Radioactive products
Oobject has a fascinating collection of radioactive products, most of which are no longer for sale.
(Given a choice between Gladstone’s Report Wizard for Microsoft Access or radioactive condom for Christmas, which one would you take?) Link
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Hey, maybe after you use radioactive condoms a few times, you effectively zap all the sperm and STDs, so you don't need to use them anymore.
At the time that radioactivity and Radium was discovered, these words had caché which sold product.
The products themselves didn't necessarily contain the materials listed on the label. Similarly, products today are sold as 'titanium' or 'platinum' or 'gold' without containing any of those elements.
There were some products which did contain radioactive materials. Though not healthy and geneally ineffective, they contained a small percentage of naturally occurring low-grade materials (NORM). The exception to this was Radithor: the radium infused tonic which was expensive (because radium is expensive). One gentleman of leisure became obsessed with it and drank himself to an unpleasant death.
Is all radiation bad? Has low-level exposure gotten a bad rap? Lookup 'radiation hormesis' and decide for yourself.
I'm kind of reminded of the governor of Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in the Sixties who, when some of the Great Train Robbers were sent there, asked for a garrison of the British Army to be stationed at the prison in case some of the robbers' confederates used `nuclear explosives' to break them out. Those were more innocent times.
Radithor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
Also, did you know there was a US Radium Corporation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Radium_Corporation
As the Icecream obviously is not radioactive, I wonder why the Bikini isn't mentioned.
I would enjoy a float of uranium ice cream and hot Dr. Pepper.
Radioactive water dispenser...what a great idea. I always wanted to glow in the dark before dying a slow painful death.
I was wikisurfing today and read up on a bunch of nuclear-based topics; the Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope was a particular favourite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
Best way to see if your child's new shoes fit? Xray them so you can see where the bones are! And incidentally get a 4x maximum safe yearly dose of radiation in one minute. I'd hate to have been a sales-floor op around one of these things.
Briefly, natch.
I just bought some of the last remaining
uranium-doped glassware to be made, from
http://www.unitednuclear.com/supplies.htm
They really fluoresce under UV light,
and safe to handle. But I always wash my
hands after messing w/ them...
Good timing. Damn Interesting just posted an article about "The Radium Girls" yesterday:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=660
"OW! this uranium ice cream hurts my teeth. . . oh wait, they fell out, nevermind."