 2 activates 30mm chaingun with depleted uranium shells to deliver DU to test subject)
Scientist 2: Uh...harmful effects?
(Scientist 1 inspects test subject)
Scientist 1: Hmm, hard to say. Maybe on that bit over there?

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[pavese]

-------

Geiger counter in every human revealed
09:45 03 June 03 New Scientist.

How much damage does cosmic radiation do to frequent flyers? Is depleted uranium from shells causing cancers in former war zones such as Kosovo and Iraq? The discovery that certain kinds of radiation leave a distinctive pattern of damage in our cells could help answer these questions.

-----------

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9 99 93768

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[homer_ca]

DU is almost pure U-238 which is less radioactive than the U-235 used to make bombs, but I suspect some of the health risks of uranium are chemical instead of radiological. Uranium is a heavy metal like lead or mercury. Breathing in uranium dust or drinking contaminated water can't be good.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[IWannaBeAnAC]

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 post & link incorrect?

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Sayjack]

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.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Please don't, it's pyrophoric.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Depleted uranium in bullets is not used for its radioactive effects: it is used for its inertia. a bullet made of uranium will be much heavier than the same bullet made of steel or most other metals. Given a strong enough push, it can plow through more guts & armor.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[oolon]

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

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Guppy06]

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

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Phanatic1a]

Insightful?

Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. You're more radioactive than an equivalent mass of DU, because of the carbon-14 and other trace radioisotopes in your body.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[csguy314]

Yes it is. The radiation from DU bombs from the first invasion of Iraq, more than a decade ago, has caused massive problems for the people of Iraq. They had no equipment to clean it up (because of the sanctions) and the cancer rate in Iraq rose 70% after Desert Storm.
The problem with DU is that it vapourizes on impact and the dust goes off into the environment. It goes off and gets into everything. And the effects of DU on the people it hits are pretty atrocious; they call them "crispy critters" (a pretty terrible euphimism if you ask me).
Now the US has gone and dumped a whole lot more DU on the country. And all those reports saying DU has 'no harmful effects' were admittedly done by the US military.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Phanatic1a]

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.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[SugoiMonkey]

Everything is good in small portions, even atomic bombs. They are perfect for getting rid of those skin deficiencies, cancers, warts and well...skin.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Uart]

All i know about plutonium is that the best way to get it is from Uranium in a breeder reactor...

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Are you confusing uranium with plutonium? I have done a bit of reading of the textbooks in the last hour; I agree uranium is (probably) moderately ingested in small quantities, but plutonium is a quite different matter. Can you provide any links to the workers inhaling plutonium oxides and surviving? I worked at Los Alamos for a while (only in non-classified areas), but I did get the distinct impression that they did absolutely everything possible to avoid inhaling any plutonium oxides - and because of the alpha radiation, never mind the heavy-metal toxicity.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Rasta Prefect]

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 fact can be sufficiently sheilded by a sheet of paper. Not particularly dangerous to hold, as long as your not keeping it in a pocket next to the family jewels.

That said, you're not going to catch me holding onto a big chuck of it without a damn good reason. :)

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Phanatic1a]

Are you confusing uranium with plutonium?

Nope.

but plutonium is a quite different matter.

No, it's really not. If you take plutonium into your GI tract, only about .05% of it will be absorbed into the body. Inhalation can be much more significant, depending on the particle size. You might end up absorbing 90% of it, if they're the right (or from your point of view, wrong) size, and that can do very bad things to your lungs, as well as ending up in your skeleton, as I said before.

Breathing in 5,000 3-micron particles will increase your risk of a fatal cancer about 1% above the background. I, for one, would also do "absolutely everything possible" to avoid inhaling any plutonium oxides, but then again, I'm also not a smoker.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Well, you are probably right (actually, I am too drunk to tell), but fore sure plutonium (metal) is much more radioactive than uranium (metal). Of course, the metal form is not the most dangerous.

Some links I found trying (unsucessfully) to argue the case:

A discussion guide on uranium
Alpha radiation fact-sheet (The link to the pdf on plutonium is especially interesting)
and pu.org ought to be the authoratitive site?

My guess is, plutonium in its solid form is not too bad, and will pass through the body without too much damage (as long as you have not ingested too much). Oxides on the other hand, even if I were an alcoholic base-jumping smoker, I would avoid.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, pu.dod.gov would the the authoratitive site, but of course, that is not publically accessible (even if it exists)

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Talking Goat]

I hope you guys will allow me to completely dork the fsck out and ask a radiationally-related Star Trek question.

Does anyone remember that episode of ST:TNG where Data woke up (reactivated) on that planet and didn't know where he was, or who he was? Remember how he was transporting some sort of radioactive material, and it was making everyone in the town sick because they were making jewelery out of it and it poisoned the water supply and all that?

I only mention this because all this readioactive talk reminded me of how Data made that frame with canvas stretched across it that was soaked in something that caused it to become luminescent when the radioactive particles passed through it. I was wondering if anyone knew what was the canvas soaked in and is that something that is even feasible? I've always wondered about that...

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[BravoFourEcho]

Um, that would be a photo of someone in a burned out tank. While DU is favored in part for its pyrophoric effects, that guy was roasted by good old fashioned fire. A fire which may have been started by a DU penetrator, but the fuel would have been chemical propellant and diesel.

If a human was hit with any 120mm APFSDS penetrator at combat ranges, there wouldn't be much left, whether or not it was made of DU.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Jeremy Erwin]

Nope. That's U-238. Depleted Uranium is 99.8% U-238, 0.2% U-235, and 0.001% U-234. It is about 60% as radioactive as natural Uranium (99.27% U-238, 0.72% U-235, and 0.0054 U-234. source.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another example is the fiesta-ware dishes, the original line atleast was given its orange color by using uranium in the paint.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[gantrep]

Yes, like I said in my post way up there, people have a lot of funny ideas about radioactivity and nuclear weapons. One of those funny ideas is that nuclear bombs just vaporize everything they touch and there'd be no point in hiding under a desk if one where to hit. Sure, there'd be no point in that if it hit your stupid elementary school, but the area that is absolutely destroyed by a nuclear bomb is not that large. If you are a good ways away from it, hiding under a table or in a doorframe could do a great deal of good. A nuclear blast is more like a tornado that affects a very large area, plus a large scale fire-bombing. In fact, when the US hit Hiroshima, many there thought that that was what it was, that the Americans had somehow sprayed fuel over a very large area and ignited it, similar to attacks they had used earlier.

