Is polonium the new terrorist killer?
924996
There are thousands of toxic items used in industry, agriculture, water treatment, etc that can be used as terrorist weapons. However Po-210 is very toxic.  It is readily soluble in dilute acids and disperses throughout the body.  It is 5000 times as radioactive as radium.  It emits alpha particles, which means that inside a sealed container or capsule it's virtually harmless, but in proximity to bone marrow, hair follicles, lung, liver, and kidney tissue (plus other tissues) it can deliver a high dose of radiation.  It is made in nuclear reactors by bismuth-209 absorbing a neutron to become bismuth-210, which emits a beta particle (same charge and size as an electron) to become polonium-210.  Which leads one to speculate that, if Mr. Litvinenko was indeed intentionally poisoned with this substance, the perps must have had access to a nuclear reactor and/or waste products from one.   \n \n        An interesting medical trivia point:  smoking 2 packs per day gives one on the average 1300 millirems of radiation a year because of adherence of polonium (and other radioactive substances) to tobacco leaves.  This is roughly four times the average annual US radiation dose from natural background, including radon, that all of us receive.  Of course, there are areas of the world, e.g. some spots in Iran, where the dose from radon from hot springs is ten times higher than the dose from smoking!
1166954
I don't agree with the US not branding them as terrorists, but consider this. You said the IRA has been doing the exact same thing . Well, not entirely. I don't think the IRA has killed 3,000 people in one day. I understand what your saying and I think any number of people lost is bad, but that was a pretty massive number.
733975
Basically, the principal type of dirty bomb, or Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), combines a conventional explosive, such as dynamite, with radioactive material. In most instances, the conventional explosive itself would have more immediate lethality than the radioactive material. At the levels created by most probable sources, not enough radiation would be present in a dirty bomb to kill people or cause severe illness. For example, most radioactive material employed in hospitals for diagnosis or treatment of cancer is sufficiently benign that about 100,000 patients a day are released with this material in their bodies. \nA dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon. The presumed purpose of its use would be therefore not as a Weapon of Mass Destruction but rather as a Weapon of Mass Disruption. \n\n\nHEU is Highly Enriched Uranium. Enriched uranium is a critical component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to monitor and control enriched uranium supplies and processes in its efforts to ensure nuclear power generation safety and curb nuclear weapons proliferation. \n\nI have no idea how to neutralize it, but perhaps those sites will help you out.
854314
It looks like terrorism to me the thing i can`t understand is why is it terrorism if you strap a bomb to your self and kill innocent people but if you drop a bomb from a plane and kill even more innocent people then its not. Surely no killing of innocent people can be justified and in my opinion any one who kills another person be that person Innocent or not is a murderer and the ones who order the killing of thousands are monsters and no better than Hitler
624491
you are. no doubt about it. on one side u are talking about humanity on the other hand Hiroshima & Nagasaki.on one hand you are talking about fighting against terrorism on the other hand you are neglecting(or helping?) Pakistan. on one hand you are asking China to retreat from chinies taipei on the other hand you are occuping Afganistan,Iraq and Iran on the agenda next. you want the world to be under your foot. but never forget Hitler, Musolini, Alexander the great,Japan they all failed. where are you heading for? as far as China, India,Israel is concerned you will be axing the branch on which you are sitting. Pakistan is already under your control.
1004131
Of course not.  There is no evidence, credible or otherwise, that indicates he, or anyone else in government, knew it was going to happen.\n\nWas there any knowledge of some time of terrorist activity in the works?  Likely, just as we've seen several times since then.  The thing to remember is that "knowing that something might happen somewhere, sometime" and "knowing what will happen where, when" are two entirely different things.  Unfrotunately this concept is beyond the grasp of the 3rd graders and those who just have a pathological need to believe the worst about other people.
932595
Propaganda was a good weapon in the past.  I think in 100 years there will be genetic weapons that a leader will be able to wipe out a whole race of people.  Scary.
