Slashdot Mirror
UK Lab Traces Polonium To Russian Nuclear Plant
reporter writes "British authorities had identified polonium 210 to be the radioactive poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who defected to Great Britain. Now, according to a disturbing report, the authorities have identified the source of the poison to be Russia. Bloomberg ominously reports, 'Scientists at the U.K.'s Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, west of London, have traced the polonium 210 found in London to a nuclear power plant in Russia, the capital's Evening Standard newspaper reported today. Officials at the establishment didn't return calls.' A cold chill just fell on relations between Russia and the West." In another twist to this developing story, the shadowy Italian security consultant who dined with Litvinenko has also fallen ill with radiation poisoning.
Not sure exactly what you meant to ask, but here goes.
Alpha radiation can't penetrate skin. So superficial contact with an alpha emitter isn't really a concern. OTOH, if you ingest/inhale an alpha emitter (like polonium 210), then your internal organs can be exposed to it. This, obviously, is a bad thing. In polonium's case, IIRC, it's soluble in bodily tissues, and has a very short half life of 138 days, so it's quite dangerous (remember that half life and radioactivity are inversely linked).
Beta, gamma and neutron radiation are somewhat different. Those can get through skin, so superficial contact is a potential concern. Beta is blocked by aluminum foil (get out your tinfoil hats!), gamma and neutron require denser materials such as lead, or thicker, less dense materials like deep soil. Neutron radiation has the added hazard of neutron activation (it can render previously safe materials radioactive).
Additionally, ionizing radiation from sources other than radioactive decay, like X-rays and UV, can generally be bad for your health; these can be seen as less serious than gamma radiation, but more serious than alpha (UV is blocked by sunblock for example). Non ionizing radiation is de facto harmless, barring intensities severe enough to cause thermal burns.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
What's worse is that coal contains traces of natural polonium. Burning coal releases more radioisotopes into the atmosphere than the equivalent energy production by a decently-run (i.e. no serious accidents) nuke power station.
-b.
Polonium 210 has a half life of only 138 days. To have enough survive from the cold war era that they'd still have lethal amounts is far fetched at best. Wikipedia link on Polonium 210
I came, I saw, She conquered.
Ah, well smoke detectors use Americium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium
Which is indeed radioactive (and a gamma emitter to boot), but has a longer half life than Polonium (hundreds of years instead of hundreds of days). Remember that decay is a finite process; the longer it takes to finish, the less radiation is emitted per second. So Americium isn't as strong as Polonium.
Plus, the quantities used in smoke detectors is small - less than a microgram. You'd need an awful lot of smoke detectors to amass a dangerous amount of Americium. That doesn't mean you couldn't kill somebody, but it's a poor choice to slip into food or drink.
What makes Polonium an attractive poison is the lethal dose. You don't need to slip much into someone's food to kill them. Other alpha emitters aren't as good candidates in this regard. Now, as to why they used a radioactive poison in the first place, I don't know; perhaps they wanted to send a message?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
You're thinking of polonium-218, with the radon. Its half life is 3 minutes. Polonium-210 is different. It's a popular radioisotope for 3 reasons:
1. Its half life is a convenient 120 days or something (not microseconds or decades).
2. It decays to lead 208 which is stable.
3. It is a pure alpha emitter (no beta or gamma) which makes it relatively safe to handle as long as you do not ingest it.
Polonium-218 has none of these properties.
They sell small amounts of polonium-210 in those little plastic red disks you find in high school chem labs. United Nuclear was selling them for like $69. You'd need to buy a lot of disks to kill a Russian spy.
Last time I checked, electrical resistance heaters for cooking and heating homes had been around for the best part of a century. In the British climate, which is moderate year round, you could probably even get away with using heat pumps for climate control since the winter temperatures (at least in Southern England) seldom stay below freezing for long.
-b.
I've lived in an all-electric home for 15 years. The electric heaters keep the room pretty much exactly at the temperature you set on the thermostat. In addition, they make almost no noise (silent in operation, a little bit of popping from the housings expanding when they turn on at night) compared to the constant rushing sound of steam or water radiators. The glass-top electric stove heats up in under a minute, and in a definate win over gas can be cleaned just by wiping it down like the rest of the counter. Oh, and it can manage it's own surface temperature too, since it can turn the element on and off. Best of all: no pilot light to have go out and leave you with a smoking crater to return home to.
... not new tech we're looking at here (the stove is an early-90's replacement for the original unit)
Oh, and since my power comes from the local nuclear plant, I'm not sending clouds of greenhouse gases and radioactive carbon isotopes billowing into the atmosphere.
The depressing part is that the house and the nuke plant were put up in the 70's
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".