To get an idea of what a nuclear blast is ACTUALLY like, and about it's damages, read John Hershey's Hiroshima. Although today's nuclear weapons are much more powerful.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Phanatic1a]

I stand by my statement. Uranium before isotope separation is .7 pCi/g. The human body's about .6 pCi/g, counting only the C-14 isotope. Factor in the K-40, the thorium, the radium, and all the other stuff you've got merrily decaying away inside of you, and you're up over .7.

I'm gonna switch to Becquerels 'cause the numbers are easier. 25 Bq/kg for uranium, so 1750 Bq for a 70kg mass of uranium. For 70 kg of human body, you're talking about 15,000 Bq just from the C-14, and another 4400 Bq from the K-40.

Source.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Zarquon]

As an aside, what about the (probably mistaken) rumor that the Manhattan project considered immediate high amputation the only treatmeat for subcutaneous plutonium exposure? The earliest reference I've seen to it (secondary, fiction) was _The Long Watch_, Heinlein, 1949.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[mlyle]

I don't know about the ST:TNG episode, but maybe I can answer the resto f your question.

There's lots of molecules that will exhibit fluorescence when irradiated. Radiation can cause electrons to jump up to higher orbits, and when they settle down, the extra energy is emitted as a photon.

Watch hands used to be painted with a mixture of radium and zinc sulfide. Radium would emit gamma rays as it decayed, and that would cause the zinc sulfide to fluoresce. This way they didn't have to charge up in sunlight to glow in a dark room, but it was later discovered this was hazardous to your health. This can also happen with bet and alpha rays (anodofluorescence, I believe). The same basic technique is used with tritium on night-sights for guns.. with less dangerous beta decay.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[redhat421]

The depleted uranium used in weapons can be easily and verifiably shown to produce no hazardous levels of radiation. As far as I know, the amount of radiation produced by depleted uranium is indistinguishable from background.

I thought that the real issue using DU ammo was heavy metal toxicity which is a serious issue.

More info on DU and heavy metal toxicity.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[anshil]

Major Doug Rokke's opinion....

Doug Rokke has a PhD in health physics and was originally trained as a forensic scientist. When the Gulf War started, he was assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and sent to the Gulf. What he experienced has made him a passionate voice for peace, traveling the country to speak out. The following interview was conducted by the director of the Traprock Peace Center, Sunny Miller, supplemented with questions from YES! editors....


The War Against Ourselves

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Spudley]

'Sorry, there are currently no samples for sale in the category'

Of course not - the just sold their entire stock to Saddam Hussein. ;-)

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[jez9999]

Although today's nuclear weapons are much more powerful.

Yes. So your above passage about nuclear bombs not being that strong is looking rather incorrect now.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

DU is almost as radioactive as natural uranium. It is VERY radioactive!

Uh.. Depleted uranium is 40% as radioactive as natural uranium. A 60% difference is "almost"?

Incidentally, uranium is in most soils, sand, and rock. That cinder block wall around your basement is emitting radiation from its uranium. I couldn't find the uranium content of Iraqi sand -- but Iraq has 3 uranium mines, so there is some concentrated material in the area.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most of the deaths and injuries outside the "total destruction" area are likely to be from falls. Falling from 20-30 feet up is not good for one's health.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[bsane]

So your above passage about nuclear bombs not being that strong is looking rather incorrect now.

The point is that no matter how big the area of 'total destruction' is, there will be an even bigger area that is hit by a shock wave/debris/etc and not vaporized. In those areas it would help to protect yourself, even if only under a desk.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[jafiwam]

Sigh.

Depleted Uranium is not very radioactive, less so than say.... the smoke detector in your home/apartment.

The cancer rate might have gone up due to bad health (maybe sanctions, maybe not) or maybe because health care GOT BETTER. After all, Mr. Ali does not get listed as a cancer statistic if he does not go to the doctor. If anything, you should be spouting hate for Saddam because he lit all those oil wells on fire, burned oil is not a cancer causing agent either is it? Hmm? It's all the DU we shot at people! Of course!

DU does vaporize on impact, but so does the armor, plastic and flesh it hits too. So you might as well blame the Russian tank makers for putting poly-plastic whatzits in the T-62. DU is a much better armor penetrator because it is so dense, as opposed to you, who is dense but would simply splat on the outside of a T-62.

War is a high-risk behavior. People die because of it. Deal with it, or argue with it, but you should at least get a FEW facts straight before you go spouting Left-Wing FUD. Mmm'kay?

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[lord_nightrose]

Burned-out tank, eh? Ah, I see. Hence the big WINDOW in the background. Since all tanks have windows. and STANDARD STEERING WHEELS.

Re:on second thought, pass the lead gloves please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! No fair using logic and reasoning! This is slashdot, you're putting the parent poster at a disadvantage.

Oooh

[Vokbain]

Wicked!

Re:Oooh

[pajamacore]

Big deal. Batman has had this for years.

Uhh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this sort of thing a really good idea?

Re:Uhh...

[homerjs42]

yes, yes it is...

But do they have

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Fusion?

Sweet!

[sailgreg]

Sweet, now I can finally get this stuff!

important safety tip!

[Tumbleweed]

> 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!

Re:important safety tip!

[fireboy1919]

I'm a little fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing.

What do you mean, "bad?"

Re:important safety tip!

[Tumbleweed]

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Total protonic reversal.

Re:important safety tip!

[NecroPuppy]

Egon: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ray: Total protonic reversal....

Re:important safety tip!

[fireboy1919]

Ok right that's BAD, important safety tip.

Thanks Egon.

Re:important safety tip!

[Mikey-San]

[a few minutes later]

We came, we saw, we kicked its ASS!

Re:important safety tip!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two in the box!

Ready to go!

We be fast, and they be slow!

Re:important safety tip!

[Tablizer]

don't cross the streams. It would be ... bad. Cats and dogs living together ... MASS HYSTERIA!

Maybe even something weirder: Middle East peace

Re:important safety tip!

[Tumbleweed]

>> don't cross the streams. It would be ... bad. Cats and dogs living together ... MASS HYSTERIA!

> Maybe even something weirder: Middle East peace

Well, no need to talk crazylike. Cats and dogs can live together. There will never be peace in the Middle East.

