Schrödinger's rabbit
Episode 20
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Audio file
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August 26th, 2016
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1 hr 3 mins
What is radioactivity?
- Where are you from? Send us a postcard! Strange Attractor, c/ PO Box 9, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia
- What is radioactivity? Including alpha, beta & gamma decay, half-life, background radiation & health effects (Physics.org)
- Types of radioactivity (Andy Darvill's Science Site)
- The difference between radioactivity & radiation (The Conversation)
- Cool chart that shows radiation doses for all sorts of things...including sleeping next to someone & eating a banana (xkcd)
- Alpha, beta & gamma penetration (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- Alpha, beta & gamma penetration (BBC, GCSE)
- Radioactive elements can 'decay' into other elements — here's the crazy decay chain for uranium-238 (Wikipedia)
- There are 29 radioactive elements on Earth & thousands more radioactive isotopes (Wikipedia)
- Some examples of radioactive isotopes or 'radionuclides' (Wikipedia)
- Some 'nuclides' are stable, but most are radioactive & decay — here's a list of >900 with half-lives from <1 hour to >50 million years (Wikipedia)
- The number 20 is a 'score' in ye olde talk (Wikipedia)
- What is uranium? (Jefferson Lab)
- What is plutonium? (Jefferson Lab)
- What is an alpha particle? (Physics Department, Idaho State University)
- During alpha decay, alpha particles (helium nuclei) are released from a radioactive atom's nucleus (Wikipedia)
- The crazy strong nuclear forces involved (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- Conservation of energy — it can neither be lost nor gained (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
- Energy equals mass: e=mc^2 & all that malarky (livescience)
- Alpha particles are the least harmful in that they are large & can be easily stopped by e.g. paper; however, if ingested they're super dangerous (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- Radioactive elements are inherently unstable (Reference)
- Sometimes you have to wait a loooooong time for a radioactive element to spit out a particle, like 4.5 billion years (Wikipedia)
- Everything is radioactive in the periodic table from 83 (bismuth) onwards (Wikipedia)
- Why is radioactive decay random & spontaneous? (I'm a scientist get me out of here)
- Schrödinger's cat (IFL Science)
- What is polonium? (Jefferson Lab)
- What is alchemy? (livescience)
- What is an isotope? (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- What is an isotope? (The Conversation)
- Fact or fiction?: Lead can be turned into gold (Scientific American)
- It sounds like isotopes can indeed have too few neutrons, as well as too many (The Naked Scientists)
- What is a beta particle? (Idaho State University)
- Beta radioactivity (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- An electron is ~1,800 times smaller than a proton (Jefferson Lab)
- What is a gamma ray? (Idaho State University)
- Gamma rays consist of high-energy photons (Wikipedia)
- Gamma radioactivity (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- Ionising radiation "carries enough energy to free electrons from atoms or molecules, thereby ionising them" (Wikipedia)
- How radiation sickness works (Science, How Stuff Works)
- Too much ionising radiation is bad...but humans have evolved to be able to cope with a certain amount of background radiation (World Nuclear Association)
- Natural background radiation (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Association)
- Bananas are a bit radioactive because they contain potassium: The banana equivalent dose (Wikipedia)
- Still cleaning up: 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster (The Atlantic)
- Flying and health: Cosmic radiation exposure for casual flyers and aircrew (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency)
- Health threats for astronauts from cosmic rays (Wikipedia)
- How does lead absorb radiation like x-rays and gamma rays? (The Naked Scientists)
- How do x-rays work? (Wonderopolis)
- Radiation therapy employs x-rays, gamma rays & charged particles to kill cancer cells (National Cancer Institute)
- The 'gamma knife' delivers precise beams of radiation to diseased brain tissue or tumour from a large number of directions (Imaginis)
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans don't use radiation (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering)
- Computed tomography (CT) scans use ionising radiation (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering)
- Positron emission tomography (PET) scans use radiopharmaceuticals (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering)
- Alexander Litvinenko: Profile of murdered Russian spy — the guy who drank tea with polonium-210 in it (BBC News)
- Want some polonium-209? It'll set you back USD$3,200 per microcurie (Jefferson Lab)
- Sydney's Lucas Heights reactor to ramp up nuclear medicine production to meet world demand (ABC News)
- Synchrotrons are extremely powerful sources of x-rays (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility)
- The Australian synchrotron is in Clayton (Australian Synchrotron)
- Ikea Springvale
- How does a nuclear power station work? (Explain That Stuff!)
- A discussion about whether Mark Watney from 'The Martian' had a high cancer risk after heating up his little car with a radioactive source (Quora)
- How to protect astronauts from space radiation on Mars (NASA)
- Radioactive waste management (World Nuclear Association)
- Nuclear agencies are searching for the signs, language & solutions that will warn our descendants to stay away (FT Magazine)
- Cockroaches have an exoskeleton so they probably wouldn't know what a skull & cross bones are (Wikipedia)
- Thaw could release Cold War-era radioactive waste buried under Greenland's ice (ABC News)
- Greeland is an autonomous country within the Danish realm (Wikipedia)
- Nuclear power in space (Wikipedia)
- How do nuclear submarines work? (Science, How Stuff Works)
- The nuclear submarine that can remain underwater for 25 years (Wired)
- 'Letters of last resort' are written by all new UK Prime Ministers, with instructions to submarine commanding officers on what to do if a nuclear strike wipes out the Government (Wikipedia)
- Billionaires are buying submarines (The Daily Mail UK)
- Can nuclear waste be neutralised by bacteria? (Engineering.com)
- Iggy Pop is indeed alive & currently 69 (IggyPop.com)
- Nirvana
- David Bowie
- Ziggy Stardust (Wikipedia)
- Billy Joel
- Kim Wilde
- Atomic clocks & cesium...not radioactive even though they sound like it (HyperPhysics, Georgia State University)
- Atomic clocks (Wikipedia)
- Microwaves are not radioactive (Cancer Research UK)
- Mobile phones are not radioactive — they emit electromagnetic radiation, which is very different, & they also don't emit enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells (Scientific American)
- Mobile phones are not radioactive (Skeptic)
- Here's the patch you stick on your phone that apparently saves you from the evil 'radiation' — decide for yourself (cellsafe)
- Ionising (bad one) vs non-ionising radiation (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency)
- UV light is ionising radiation & can break chemical bonds in cells (livescience)
- Suffering endures for 'Radium Girls' who painted watches in the '20s (Hartford Web Publishing)
- The Bachelor, Australia (Channel Ten)
Corrections