Comments on: More on Polonium-210 http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/ Firedoglake weblog Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:16:55 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Steve T. http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403496 Steve T. Sat, 02 Dec 2006 19:50:35 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403496 <p><a href="#comment-402714"><em>rwcole @<br /> 95 </em></a></p> <blockquote><p>May be my imagination- but aren’t there a lot less “W/Cheney 04″ bumper stickers ridin around with the SUV brigade?</p></blockquote> <p>One of the best political cartoons ever was done at the height of the Watergate scandal. It showed a very Nixonian figure out in the White House parking lot in the dead of night scraping off bumper stickers, as the ‘72 re-election campaign slogan had been “Nixon’s The One!”</p> rwcole @
95

May be my imagination- but aren’t there a lot less “W/Cheney 04″ bumper stickers ridin around with the SUV brigade?

One of the best political cartoons ever was done at the height of the Watergate scandal. It showed a very Nixonian figure out in the White House parking lot in the dead of night scraping off bumper stickers, as the ‘72 re-election campaign slogan had been “Nixon’s The One!”

]]> By: fast and bulbous http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403445 fast and bulbous Sat, 02 Dec 2006 19:01:34 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403445 <p>Read the wikipedia entry on Polonium.</p> <p>Sure, it can kill you by giving you cancer, but at higher doses, you get radiation poisoning and are dead in weeks, not decades.</p> <p>A milligram of this stuff is waaaaaay more than you need to die.</p> <p>According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Acute_effects">Wikipedia</a></p> <p>lethal dose if inhaled is 10 nanograms, that is one one-hundred millionth of a gram.</p> <p>A milligram, therefore, would be sufficient to kill 100,000 people.</p> Read the wikipedia entry on Polonium.

Sure, it can kill you by giving you cancer, but at higher doses, you get radiation poisoning and are dead in weeks, not decades.

A milligram of this stuff is waaaaaay more than you need to die.

According to Wikipedia

lethal dose if inhaled is 10 nanograms, that is one one-hundred millionth of a gram.

A milligram, therefore, would be sufficient to kill 100,000 people.

]]> By: More on Polonium-210 :: Newstack http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403425 More on Polonium-210 :: Newstack Sat, 02 Dec 2006 18:39:41 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403425 <p>[…] Read more: here […]</p> […] Read more: here […]

]]> By: VJB http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403354 VJB Sat, 02 Dec 2006 17:44:09 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403354 <p>Of course it would half gone if sent by US mail in the old days. Po-210 has a very short 138 day half-life (which is why it is so radioactive weight-for- weight compared to other alpha emitters). I knew about its presence in tobacco (why I had a no smoking sign in the low level counting lab), but there was an op-ed in the NYT yesterday about just how much a smoker ingests with a pack and a half habit: scary. I didn’t know it could get loose under the containment protocol you described in the post, and I am rather skeptical of the details, but it surely is scary stuff. </p> <p>In all the kerfuffle about this, I haven’t noticed any mention of Karen Silkwood and Pu-239. THAT was done by Big Business America–even more scary IMHO.</p> Of course it would half gone if sent by US mail in the old days. Po-210 has a very short 138 day half-life (which is why it is so radioactive weight-for- weight compared to other alpha emitters). I knew about its presence in tobacco (why I had a no smoking sign in the low level counting lab), but there was an op-ed in the NYT yesterday about just how much a smoker ingests with a pack and a half habit: scary. I didn’t know it could get loose under the containment protocol you described in the post, and I am rather skeptical of the details, but it surely is scary stuff.

In all the kerfuffle about this, I haven’t noticed any mention of Karen Silkwood and Pu-239. THAT was done by Big Business America–even more scary IMHO.

]]> By: jman_nyc http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403088 jman_nyc Sat, 02 Dec 2006 12:24:59 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403088 <p>Anyone recall that the EPA just decided to regulate nanotechnology. Is there a CIA nanotech connection somewhere in all this?</p> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201979.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01979.html</a></p> Anyone recall that the EPA just decided to regulate nanotechnology. Is there a CIA nanotech connection somewhere in all this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01979.html

]]> By: prostratedragon http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403082 prostratedragon Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:17:19 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-403082 <p>So who’s dumber? The Abu Omar “Milano Strut” snatch team, or these lugubrious “Russians,” whoever sent them? I suppose fatality, with its need for answers, will ultimately hand it to the Russians, but note that the kidnap has already had a role in the downfall of the SISMI chief, and that might not be the end of it.</p> <p>Never shrug off incompetence.</p> So who’s dumber? The Abu Omar “Milano Strut” snatch team, or these lugubrious “Russians,” whoever sent them? I suppose fatality, with its need for answers, will ultimately hand it to the Russians, but note that the kidnap has already had a role in the downfall of the SISMI chief, and that might not be the end of it.

