> cannot be weaponised
It's smaller than a coin and could be sewn into someone's favorite shirt. I'd call that a weapon!
Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
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Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#12https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.
Very intersting story. Do you have a source per chance? Google search didn't bring anything up.
Edit: ok found it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#13That's like literally searching for a rice corn in a giant haystack. The only way I can see that search to remotely have a chance is an equally giant swarm of drones with radiation detectors.
Sounds like a good interview question.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#14> It is believed the capsule fell through the gap left by a bolt hole, after the bolt was dislodged when a container collapsed as a result of vibrations during the trip.
I'd love to see the post-mortem on this one. That at first glance reads like several failures.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
That’s the one. It’s from 2001 so I must have only stumbled upon a write up of it in recent years and mixed up the recency. Thank you!
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#16https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.
There are a lot of these incidents (“orphan source”) documented on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_source
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can’t remember where but more recently some transiently homeless people died (I want to say in Europe) because they found an object emitting heat and used it for warmth, not realizing it was radioactive and was killing them. Quite sad.
There are a lot of these incidents (“orphan source”) documented on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_source
Thanks for giving me the missing keyword.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#18Don’t they have satellites that pick up these readings? I’m always interested how top-secret technologies could filter into local law-enforcement or civil safety efforts, but are prevented from doing so because of the security classification. Like how many times, do you think a murder or something pertinent to solving that has been captured on some sort of satellite or surveillance feed, but it’s never released to th…
20+ km of atmosphere would block all the radiation before a satellite could pick it up.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#19An urgent warning to stay meters away from a button-battery sized object somewhere along a 1,400 km road? Seems kind of pointless. > DFES Country North chief superintendent David Gill said there would be "challenges" in locating such a small object. Wouldn't the radioactivity make finding such a small object far, far easier? It looks like the road is two lanes with a dirt shoulder. Couldn't they get a truck, mount se…
Honestly it's likely one of those things you'd have to test so see what your sensitivity and detection radius is. If it stayed on or very near the road, I would expect it could be detected this way. Now, if it washed off the road in a storm, well good luck. And then you also must consider the natural background rate of radioactivity across that enormous area. Crank your sensitivity up too high to gain range and you m…
> And then you also must consider the natural background rate of radioactivity across that enormous area. Crank your sensitivity up too high to gain range and you might just detect radon or potassium, or whatever else is out there decaying.
Yeah. I would think they'd look for localized "spikes", then follow that up with an on-the-ground search. They don't need to eliminate all false positives.
My idea is to have multiple Geiger counters spread across a 10+ meter pole. Since what they're looking for is small and localized, they could control for varying natural radiation by looking for a spikes that don't affect all the sensors equally.
Re: Urgent public health warning issued over lost radioactive capsule
#20I seem to recall, back when "dirty bombs" were a favorite topic in the news, that the USA was said to have had airborne radiation detectors that could spot quite tiny sources in cars on the highway. Perhaps I'm mistaken but i think they mentioned tracking banana shipments as an example of the sensitivity.
Perhaps this would be a place to use that equipment?