Potential Advertisement

[TheOnyx]

"Well, you can't find weapons of mass destruction, but now, you can build one with our at-home kit!"

Happy Fun Rock

[citking]

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

[el-spectre]

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!

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[Anonymous Coward]

He just did you a big favor. Kids are not worth it. More people need to do what he's done!

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[danthedanish]

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).

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[ornil]

You know, it wouldn't even occur to me warn high school students in case someone might be pregnant...
There's your cultural difference.

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[Wolfrider]

...And now his wife wonders why "that part" of him glows in the dark...

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[LauraScudder]

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. He'd just turn back to the board as if he didn't notice while the whole class stared wide-eyed at his radioactive coffee.

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, this was just to see who the naughty girls were, so that they could be disciplined.

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[Anonymous Coward]

My high school had one of these fiestaware plates also. The teacher (a fellow reader of slashdot incidently) was quick to point out it was one of the non-harmful types of radiation (alpha IIRC).

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[ndevice]

Fiestaware I believe. I want to get some of those plates too.

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[3waygeek]

Did said biology teacher acquire the power to clean dishes telekinetically?

Re:Happy Fun Rock

[el-spectre]

It happens. Given how irresponsible teens sometimes are about sex, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more.

Kinda

[inertia187]

This kinda looks like one of The Onion's sponsors.

Oh no, now you've done it!

[Elpacoloco]

The government spooks have seen this and will take very cool products of the market in 3....2...1...

Re:Oh no, now you've done it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I'm pissed. There goes my primary source^H^H^H^H^H^Hresource.

Re:Oh no, now you've done it!

[roothog]

Interestingly, the site now returns an error stating "This account has been suspended". I wonder who is responsible for the suspension: Mercy Hosting or someone who wields a bit more power...

Re:Oh no, now you've done it!

[ceejayoz]

It's the standard (automatic) out-of-bandwidth screen for the Cpanel/WHM Manager webhosting software that a lot of web hosts use...

And.... Slashdotted.

[JayBlalock]

Sigh.

Disappointing...

[Otter]

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...

Re:Disappointing...

[n1nj4k3n]

Very rare and nearly impossible to find at any price.

All your rare nuclear ore belongs to us!

Re:Disappointing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Homer: Dog for sale! Dog for sale!
Dr. Hibbert: How much for the dog?
Homer: Oh, he's not for sale.

A cheaper alternative

[Allen Varney]

You can almost certainly get anything United Nuclear carries cheaper at Archie McPhee.

Re:A cheaper alternative

[Jeremy Erwin]

uh huh. Sure. Go Ahead. Try searching for 'uranium'. Try searching for 'ore.' How about 'tesla'?

Re:A cheaper alternative

[Allen Varney]

Sheesh, it was a joke! Archie McPhee sells, like, X-ray specs and weird googly-eyed dolls and rubber alligators. Sheesh again. I'll shut up now.

Re:A cheaper alternative

[LostboyTNT]

I dunno.. was that a joke, or a cheap plug? (some days, you can't really tell!)

60 MPH on his Schwinn!?

[AsnFkr]

Captian...she can't take much more...she's breaking up!!

Re:60 MPH on his Schwinn!?

[Svartalf]

Scary, huh?

I remember having that model of Schwinn when I was a kid. Nice bike- I sure as hell wouldn't want to be going 60 on it. :-)

WMD?

[stephenMF]

Iraq is trying to get rid of their WMD material?

Re:WMD?

[buffer-overflowed]

No, this just means you don't have to goto Niger to get your uranium.

Just what the radioactive Boy Scout needs....

[marbike]

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

Re:Just what the radioactive Boy Scout needs....

[myLobster]

Ah you beat me to the punch marbike! I watched Alt-TV on Friday evening (GMT) which highlighted David Hahn's incredible story which was news to me (hey I've led a sheltered life in my nuclear family :)

I was skeptical at first especially since the programme had an whiff of mockumentary about it and the fact that the boy scouts offer an atomic energy badge, but googling around after the show yielded some interesting links including the one you posted:

here and here

Re:Just what the radioactive Boy Scout needs....

[Siriaan]

From the article:

Neither Patty nor Michael had any idea what the shy teenager was up to, although they thought it was odd that David often wore a mask in the shed, and would sometimes discard his clothing after working there until two in the morning. They chalked it up to their own limited education.

I have to respect parents with enough balls to admit that their children are smarter than they are.

PayPal

[Vokbain]

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

Re:PayPal

[Tsali]

If you're a Libyan national, you have a fighting chance...

Missing Tutorials?

[iansmith]

Looks like there are only two working links in the dangerous projects section. Bummer.

Slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already under the Slash Effect (TM). Google cache: http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:D_VwOnZB_g4J: www.unitednuclear.com/+UNITEDNUCLEAR&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8

Re:Slashdotted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actual html link

Damn you people!

[markclong]

I got like five images into a mirror and you brought it down! Anyway this is what I have...not much at all!

Re:Damn you people!

[markclong]

rocket pack
dangerous products
radioactive uranium

Not again!

[MerryGoByeBye]

You people need to stop posting stories that originated on memepool as joke material! Have you no journalistic character? Parroting is not news!

Christ!

Re:Not again!

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:Not again!

[MerryGoByeBye]

You have a point.

But this was so flagrant; it was almost exactly 24 hours after the memepool entry. Not only was it a repeat, it was a very late repeat. And it's not the first time.

Just my $.02

Will Scott Evil Shop There?

[Eberlin]

Now it's not cool until it's a one-stop-shop for sharks with frickin' lasers!!!

Re:Will Scott Evil Shop There?

[MADCOWbeserk]

Try http://www.villainsupply.com/

Just wait till they put a big red 'R' on it!

[teamhasnoi]

Woo Woo!

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

Re:Just wait till they put a big red 'R' on it!

[neurostar]

Unfortunately, the webserver doesn't seem to be as fast as those cars on the site.... of course, it's still faster than the ricer cars I see everywhere.

neurostar

Obligitory /. joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems they aren't using a nuclear powered server.

News Flash!

[dapuk]

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...

Re:News Flash!

[daveo0331]

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

[Cap'n Roger Wang]

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

[docstrange]

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.

