Word: radium
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...which the sensitive instrument registers its count. The chatter he heard from the machine shocked the startled patrolman right out of his routine, sent him rushing to the Health Instruments Division. There, doctors quickly confirmed the machine's verdict. His hands were emitting more radiation than a radium watch dial...
...Surgery, radium and X rays have their value against early, localized cancers, but researchers are looking for something far better-a drug that can be injected into the body to track down and destroy malignant cells. In Chicago last week, discovery and first tests of a substance called Krebiozen, which may or may not be such a dream drug, were announced. The result was a medical earthquake...
...standard unit of radioactivity, a curie (for Marie and Pierre Curie, discoverers of radium), originally was used to describe the activity of one gram of radium, is now defined as 37 billion atomic disintegrations per second...
...used for atomic bombs. The chemical separation process, accomplished by remote control from behind thick shields, results in a crude mixture of fission products and nonradioactive chemicals. Radioactivity of the mixture varies, but may be as high as 1,000 curies* per lb.-about twice as active as radium, the smallest visible speck of which is dangerous. Further refining raises the activity to 5,000 or 10,000 curies per lb. Stanford Institute believes that the crude stuff can be marketed for 10? to $1.00 per curie. (The present price of radium: $16,000 per curie...
Neutron Source. Another interesting detail was vaguely described by Greenglass. In the center of the bomb, he said, was a beryllium sphere that provided a source of neutrons to make the plutonium explode more suddenly. He may have had in mind a mixture of beryllium and radium, the usual laboratory source of small numbers of neutrons. When bombarded by alpha-particles from radium, beryllium releases neutrons and turns into ordinary carbon. But he may have been right in saying that the central sphere was made of, pure beryllium. Plutonium itself emits alpha-particles, which might knock useful neutrons...