Never shrug off incompetence.

]]> By: 14justice http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402977 14justice Sat, 02 Dec 2006 06:40:50 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402977 <p>Fascinating! It reminds me when I first read “The Andromeda Strain” in junior high.</p> Fascinating! It reminds me when I first read “The Andromeda Strain” in junior high.

]]> By: FishOutofWater http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402946 FishOutofWater Sat, 02 Dec 2006 06:06:38 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402946 <p><a href="http://ie.lbl.gov/toi/nuclide.asp?iZA=840210">Berkeley - Table of Isotopes - 210 Po</a></p> <p>Polonium 210 could be extracted from uranium ore or uranium mill tailings because it is in the 238Uranium series. It can also be produced by thermal neutron activation of 209Bismuth which is the last stable isotope on the table of isotopes. 210Polonium decays 100% by alpha decay to 206Pb. This decay also produces a gamma that requires lead shielding for safety.</p> <p>210Po is incredibly dangerous because even a tiny mass of it is highly radioactive. Its short half life of 138 days means that an equivalent mass of it is much more radioactive than a equivalent mass of a longer lived parent such as 238Uranium. Alpha radiation does massive damage if ingested because it is a relatively large and massive helium nucleus that rips a wide track through cells and DNA.</p> <p>I have never worked with the Polonium, thank God. However, because it is a 222Radon (gas) daughter, we all are potentially affected by 210Po. It’s in the air.</p> Berkeley – Table of Isotopes – 210 Po

Polonium 210 could be extracted from uranium ore or uranium mill tailings because it is in the 238Uranium series. It can also be produced by thermal neutron activation of 209Bismuth which is the last stable isotope on the table of isotopes. 210Polonium decays 100% by alpha decay to 206Pb. This decay also produces a gamma that requires lead shielding for safety.

210Po is incredibly dangerous because even a tiny mass of it is highly radioactive. Its short half life of 138 days means that an equivalent mass of it is much more radioactive than a equivalent mass of a longer lived parent such as 238Uranium. Alpha radiation does massive damage if ingested because it is a relatively large and massive helium nucleus that rips a wide track through cells and DNA.

I have never worked with the Polonium, thank God. However, because it is a 222Radon (gas) daughter, we all are potentially affected by 210Po. It’s in the air.

]]> By: Kevin_r http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402880 Kevin_r Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:55:50 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402880 <p>‘In Moscow there was growing consensus that the assassination was part of a power struggle between liberals in the regime and hardliners from the security services. Yulia Latynina, a leading commentator, said the polonium 210 “seems to have been left like a spy’s calling card - not to prove to the world that Russia is run by the security services, but to prove this to Putin.””</p> <p>By any chance, can anyone get beyond the paywall at Moscow times and get a copy of Yulia Latynina’s entire column?</p> ‘In Moscow there was growing consensus that the assassination was part of a power struggle between liberals in the regime and hardliners from the security services. Yulia Latynina, a leading commentator, said the polonium 210 “seems to have been left like a spy’s calling card – not to prove to the world that Russia is run by the security services, but to prove this to Putin.””

By any chance, can anyone get beyond the paywall at Moscow times and get a copy of Yulia Latynina’s entire column?

]]> By: Earl http://firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402859 Earl Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:35:08 +0000 http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/01/more-on-polonium-210/#comment-402859 <p>ps — I lived in Russia for four months. This anecdote tells you everything you need to know about the powerful.</p> <p>The day I left, the editor of Forbes Russia was murdered by 3 assailants with AK-47s while leaving the office. His crime was writing about some of the oligarchs — the people who purchased the natural resources in sham auctions during Perestroika. Apparently this gentleman revealed the true net worth of one of them. In any case, when reporters called said oligarch to ask him about the murder, he didn’t even pretend to deny anything — he merely replied, “He should have been careful who he wrote about.”</p> <p>earl</p> ps — I lived in Russia for four months. This anecdote tells you everything you need to know about the powerful.

The day I left, the editor of Forbes Russia was murdered by 3 assailants with AK-47s while leaving the office. His crime was writing about some of the oligarchs — the people who purchased the natural resources in sham auctions during Perestroika. Apparently this gentleman revealed the true net worth of one of them. In any case, when reporters called said oligarch to ask him about the murder, he didn’t even pretend to deny anything — he merely replied, “He should have been careful who he wrote about.”

earl

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