I LIKE TO "MASSDEBATE" AT NIGHT

[Anonymous Coward]

OH YES

Bush Administration

[eskimoboy]

Finally! A creative new place to tell everybody where Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were purchased!

Re:Bush Administration

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that goes by the name "United Nookyuler"

Danger Dan would have loved the Jet-Schwinn

[kremvax]

For the referrence:
(The goofiest flash jet-bike cartoon ever)

http://atomo.com/stuntmasters

"Lemme tell ya hank, it's all about guts... The bugs in your teeth, the wind in your face.... Bugs and wind and guts....yup."

Kremvax

If they can't sell me . . .

[StefanJ]

. . . my own interociter kit, I want nothing to do with them.

No responsibility

[tarquin_fim_bim]

"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?

[jbfaninmo]

Does UPS, Fedex or USPS ship Uranium? Bit of a nasty suprise for the delivery guy.

Re:Shipping?

[Steve1952]

I was told in physics class that in the early days of experimentation with radioactivity, one early physicist could tell if his samples had arrived in the mail by watching to see if the gold leaf in his electrometer fell when the postman walked in! Poor postman...

Re:Shipping?

[Shadow Wrought]

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!

Re:Shipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit of a nasty suprise for the delivery guy.

Yeah, nasty surprise as in, "ooh, my back!" That stuff is heavy!

Re:Shipping?

[wagnerer]

FedEx is the best at handling rad shipments. UPS isn't very comfortable with it if they still do Yellow I packages and I don't think the post office will ship any at all. Just hang out at a hospital's loading dock for awhile and you'll probably see a fedex truck with a DOT rad symbol on it pull up sometime.

ooooh ....

[taniwha]

perhaps Mr Bush could finally find some weapons of mass destruction

Re:ooooh ....

[madpierre]

Weapons of mass conversion.

E=MC^2

Booom!

Are they hiring...?

[warriorpostman]

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.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[Mr. Sketch]

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.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[_Splat]

Amps are current, not power. If taillights draw 2A from a 12V battery, that's 24W, which isn't really that much, compared to an ordinary light bulb, which is around 100W. The voltage available in your home is 120V, so you'd only need around .83A.. As voltage goes down, more current is required to produce the same output power. (We're talking resistors here...a lightbulb happens to be a resistor that makes light) .. On the other hand, a tiny 2.4W flashlight bulb draws .5A off 4 AA batteries.

Perhaps what you're thinking of is the description of how many amps it takes to kill a person. About 50mA (.05A) is enough to kill someone; however, a person's resistance is very high. That's why the .5A that can be produced by flashlight batteries won't kill you..

Re:Are they hiring...?

[madpierre]

Its only 24 watts assuning a 12vdc battery.

Sounds like some kinda ionizer if its producing
ozone. Dunno why that would increase HP tho.
Sounds like BS 2 me.

Couldnt get on their site due to /. effect.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[drinkypoo]

Ozone is O3 and it breaks down relatively easily, more oxygen is a good thing. Ostensibly the idea is that it has the same effect as nitrous oxide injection; You squirt N2O in there and it breaks up and you get more available oxygen. However I don't see how it could make anything more efficient; The best it should be able to do is improve your emissions. (Engines can run rich or lean, since you never get a perfect ratio. Running lean causes detonation under load so we run rich, and unburned fuel is always passed out of the cylinder. This fuel is then burned in the catalytic converter, which often gets more air from a "smog pump".)

Re:Are they hiring...?

[FasterThanLight]

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.

*cough*bullshit!*cough* Nothing against the parent poster, but this fails the maxim that there's no such thing as a free lunch. As with nitrous oxide (the bottled power adder of Fast & Furious fame, of late), when you cram more oxygen into a combustion engine you have to add proportionally more fuel... or the combustion goes lean, things get hot, and then go BOOM! Or SKRANK! But they don't go well. That's if the oxygen in ozone is available for combustion at the pressures in question- IANAP and don't know if it is or not. Forgot- wrong forum for that...

Re:Are they hiring...?

[hobbesmaster]

Thats cool and all, but does it look like a Phaser?

Re:Are they hiring...?

[alienw]

Dude... Ozone is made from oxygen. So you wouldn't get more oxygen in the engine, and it would probably DECREASE performance. I'm pretty sure you could improve the performance more easily by adding a turbocharger which would direct more air into the engine. Or just getting an oxygen tank and blowing yourself up.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[Osty]

Ostensibly the idea is that it has the same effect as nitrous oxide injection; You squirt N2O in there and it breaks up and you get more available oxygen. However I don't see how it could make anything more efficient; The best it should be able to do is improve your emissions.

See how Nitrous Oxide works in engines. You're not quite right. By introducing more oxygen, you're able to burn more fuel, which means more power. It's not about efficiency, because you're not saving fuel or reducing emissions. It's about power. It's the same principle on which a turbocharger or supercharger operates, except those work by introducing more air (and thus oxygen), rather than NO2. As well, since NO2 helps to cool the intake air, it's denser, which means you can get in even more oxygen (same principle as an intercooler on a turbo/supercharger, or a cold air intake on a NA engine).

Re:Are they hiring...?

[drinkypoo]

No, I know you're adding more oxygen and that only allows you to burn more fuel, if you don't add more fuel, where does the energy come from? I also know that nitrous is beautiful with turbochargers because it cools the intake gases which are heated by the turbo, allowing a denser charge and reducing the heat brought into the engine.

None of this is news to me, I just didn't go into it. I did mention I believe that you get more oxygen. Adding more oxygen into the system could potentially make you run leaner, which is a good thing up until you get detonation, but maybe ozone's properties would tend to prevent detonation somehow - I don't see how, so this sounds bogus to me.

It seems to me that raising compression, as you do with forced induction, will have different effects than using nitrous. Nitrous makes the mixture contain more oxygen, but does not raise its pressure, so you can use it on a high-compression engine. Forced induction systems with a lot of boost often require lowering your compression (such as by replacing your pistons.) So there's obviously some difference there.

Some things some people have said to me make me think that a high compression engine is harder to start, or something, and slower to rev up. This is why it's neat to have a supercharger, because the boost scales up with your RPMs, but it's also why it's cool to have a turbocharger (especially on small engines) because the boost is low until a certain (somewhat specifiable) point and then it ramps up quickly, which ostensibly you do once you have approached/are approaching peak power.