756851
Polonium:\n\npo·lo·ni·um (pə-lō'nē-əm) pronunciation\nn. (Symbol Po)\n\nA naturally radioactive metallic element, occurring in minute quantities as a product of radium disintegration and produced by bombarding bismuth or lead with neutrons. It has 27 isotopes ranging in mass number from 192 to 218, of which Po 210, with a half-life of 138.39 days, is the most readily available. Atomic number 84; melting point 254°C; boiling point 962°C; specific gravity 9.32; valence 2, 4.\n\n[From Medieval Latin Polōnia, Poland (the native country of Pierre and Marie Curie, the element's discoverers).]\nPolonium\n\nA chemical element, Po, atomic number 84. Marie Curie discovered the radioisotope 210Po in pitchblende. This isotope is the penultimate member of the radium decay series. All polonium isotopes are radioactive, and all are shortlived except the three ?-emitters, artificially produced 208Po (2.9 years) and 209Po (100 years), and natural 210Po (138.4 days). See also Periodic table.\n\nPolonium (210Po) is used mainly for the production of neutron sources. It can also be used in static eliminators and, when incorporated in the electrode alloy of spark plugs, is said to improve the cold-starting properties of internal combustion engines.\n\nMost of the chemistry of polonium has been determined using 210Po, 1 curie of which weighs 222.2 micrograms; work with weighable amounts is hazardous, requiring special techniques. Polonium is more metallic than its lower homolog, tellurium. The metal is chemically similar to tellurium, forming the bright red compounds SPoO3 and SePoO3. The metal is soft, and its physical properties resemble those of thallium, lead, and bismuth. Valences of 2 and 4 are well established; there is some evidence of hexavalency. Polonium is positioned between silver and tellurium in the electrochemical series.\n\nTwo forms of the dioxide are known: low-temperature, yellow, face-centered cubic (UO2 type), and high-temperature, red, tetragonal. The halides are covalent, volatile compounds, resembling their tellurium analogs.polonium (pəlō'nēəm) , radioactive chemical element; symbol Po; at. no. 84; mass no. of most stable isotope 209; m.p. 254°C; b.p. 962°C; sp. gr. about 9.4; valence +2 or +4. Polonium is an extremely rare element found in uranium ores (about 0.1 gram per ton). A product of radium decay, it is sometimes called radium F. In its physical and chemical properties it resembles tellurium (the element above it in Group 16 of the periodic table) and bismuth. Polonium has 34 isotopes, more than any other element. All of these isotopes are radioactive. The most stable, polonium-209, has a half-life of about 103 years. Polonium-208 (half-life about 3 years) is the only other polonium isotope with a half-life over one year. Although these two isotopes can be prepared in small quantities in a particle accelerator, they are very expensive to produce. All other polonium isotopes are short-lived except polonium-210 (half-life about 138 days), which is the most commonly used isotope. It is prepared by bombarding bismuth with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. It is a highly radioactive material. A milligram of polonium-210 emits as much alpha radiation as about 5 grams of radium, and enough gamma radiation to cause a blue glow in the air around it. It can be used as a heat source, since most of the energy of the alpha radiation is absorbed as heat within the polonium and its container. Polonium has found use in small portable radiation sources and in the control of static electricity. However, it is an extremely toxic substance and must be handled with great care. Polonium was the first element to be discovered because of its radioactivity; it was discovered in pitchblende in 1898 by Marie Curie and named for her native country, Poland.A naturally radioactive metallic element, occurring in minute quantities in uranium ores; its most readily available isotope is Po 210, with a half-life of 138.39 day
705885
Should we be worried?  No.  The guy himself said that the ingredients used are very rare and only available on the black market, and we already know that there is quite a bit of old soviet nuclear material about.  I'd question who the guy was, and how he managed to get hold of the rare materials.
919475
Nah.... nuclear holocaust will wipe out more than just the humans....\n\nand some humans are fine there just to many right now...\n\nhow about a deasease or something that just kills off 99.99% of every human... that still leaves several million alive spread out all over the world not to many yet still enugh to thrive...\n\nmaybe a few more 99.999% or 99.9999%.... but thats a bit much if you ask me
170042
Nuclear energy was originally designed to kill. It got the USA out of WW11 sooner than most expected. It has been killing ever since. Did you know we have not built a new Nuclear Power Plant in app. 30 yrs. why? It's a detrement to society. Do you want a Nuclear Waste Storage Facility in your backyard? No, of course not. Iran for that matter I believe NO Country should be allowed to ever build anything again that creates Radioactive Waste. Did you know your Microwave is Radioactive? Try taking one to the scrapyard. Most scrapyards have Geiger Counters in place now days. Why can't we all ride the green wave? Solar,Wind,Wave Action. To most people it's still a novelty but one day it will be common-place if we can keep the powers that be from destroying this Planet we call Home.Think GREEN! Peace to all.
