#radium

[energysoda]

why are geiger counters so cute. they are like little animals to me. making cute little noises when they detect radiation.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[spaceguy44]

My fluorescent (glowing) rock and radioactive materials collection that I've been building for about a year with my partner. Looks cooler IRL than what my phone camera can do. I've labelled everything with the color they glow as the text color.

[friendlyearthling]

Radium Girls Curie Eleison by Rachel Sumner and traveling light.

True story of men killing women for profit. They hid the negative (and deadly 💀) effects of radium even as they had to hire replacements for the sick women workers.

[thatsbelievable]

[itsladykit]

One thing that drives me nuts about the narrative surrounding the Radium Girls is that the company still has such a strong hold on the way the story is often told.

Granted, it may be an attempt to affirm to a modern audience that these girls--deliberately using 'girls', not 'women' because most of them were in their teens or early twenties at most--had no idea how harmful radium could be, but the narrative always seems to start out that "no one knew it was dangerous".

As soon as anyone does a deep dive, though, you realize someone did: company higher ups. In fact, men working in the same company--doing a different job, that I would say involved less contact with radium--were given full PPE for their jobs. One company scientist, upon hearing the women were practicing "lip-dipping"--which involved the girls using their lips to bring the fine-bristled, radium-soaked paintbrushes to a point--was reportedly horrified and tried to stop the practice, before any of the girls ever reported any symptoms. But the policy wasn't enforced because stopping the girls from lip-dipping cut into profits. So they turned a blind eye, telling the girls radium was completely safe out of one side of their mouth while they told the men to fully suit up out of the other.

There's better coverage of the company's reprehensible behavior during the trials--claiming the girls' symptoms were a sign of syphilis, funding misleading/fabricated studies on the safety of radium, etc. I really just wish it was more clearly stated that the company knew from the start. That knowledge hadn't trickled down to the general population yet, and they fully took advantage of that.

[radium-thelastpath]

Στο λέω χύμα μαρεσεις

Είμαι από αυτούς που δεν τους χωράνε οι λέξεις

Εχω περίεργη σχέση με τις σχέσεις

Ακολουθώ τα θέλω μου και όχι υποσχέσεις

[railroadlion]

i cant wait to see what you do with the radioactive elements in catoms!!

Hee hee, you'll see eventually don't worry

[aaamadeus]

nobody understands how much I love Marie Curie. She is my idol, a lighthouse in the stormy night, the astatine within the earth’s crust, the glimmer of galaxies millions of light years away, the radium salt to pitchblende, an absolute girlboss

[bitterbluebells]

"Our Lady of Radium, light up the dark~"

[periodictabletournament]

Round 4 - Matchup 8

Phosphorus 15 (P) - Good in fertilizer, most widely known for being in matchsticks. Some forms will burn real fast and without any provocation.

vs

Radium 88 (Rd) - If you're on tumblr you've seen the posts about the radium girls. The ones who painted the watch dials for the glow in the dark watches.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Black Cat Mystery #50 (1954), cover by Lee Elias  

[kekwcomics]

"WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF AN ATOMIC ATTACK!"

EYEFUL magazine (Eyeful Magazine Inc, 1952)

[cornergh0st]

[fuck-the-periodic-table]

Round 14 - Winners I

[thatsbelievable]