So I'd think there's substantial difference between nitrous and forced induction. If you use nitrous, I'd think you'll be able to apply it sooner, and rev up faster. I know that many aftermarket ECUs will control nitrous and when you go to WOT at low RPM they will squeeze until the turbo spools up, so you get good accelerating power even before the turbo kicks in. If it's undesirable to have full boost at low RPMs (and not entirely achievable either, but that's often described as a feature; If that wasn't worthwhile for some motors, all forced induction would be done with superchargers) then nitrous must be superior to forced induction at low RPMs.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[Osty]

So I'd think there's substantial difference between nitrous and forced induction.

Of course there is. I didn't mean to imply they were the same, only that they work on the same principle. More oxygen means more fuel can be burned. They go about it in different methods, but the goal is the same. And of course you're right in that if you don't increase your fuel injection when you increase your oxygen intake, you don't get more power. However, most modern cars have O2 sensors that will detect if you're passing more oxygen through the engine, and adjust the fuel mixture to suit, meaning that adding this ozone thing will make your engine run richer unless you intervene.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[bentcd]

I don't think they're saying that you will not be burning more fuel. They are just saying that you will get more power out of the engine. Presumably, 1 mole of O3 isn't a whole lot more volumous than 1 mole of O2 and on the face of it, it delivers 50% more oxygen. Assuming that Oxygen atoms are the bottleneck in the average engine and that petrol flow can be painlessly increased to burn all that new oxygen, I can see that this might work very well. It seems suspicious that this wouldn't put a lot of extra strain on your engine though.

Re:Are they hiring...?

[LostboyTNT]

(sure, off topic, but still interesting) Partially true.. From what I know, it's not the volume of o2 compared to o3, but the o3 is a less stable compilation of oxygen molicules, so it breaks down easier during combustion. (Website is back up!)

Oh great...

[dereklam]

...now there's a database that's going straight to Ashcroft...

Re:Oh great...

[Jeremy Erwin]

They claim not

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

Source. 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.

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, the only problem is that law enforcement can force them to reveal it. (Court order, etc.) And, some of the things they sell (can't tell 'cause the website's down) may fall under a list of 'controlled substances', which may mean that some of the radioactive stuff they HAVE to report.

Re:Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no.. in the quantites they sell, everything is perfectly legal.. However, if you tried to order a large amount of somthing, you would most likely get denied, or referred to a chemical supply company. (and I know for a fact that he would not turn over anything to anyone, because he keeps no such records.. when you order somthing, they ship it then, and there, and dump the info.. that's why even if you give them a list ahead of time, then mail money, you still need to give them the list with the money....)

Invade Slashdot

[mobileskimo]

• 
  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?
  

Re:Invade Slashdot

[Bratch]

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

Was this really because of slashdot, or could it be that they were selling something illegal?

Re:OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

But it WAS kinda dumb. Might be a troll.

Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if the servers were running on nuclear power...

not bad...

[ravenousbugblatter]

I gotta say, from experience working with radioactive material (in a molecular biology lab), 300,000 CPM (counts per minute) is nothing to sneeze at.

Re:not bad...

[mobileskimo]

• 
  working with radioactive material
  

Ah. That explains...

Holy shit!

[illuminata]

You guys just gave the Slashdot effect to people with nuclear capabilities! You better hope for your sake that they're not too pissed off. You might just have a special shipment by way of air mail pretty soon...

Mad scientist necessity!

[Code-Ex]

Do they sell a slashdot-proof server?

Hacker Dynamics

[Jon Abbott]

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? :^)

The irony

[Nemus]

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.

Re:The irony

[PTDC]

I'm sure they're worried about uranium ore in quantities that would be shipped in a jiffy bag, yielding a few specks or a small flake of uranium if refined.

Suppliers like in "Science Made Stupid"?

[hiryuu]

I can't help but be reminded of some of the "supply stores" mentioned in "Science Made Stupid" 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."

Would you trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

A Uranium didlo in your but?

Re:Would you trust?

[Rosonowski]

That would explain the goatse guy....

Re:Would you trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that Didlo, Essex?

Re:Would you trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.... slightly off the central topic, but not so far offtopic.. feh.

Mad Scientists of the world unite

[madpierre]

I remember reading a book along these lines
way back in the mid 70,s.

It was a Scientific American publication containing a
collection of their their Amateur Scientist articles.

In fact I think it was called: The Amateur Scientist.

That had instructions for building a particle accelerator
using bits from an old TV, Refrigerator and various
bits and bobs of plumbing.

There was also a rudimentary maze running robot using
vacuum tube tech. As well as other cool projects.

To lazy to do a search for it tho.

Re:Mad Scientists of the world unite

[madpierre]

In 1960 Stong compiled a book titled The Amateur Scientist, (Simon and Schuster)
the only collection of articles that has ever been published from this column.
However, limited to paper and ink, Stong could only fit in 57 projects. Despite
being only a partial anthology, never being advertised in Scientific American ,
and appearing long before the rise of home schooling, Stong's book sold over
10,000 copies. It went out of print in 1972 and is much sought after today by
amateur scientists.

http://www.tinkersguild.com/aboutAmSci.html

No wonder i could never find a copy.

Re:First POST

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you count, fucker?

Paranoia

[siskbc]

Are these the same experts that say that Depleted Uranium weapons do no leave any harmfull after effects after they are used?

You have any credible evidence that they do? All I've heard from is "Mother Jones" and Greenpeace types combined with studies that make the cell-phone/cancer research look rock-solid.

Are they the ones that say you can hide from an H-Bomb by crouching under your school desk?

Nobody ever said that was a good idea, but it was the only option in a freaking classroom, eh? Besides, I bet it wasn't the poor guy running this web site, regardless.

YOU trust them.

And YOU adjust your tinfoil hat. The world isn't a conspiracy. Who is "them," in this context, anyway?

Re:Paranoia

[Clockwork Apple]

Oh Christ, it was supposed to be a sort of half-joke anyway, but my personal reaction to the story was to think of all these exotic pet freaks.

One day a friend calls you up and tells you to come look at his new "pet". When you show up he shows you this thing so ugly it could curdle milk and that whould die in a day if the cage isnt in just the right spot, at just the right temperature, and all this other shit he has to do to keep this rare thing alive. And then he tells you that it is so poisonous that if it bit you it would kill ya for sure. Then he trys to talk you into buying one from the guy that sold you his. You laugh and say not right now and that all there is....

