[meteorite-list] The ultimate meteorite tester

[Mr EMan]

--- mark ford <markf at ssl.gb.com> wrote: 
talk about complete misconception after misconception!

 Now show me where you can buy a 700GBq Po-210 source
(without any'questions asked') and I will be worried,
until then...

Pssst....Mark  c'mere

Opening rain coat to expose a shop's worth of trinkets

Rolex Replica Watches?  French Postcards? Transuranic
isotopes?

It was laughable but no real surprise that the press
was reporting this was  "a miniature "atomic bomb"
inside the body".  Talking empty heads are all that is
left in journalist ranks.  

Few folks realize that most of the heavy metal
radioactive elements are chemically poisonous in
addition to their radiation dangers.  Polonium is a
neutron source used to ensure a runaway fission event
aka atomic explosion, and like plutonium and thallium
they are chemically at the top of inorganic toxins.
Slippery stuff too.  When the package of polonium
arrived at the Trinity Site in July 45 the Dewar flask
had failed and was empty.  In the New Mexico heat the
polonium had liquefied.  After a brief search it was
found puddled in the bottom of the shipping crate.

Actually about 10-15 years back you COULD purchase
most everything except plutonium isotopes across the
counter. In the 80's some folks did indirectly
purchase plutonium in scrap reactor steel.  It was
recycled by Border Steel in El Paso,TX into chair and
table legs and sold throughout the US. Interesting
story on how it was discovered.

Now shall we talk about radioactive meteorites?  I do
recommend a Geiger scan for unusual "falls" on the out
chance that it is space debris from a Topaz Plutonium
powered thermocouple power unit that the "Soviets"
launched and failed to keep track of.

Elton