958680
The Daily Mail in the UK says:\n\nPolonium 210 is one of the most toxic substances known to man, with a particle the size of a speck of dust enough to cause the sort of slow, agonising death suffered by Alexander Litvinenko. \n\nWeight for weight, the rare radioactive isotope is 250billion times more toxic than cyanide, and more than a billion times more radioactive than uranium
510803
An act of terrorism can be carried out by one person with a primitave explosive device and a will to do harm.  There is no way that any entity, no matter how good their intelligence is, is going to completely erradicate this.\n\nExplosives can be made out of ordinary chemicals and agents that you might have around your house right now.  All it takes is one person to make a bomb and detonate it.  A few people working together wouldn't necessarily be catchable either if they're smart about how they communicate.\n\nThe idea of terrorists coming from overseas and talking extensively about their plans over the phone and in public is just silly.  It simply isn't necessary for them to do that.
945334
Nuclear bombs come in different sizes and types. They come all the way from the equivalent of a few tons of TNT (would you want to be next to a railroad car of TNT going off? Not me!) to thermonuclear bombs which are over 100 megatons of TNT ( 100,000,000tons!!!)\nThere are maps of "Zones of Lethality" for each size, telling what percentage of people will die in that area.\nThe sneaky thing is the radiation cloud, like Chernobyl, the Russian nuclear explosion. There are many hundreds of square miles of land, and cities, that are not safely habitable. Some radioactive isotopes last a very long time, and then decay into another radioactive isotope. These lands may not be safe for thousands of years!! These depend on prevailing wind conditions. Chernobyl's covered most of Europe. It was downplayed to avoid panic. Milk had strontium 90 for some time. It replaces calcium, is radioactive, and causes cancer.\nThere is not simple answer, except that thank God there has never been a nuclear war, because radioisotopes blown miles high by many thermonuclear bombs have long been calculated, along with debris, to be able to blot out the sun, and cause a "nuclear winter," possibly extinguishing most life on earth.\nWith nuclear bombs above ground, or at all, "safe" is a word that is very difficult to use. \nPlus the EMP, electromagnetic pulse, of a large nuclear explosion will disable all electronics anywhere near by causing a massive power surge.\nMassive induced currents. Some bombs and devices are designed expressly to do that.\nSome conventional bombs are loaded with radioactive material that will scatter and kill and sicken, a dirty bomb.\nNot fun to think about, huh? People that are cheering for the USA to use nukes in Iran had better think. They will kill us all. \nSee the movie: "On the Beach."
391324
I don't today's average citizen is as concerned about an attack as they were during the cold war.  But the Russians had such a massive army, the threat of a wide scale invasion seemed plausible.  With terrorists, the attacks are usually held to a small area.  \n\nThat's just my speculation.  You don't see people really preparing for terrorist attacks like they did during the cold war.  Our children are not being taught it in school.
319522
The tactical nukes are under the 50 kiloton ranges, some as low as .3 kilotons, used for fighting advancing armies, or small targets.  \n\nThe strategic nukes, however, will takeout whole cities and cause widespread contamination, in the 100-500 kiloton range. They've built higher kilotons, but supposedly, they've been stockpiled or disassembled.  One or two strategic nuclear detonations, or even 50 would not cause world-wide contamination, its when you get into a full nuclear exchange, between the US and Russia with 1,000s of nukes going off, is when life would be 'unlivable.'\n\nThe W.H.O. predicted in 1982 that "1.1 billion people would be killed outright in such a nuclear war, mainly in the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, China and Japan. An additional 1.1 billion people would suffer serious injures and radiation sickness, for which medical help would be unavailable. It thus seems possible that more than 2 billion people-almost half of all the humans on Earth-would be destroyed in the immediate aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. ... would probably be enough to reduce at least the Northern Hemisphere to a state of prolonged agony and barbarism." \n\nCarl Sagan made a case that "a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. ....would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case. The threshold for ...The Nuclear Winter is very low."
322747
Terrorism doesn't exist only in the minds of radicals that like stirring up fear in Innocent people for fun. We Have a lot of Republicans forcing fear on these pages daily. Lets commit Genocide and nuke-em, that's how stupid and narrow minded the last followers of the Republican party are. Everybody knows no nukes will ever be fired, and if there was any it will be from Russia or China. There sheeit is for real, not some trash can bomb. You idiots need to grow up!