But a few weeks later you find out that this "expert" handler that your friend bought his "Pet" from was killed handling his livestock.

What the fuck does anyone need a chunk of pure uranium ore for anyway? I just dont get the point, but atleast you dont have to feed it and you wont have to clean up a cage.

What irony...

[teutonic_leech]

... they're selling this stuff online and I get my nailclippers confiscated before boarding my plane. What a world we live in ...

Re:What irony...

[Anonymous Coward]

They confiscated a pilot's nail clippers even though he had a fire ax in the cockpit.

Can I order an Interocitor?

[Chordonblue]

No interocitor part can be replaced. Bear this in
mind while assembling. Use only genuine interocitor parts.

Actually, they are.

[Nemus]

Even very, very small amounts of uranium are highly, highly poisonous. For example, mercury, which is far, far less poisonous, can kill someone over a very short period of time if even a drop is left on the carpet in a house, as happened a few years ago, just from the vapors

Likewise, you' be surprised just how small an amount of uranium actually goes into making a full fledged nuclear weapon. Those "few flakes in a jiffy bag", would be fatal to a very, very large number of people if refined, and then mixed in a town's water supply.

Re:Actually, they are.

[PTDC]

An earlier post mentioned that pure uranium will go straight through you without doing much harm. Plus if a poisonous uranium salt was mixed in a water supply it would probably take a large amount to reach dangerous levels.

1.21 Gigawatts!

[The Viking]

If they had a Mr. Fusion and a flux capacitor for my Delorian, then I'd really be interested!

Re:1.21 Gigawatts!

[Anonymous Coward]

ONE! Point! Twenty! One! JIGGAWATTS!

Re:Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Ter

[Czernobog]

It's nu-ku-lar.
Try to remember that, eh?

Dont tell the British!

[goombah99]

Dont tell the british or it'll be in Bush's next state of the union.

and dont try this at home if your home is in iraq.

go on a road trip....

[Hallowed]

Big deal they have ore samples for sale....if you wanted to go on a road trip with a geiger counter you could get as much as you could carry....eastern utah, western colorado, Grants NM, eastern wyoming and the pryor mountains in Montana all have uranium for the taking.....then figure that only 1% of the uranium metal is left after processing and enrichment for power plant fuel, and that still isn't even close to being "bomb-grade" and you can understand why ore samples aren't a threat.....a nice yellow-glazed Fiesta Ware dish is likely hotter.....

as for the radiation dosage....you'd get more from cosmic radiation messing around outdoors than having a chunk of ore in your rock collection....

GOOGLE CACHE OF ROCKET BIKE PAGE HERE

[goombah99]

rocket pack

dangerous products

Re:GOOGLE CACHE OF ROCKET BIKE PAGE HERE

[LostboyTNT]

No need for google cache, the server is back up, and working.. (except for maybe those of you with DNS cache) try it with or without the 'WWW.' to retrieve the new location..

Oops Sorry, not trying to be a Karma whore

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I forgot to post anonymously on the google links. my msitake.

Anti-gravity rocket

[jemenake]

Holly smokes! Am I the only one who thinks that the dude on the bike on the rocket pack page looks like a teen-aged Bob Lazar, 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.

Re:Anti-gravity rocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the picture on the 'Trinitite' link and there is another picture of a Bob which looks like Bob Lazar.

Re:Anti-gravity rocket

[mercuryresearch]

Uh, it probably *IS* Bob Lazar. Under the "Prospecting Tour" link it includes this:

"Radiation and Uranium", a hands-on laboratory class personally instructed by the well-known "Area 51" scientist, Bob Lazar.

Re:Anti-gravity rocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Domain Name: UNITEDNUCLEAR.COM
Registrant:
UNITED NUCLEAR
P.O. BOX 851
SANDIA PARK, NM 87047
US
Administrative Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831
Technical Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831

it *is* Bob Lazar.. or so the whois info says

although that still leaves the question of who he actually is to me ;\

Place an order

[Henry V .009]

Hello, I'd like to place an order for 30,000 tons of your uranium ore. I'll also need some good centrifuges.

BAH ... I don't

[madpierre]

need any of their shoddy merchandise.

I'm gonna build myself a Tesla coil powered
doomsday device and conquer the universe.

Now if only I could find my tinfoil hat.

What a load of bunk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranium comes in most junior chem kits. you can dig for it in your back yard in a lot of states. Ive gone collecting it at night with a UV lamp. youre goofy.

google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

jet honda

google cache, working link

[Anonymous Coward]

jet honda

I may be mistaken but...

[Biogenesis]

I have never studied chemistry (save what my high school gave me...not a whole lot anyway) but that molecule they have spinning at the top of the website looks oddly like the caffing molecule that's on the ThinkGeek T-shirt. How did they know most of the world's geeks would be viewing there site? I wonder if they sell bags of the stuff, or is it just false advertising?

I'd check but the site is too slow as it is...

What the experts say

[jhines]

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!

You have all been trolled by UN

[Anonymous Coward]

The united nuclear site is a hoax. I saw this debunked the other day when someone pointed out that maybe it's where iraq was getting it's uranium from.

Re:Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Ter

[Guppy06]

Does this mean that the coming dupe is just Taco's way of emulating Shock and Awe?

Plenty of Radioactive items...

[craenor]

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...

[Phanatic1a]

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.

Re:Plenty of Radioactive items...

[tgibbs]

Beta radiation cannot penetrate through your clothes

That's a bit of an overgeneralization. It depends on the energy of the beta. "Hard" beta from P-32 will penetrate about a third of an inch in tissue. It will also produce secondary gamma if it hits metal.

Re:Plenty of Radioactive items...

[ranshdow]

a nanocurie would be 1E-9, a picocurie is 1E-12.

a pCi is ~2.2 dpm, so x 6 x 70,000 would be 933,240 dpm per adult male mass equivalent, or 1.55 x 10(4) dps

-Rain'

geez

[Anonymous Coward]

The topic is 'Science' but every +5 comment says "Funny".

I wish the mod system had '-1, Funny'

Anyone else...

[Fishbone]

freaked out by the fact that these guys sell nuclear equipment on a page that looks like it was designed by Mrs. Finkel's AM Kindergarten class?

Darwin's theory of natural selection beckons....

[Sayjack]

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?

