[ RadSafe ] "Scientific" news - fun

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

Hi, Franz.

"...this most dangerous substance..."  200 g of U-238 is probably most dangerous as a choking hazard.  If someone threw it at you it would probably hurt, but it would be very bad luck if the damage was worse than a bruise.  If you dropped it on your foot any reasonable shoe would prevent even that.  There may be less useful isotopes to add to a bomb.  K-40 comes to mind, but not much else (to be fair, if the potassium was in the right chemical form, it might enhance the explosion.  Or at least as some pretty colors).

On the other hand, with a properly ignorant and excitable media, terrorist don't even need a bomb, or to actually get control of rad material, in order to produce terror.   

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Franz Schönhofer
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2014 12:54 PM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: [ RadSafe ] "Scientific" news - fun

RADSAFErs,

In order to prove that not only Australian, Britsh or US "pseudoscientists" 
and journalists can distribute blantant nonsense I forward a recent note in an well respected Austrian newspaper (or they claim the title of "quality paper").

Headline: Smuggled uranium detected in train from Russia.

Chisinau: In the Republic Moldavia police has found last week in a train from Russia 200 g U-238, worth 1.7 million Euros (1 Euro is a little more than a USDollar). Seven smugglers were put in custody.

It is thought that this most dangerous substance was intended to be sold in Europe. It is used in construction of socalled "dirty bombs".......... 
Experts fear them as a potential terror weapon.


Anybody at RADSAFE with good connections to the terror mafia? The streets of 
Vienna are covered with megatons of granite, the uranium radioactivity can 
easily detected even with primitive radiation measurements. Moreover large 
parts not only of Austria consist of granitic ground. I agree that throwing 
cobble stones of granite by "insurgants" might become a problem........

Franz 

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