Article

2008-12-06 Science & Technology

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-12-06 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ] Top

#1 Well, that's a hot one...

Posted by logi_cal 2008-12-06 00:56|| 2008-12-06 00:56|| Front Page Top

#2 It is pretty easy to detect. I am amazed it took this long to start seeing this.

Posted by newc">newc 2008-12-06 01:44|| 2008-12-06 01:44|| Front Page Top

#3 Back in 1984 there was a well-publicized case of contamination that actually originated here in Lubbock. A large hospital here got a new radiotherapy machine and sold their old one to a clinic in Juarez, Mexico, complete with its standard capsule full of very hot cobalt 60 pellets. The Juarez clinic went out of business, and the machine and its capsule ended up being sold for scrap. The result was 600 tons of contaminated steel.
The situation came to light by an incredible fluke. A truck driver delivering a load of steel beams to an American contractor happened to get lost in the New Mexico desert. He pulled into the nearest likely place to ask directions. Lights and alarms started going off, and the driver soon found himself surrounded by armed men in NBC gear. He had innocently pulled into one of the security gates at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Full story here.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2008-12-06 02:18|| 2008-12-06 02:18|| Front Page Top

#4 I recall hearing of a case or cases like this about four years ago now, in NYC and Washington, DC, where police intercepted a man after he'd had radioactive dye.

Any David Hahn sightings recently?

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2008-12-06 02:32|| 2008-12-06 02:32|| Front Page Top

#5 And I've heard similar stories about people given ¹³¹I to destroy their cancerous thyroids being stopped at airports and other facilities.

Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow 2008-12-06 07:48|| 2008-12-06 07:48|| Front Page Top

#6 The development and rapid deployment (still under way) of detectors for radiation and biochem sniffers is one of those quiet successes in the GWOT for which Bush does not get the credit his administration deserves. It's not that there haven't been attempts on us since 9/11 - it's that we've caught many of them. And used surveillance to intecept others before the plots got that far.

Posted by lotp 2008-12-06 08:06|| 2008-12-06 08:06|| Front Page Top

#7 Don't kid yourself that this sort of thing dates from the WoT. Even back in the 1980s, the US had coastal gamma detectors that may still be classified.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-12-06 08:39|| 2008-12-06 08:39|| Front Page Top

#8 Of course, we have Obama to thank for this

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-12-06 09:17|| 2008-12-06 09:17|| Front Page Top

#9 Interesting, Atomic Conspiracy. There was another article involving radioactive medical waste from China and India that was put into the recycling pile, with the shipping container of new goods setting off the detectors in Europe. I was also wondering about those elite coffee machines the Eurosnobs are checking on because of unusual taste--the irony of all the cheap outsourcing coming back with a cost no one wants to pay.

Posted by Thealing Borgia 122 2008-12-06 10:20|| 2008-12-06 10:20|| Front Page Top

#10 I read a news story about 6 years ago about children who cracked the case of the machine and found beautiful glowing purple powdr, which they promptly spread all over themselves as it was "Beautiful".

Yup, they all died.

Posted by Rednek Jim 2008-12-06 14:30|| 2008-12-06 14:30|| Front Page Top

23:19 tipper
23:03 Barbara Skolaut
22:40 49 Pan
22:38 JDB
22:06 mhw
21:58 Chief
21:56 Barbara Skolaut
21:54 Barbara Skolaut
21:51 Barbara Skolaut
21:49 Barbara Skolaut
21:28 Nimble Spemble
20:43 Nimble Spemble
20:34 trailing wife
20:26 trailing wife
20:21 Frank G
20:11 PBMcL
20:10 Frank G
20:02 Barbara Skolaut
20:01 trailing wife
19:54 trailing wife
19:44 tu3031
19:37 tu3031
19:27 Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)
19:23 DarthVader