History of the name "United Nuclear"

[finitimi]

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 bought for the construction of the Mohegan Sun Indian Casino. I have been told the main gaming floor sits directly above where radioactive materials used to be stored in an underground bunker. Don't know it that's accurate.

Re:History of the name "United Nuclear"

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? There used to be a website named that too (=

the sad, 'safe' future

[sstory]

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.

one question

[appleLaserWriter]

Can I store these samples in my shoe?

Does that count as part of my person?

Re:Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Ter

[alakon]

It is at "MERCYhosting" -- I think somebody already tried.

Uranium facts

[Lord Prox]

World Heath Org has a little fact sheet about DU (close enough to uranium ore for a /. posting I think. After DU is refined to contain almost nothing but uranium and these rocks are mostly rocks with a little uranium.)

Some highlights
Of the uranium that is absorbed into the blood, approximately 70% will be filtered by the kidney and excreted in the urine within 24 hours; this amount increases to 90% within a few days.

In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.

Due to its high density, about twice that of lead, the main civilian uses of DU include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shields in medical radiation therapy machines and containers for the transport of radioactive materials. The military uses DU for defensive armour plate.

Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).

Re:Uranium facts

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's easy to be confident about this kind of thing when the field test is being conducted in someone else's country.

well the lil kiddies are safe

[shaggie]

for now until the company pays their hosting provider. Just tried to access their site and its currently /.'ed outta their bandwidth allocation =)

Funny domain name

[Lord Prox]

Now that the whole thing is slashdotted to hell's servers, I noticed the hosting companies domain name...

Mercy hosting... hahahahha. Wonder if they have had this happen before...

The site got suspended?!?

[YeOldeGnurd]

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.

Re:The site got suspended?!?

[VertigoAce]

There's a certain irony to their hosting company's mainpage.

Mercy Hosting Services

Emergency and Temporary hosting and internet services

Has your web hosting service gone down, or having serious problems?

are you switching web hosting services, or planning to?

need a temporary home for your problem website?

you've come to the right place..

Free internet and low cost services for websites in duress.

If needed, please Contact us here

It looks like UnitedNuclear qualifies for emergency service, yet they suspended it.

Great job on the /.'ing guys...

[SealBeater]

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

Cease and Desist

[nolife]

I know you can't get to the page right now but you would also see a "Cease and Desist" letter they got from some state agency and various fire marshalls from around the country. It was for some of thier fireworks materials and instructions on how to make them. I did not know instructions were illegal.

My friend and I had bought some of the materials last month but the instructions and some of the chemicals are not available now (potassium percolate and different aluminum mixes). You can use other chemicals but they are not as strong. Luckily a Google search shows others are still selling the good stuff.

Funny thing, I was just at UnitedNuclear site earlier today before the /. article.

Re:Cease and Desist

[bentcd]

I did not know instructions were illegal.

They certainly can be. The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons can be examined for reference. Although I admit I'm not aware of an analog treaty for fireworks :-)

eh, a little fast but typical.

[twitter]

See the Death Ride. Yeah, it's fast but people do that on their bikes. Well, not me. I've never pushed it over 45 MPH, but I live in Louisianna.

Google Cache

[kleine18]

United Nuclear Google Cache

2 DU or !DU

[Lord Prox]

Take a look at this report then think about the alternitives.

Use DU and leave DUoxide all over the place or have an crack pot dictators armored collumn rolling down the street.

What is more likely to be hazardous to ones health?

Also the whole duck and cover thing IS A good idea. Most of the deaths and near 100% of injuries are from blast/shrapnel. The only way you are going to have to worry about radation is if you are ground zero (in which case you are dead faster than you can think it) or the weapon was a ground burst (fallout)

You see there are roughly 2 ways a nuke is used...
1. Air burst. This is used for destroying a large area/ soft target. the weapon is detonated high up... I have the numbers for 1 MT of 17,500 ft. At this altitude there is effectivly 0 fallout. You will get a flash exposure of gamma, Xray and thermal over a limited radius, about 7 mi for 1MT thermal radius, and if you can protect your self from the thermal the others are generally survivable. Duck and cover. next is blast, this is the workhorse for nukes.
25 Mt air burst follow...
12 PSI 6.5 Mi radius: Area is a glass ash tray 90% dead 10% wishing
5 PSI 10.7 Mi radius: Heavy damage to all structures 50% dead 40% injured
2 PSI 20 Mi radius: moderate damage to structures 5% dead 45% injured.
1 PSI 30.4 Mi radius: light damage 0 dead 25% injured

now if you do the math to calculate the surface area there are more people in the rings further out that in the ash tray zones on the inside, thus debris/shrapnel is the biggest killer and duck and cover is VERY good advice

2. Surface Burst. Used for taking out bunkers/silos/millitary stuff. Gererally away from population centers. This use has fallout. The blast radius is much smaller as the earth is absorbing a lot of the energy.
Info from google and here

Tried The Link

[Master of Transhuman]

Got "This Account Has Been Suspended"... /.'d again by those nuclear terrorists at /.!

When will Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz target these evil hackers and their BMD (Bandwidth of Mass Destruction) weapons?

Better yet, free

[core plexus]

I know of a place that you can go to, somewhere in the U.S., and get all the Uranium, Uraniothorianite (probably spelled that wrong), zircon with halfnium, and some other neat stuff. You just have to get the mine owners permission, and collect away.

I'm a collector of stuff. I'm thinking of selling some, but I better check the regs.

cp

Radiation dangers

[xihr]

I can't see original site; it got suspended.

Radiation dangers are usually grossly overrated by the general public. Everything around you is slightly radioactive naturally, after all. Natural uranium is certainly radioactive, but hardly qualifies as a really serious radiation source. You typically need a sample with > ~1 TBq of activity before you really have the makings of a serious radiological weapon; uranium ore is only about 1 MBq/kg.

Boy Scout Who Built A Breeder Reactor In His Shed

[RedSynapse]

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.

It's a long article but a great read.

Yes!

[trainsnpep]

A 2 million volt generator! Just what I need for my lifter!!

Terrorist Honeytoken?

[RedSynapse]

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.

Slashdot Editors

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Right, they just post whatever was on memepool yesterday, it's all good stuff, huh?

