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1950s Toy That Included Actual Uranium Ore Goes On Display At Museum
hypnosec writes: The Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab — dubbed the world's most dangerous toy — has gone on display at the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland. The toy earned the title because it includes four types of uranium ore, three sources of radiation, and a Geiger counter that enables parents to measure just how contaminated their child have become. The Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab was only available between 1951 and 1952 and was the most elaborate atomic energy educational kit ever produced. The toy was one of the most costly toys of the time, retailing at $50 — equivalent to around $400 today.
I bullshit you not.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Calling it the most dangerous toy seems like a gross overstatement. Yeah, Uranium ore is scary, but it's a fairly low-level radiation source and as an alpha emitter it's only dangerous internally. Chemical and physical hazards are a lot more serious. Toys with lead paint that kids were likely to chew on were probably more dangerous, not to mention ones that could catch kids on fire (ordinary chemical sets) or get them run over in traffic (like bicycles).
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
More dangerous than lawn darts?
http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/122377/5053.pdf
People are scared of radiation because they don't understand it.
Rather then educate children todays society is more concerned with protecting them.
Relevant XKCD for dosage information.
I would be interested in how many banana doses of radiation this kit contained.
Everything is radioactive, granite countertops, bananas, sea-salt, living in Denver (higher elevations), hell carbon dating works because all life is radioactive.
800 volts on the plates of all those old heathkit transmitters using 6146 tubes. 3000 on most linear amps. ooh, and dig those metal-ceramic power tubes with beryllium oxide ceramics, or the insulator blocks for conducted cooling tubes being beryllium oxide.
or hunting. those .22 rifles can put an eye out!
scouting, perhaps? axes, knives, and pack saws, not to mention building fires.
I won't even start with farm kids, all those types of poo, power take-offs, barn roofs, tools, welders...
and this texting and Facebook thing, well, get somebody riled enough to punch you into Jello.
there is always a way for a kid to get into trouble. don't leave them to the TV, be around and guide them.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I think it is outrageous and disheartening the attitude of the media towards chemistry and the efforts of schools and reporters to terrify people of chemicals and issue these hysterical claims that are based on ignorance.
The materials and and equipment in that kit were completely harmless. Implying that a spinthariscope is dangerous is completely irresponsible. Likewise uranium is completely harmless. You can find many common, everyday articles, like bananas, that have more radiation than uranium ore.
This kind of anti-science propaganda is driving kids out of chemistry and physics classes and destroying what little is left of America's old can-do spirit.
You don't have to go far - just take the americium for a smoke detector and you've got a radiation source.
4.47 billion years. No one rational is afraid of it's radioactivity - it's entirely scare-mongering. This is why no one cares about the uranium in granite countertops. Especially the scare-mongering over depleted uranium being somehow seen as more toxic than lead is entirely political theater ungrounded in any science.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When it says "the most dangerous toy" I laughed thinking this product never disabled kids or sent them to the hospital like LAWN DARTS (Jarts) which was responsible for 1000's of injures and even disabilities... don't know if any one died but this toy was certainly much more dangerous that the kits described in the article.