The Case of the Radioactive Toothpaste | Hacker News Reader

The Case of the Radioactive Toothpaste

atlasobscura.com

66 pointsmercer17 comments

Both Goudsmit and Pash wrote books about their Alsos mission to find out about the German atomic bomb program. Goudsmit opens his book with a drawing of the German experimental station for atomic bomb research - a house-sized wooden building.[1] The US's Manhattan Project involved building as much plant as the prewar auto industry. The US intelligence people knew there was a German atomic program, but couldn't find out anything about it, so they assumed it must have really good secrecy. Goudsmit mentions that the V-2 rocket project made no sense unless it could carry an atomic bomb - accuracy was so bad that it couldn't hit a target smaller than Greater London, and it cost as much as a fighter plane.

No, it was just a tiny program.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=3v2ttYJ_d2kC&pg=PA2

A few days ago there was an article on HN about putting Radium in everything. It's good for you! It even shines in the dark.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-we-re...

It makes you wonder what current fads will make future generations cringe in the same way...

Organic: a ton of copper replacing a gram of glyphosate.

Also, glyphosate.

Probably, meat.

Humans have ate meat for thousands and years. They did not cost stuff in radium for thousands of years.

Carbon nanotubes and other nanoparticles probably. They have similar properties to asbestos when they get into your body.

C60 Fullerene being an exception to the rule.

Here's one where I think we very recently passed through the inflection point of cringe-worthiness: putting tiny plastic beads into body wash and facial scrubs in order to exfoliate your skin better.

http://www.popsci.com/what-are-microbeads-and-why-are-they-i...

Pesticides and artificial sugars would be my guess.

I suspect that certain combinations of seemingly safe chemicals cause cancer only if used together.

The Internet of Things...

Literally read about the radioactivity craze of the early 20th century in A Short History of Nearly Everything. Entertaining read.

It's high on my list! If you liked that book I have a suspicion you'd also like Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind[1], in case you haven't read it already.

[1]: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens

Whenever I buy toothpaste for sensitive teeth I always do a doubletake when I see strontium listed as in ingredient. I have to think for half a second is that right? Its name alone I guess is what makes me think that but I guess I am confusing it with other nasty radioactive elements.

The value in toothpaste is it's chemically similar to calcium, but not quite the same.

Anyway, it has 4 stable isotopes, and 84,86,87,88. However, strontium 90 is just stable enough to stick around while being short enough to be nasty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_strontium > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90

Natural occurring strontium is harmless and not radioactive. It fine to have it in toothpaste.

The reason you often hear about is strontium as something radioactive is because of Strontium-90, which is one of the longer lived products of nuclear fission, with 30 year half-life. Thus radioactive strontium-90 is always present after a nuclear accident or explosion.

Yeah but it takes a second for me to clue in.

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