United Nuclear

[solferino]

two of my fave criss-cross words together in a heading

united ~~ untied
nuclear ~~ unclear

other criss-cross words :

marital ~~ martial
parrot ~~ raptor
cocaine ~~ oceanic
leader ~~ dealer

Re:United Nuclear

[bentcd]

Well, at least they didn't call themselves United Fission :-)

Sweet! Uranium Ore!

[some damn guy]

This will save me that trip to Niger.

Re:Sweet! Uranium Ore!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who you calling a Niger? You racist!

www.Alternity.net forever!!!

[terrox]

Alternity forever! wooo!.

Re:Darwin's theory of natural selection beckons...

[atrader42]

I salivate and fantasize over my jet engine driven bicycle spewing lightning bolts as I complete my newspaper route with unprecedented speed and precision....
If you can deliver newspapers to the right neighborhood on a jet engine driven bike, your control of the force is more impressive than I've ever seen

This Account Has Been Suspended

[floydman]

www.unitednuclear.com/

Too much radioactivity killed the system admins...

"Build-It Day" at General Atomics

[Anonymous Coward]

General Atomics had a "Build-It Day" for teachers.

• "Teachers were given the materials needed to build a half-coated fluorescent tube (for an interactive plasma demo), a vacuum chamber, an EM wave model, and a 3-dimensional magnetic field bottle. All of the teachers then took away with them each of the 4 gadgets.Stay tuned for future opportunities for build-it day workshops and other educational goodies from the Fusion Education Team."

Bay Area

[macshune]

Heh, who wasn't in the Bay Area "a couple of years ago?" :)

Amount of U for a nuke

[Anonymous Coward]

~110 pounds of uranium, which is about the size of a grapefruit. And while we're on the subject, anyone who says "Saddam can make a nuke in a year if he had the materials" should be told that they could do the same, probably in a manner of weeks. Just look on the internet. Doesn't take much.

Mutation.

[camateg]

Finally, I can plant some tomacco.

Death to the kidney

[wagnerer]

Uranium is much more toxic to the kidney based on its heavy metal aspect than its ionizing radiation. Long before you'll get any significant radiation damage you'll be going into renal failure.

2 million volt "antigravity" lifter

[G4from128k]

I like the idea of the 2 million volt Telsa coil. Imagine the ionic wind that one could create using such high voltages. It could make for a very high thrust lifter (see http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm )

No need for lead gloves

[Albinoman]

I save my hands by carrying the uranium in my pockets. Like most /.ers I have more use of my hands than mid-level equipment.

Hey, it features the Area 51 guy

[InfiL00p]

So this is how he's making money these days.

Check it out:

Whois Server Version 0.93

Registrar WHOIS: Domain Registration Services
Domain Name: UNITEDNUCLEAR.COM
Registrant:
UNITED NUCLEAR
P.O. BOX 851
SANDIA PARK, NM 87047
US
Administrative Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831
Technical Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831

Record last updated on: 2003-04-21 09:18:47.0 ET
Record created on: 2000-01-11 01:26:36.0 ET
Record expires on: 2004-01-11 01:26:36.0 ET

NS1.MERCYHOSTING.COM 66.246.48.132
NS2.MERCYHOSTING.COM 66.246.48.131



So, this is what happens when you go on every TV station in the world and talk about flying saucers!!!

Re:Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Ter

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, how do you think he got to be a commander in the first place?

You misspeled . . .

[Joey Vegetables]

"Nucular."

:)

I nearly peed my pants when I saw this!

[DrMorpheus]

They have a propane jet powered bicycle, a Schwinn with the infamous stick-shift shifter! Note the dweeb who designed it is riding this monstrosity that can reach 60 mph without helmet or any other protective gear! I surprised he didn't qualify for a Darwin award!

Area 51 Scientist?

[metlin]

From their site -

"Radiation and Uranium", a hands-on laboratory class personally instructed by the well-known "Area 51" scientist, Bob Lazar.

Right! Pass me the tinfoil hat, please. Thank you.

My Apologies for UnitedNuclear.Com being down

[LostboyTNT]

I'm the one to blame for UnitedNuclear being down, (Kind of) I was under the assumption that A (supposively) reputable upstream provider wouldn't have any trouble providing bandwidth to a web site of that size, but apparently, they consider themselves to be 'god over all and sea' and even though I hadn't even used 1/2 of the 'alloted' bandwidth for the month yet, shut down the site, with absolutely no notice to me, because it was too much for their piddley server to handle..
Who am I? I'm the Web hosting provider for UnitedNuclear.Com.. Welp, No fear! The UnitedNuclear site is back online, and fully functional, at a new location, where I KNOW that reliablility is not going to be an issue.. Sorry for any inconvience this may have caused you..

Just a Reminder.. if your site gets slashdotted, make sure you know your host will be able to handle it.. I know mine will now.. 50Bux.Com

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/18/1421 25 3&tid=

Re:Slashdot Works For US Government - Stopping Ter

[LostboyTNT]

my upstream providor shut the site down, cause it was drawing too much bandwidth.. (I'll go into more detail on another message) But the site is back up and wonderful now.. the bandwidth went from about 1 gig a day, to over 5 gig a day.. (it still should not have been enough for them to shut me down, without notice) But today, New server, new backbone! no more down time!

Re:the website is back up..

[Anonymous Coward]

forgot to mention too.. the website is back up

why would you think it's a hoax?

[Anonymous Coward]

can I ask, why you would think that it's a hoax? yeah.. they bought about 100,000 rocks, and had enough uranium to build a single pea shooter.

server issue, website back up

[LostboyTNT]

server issue, website back up (more details in another message)

no, no, no...

[LostboyTNT]

my PREVIOUS upstream provider considered the meager few gigs of bandwith the site was pulling, since it got slashdotted, was too much for their meager server to handle, so THEY pulled the plug on it (No notice, no warning, just YANK!) .. as soon as I found out about it.. I moved it to a more reliable server, kicked my old provider in the ass, and blao.. website back up..

indeed it is..

[LostboyTNT]

Yup.. That is THE Bob Lazar.. but he prefers to be remembered for his technical ability, and inventions.. (see the unitednuclear site for a few of them..)

already moved..

[LostboyTNT]

yes, it has been moved over to the slashdot proof server already.. (sorry for the downtime

Do these guys have a motto?

[redwolfoz]

United Nuclear: where you can purchase all the parts and plans that will have you well on your way to becoming an embarrassing headline in your local paper.

I have to wonder if George Gobel is a regular customer.