Vladimir Putin's special of the day--- "Sus'hiroshima'".
Posted on 11/24/2006 10:28:57 AM PST by melt
LONDON (Reuters) - Police investigating the death of a former Russian spy from suspected radiation poisoning have found levels of radiation in a London sushi bar where he ate just before he became sick, health officials said on Friday.
"The police reported that they had found some radiation there (in the Sushi bar). We are assessing the level of that and the potential risk to people that might cause," Pat Troop, head of the independent Health Protection Agency, told the BBC.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.scotsman.com ...
Vladimir Putin's special of the day--- "Sus'hiroshima'".
Interesting.
If it is the Po they have found it is of course an alfa-emitter, and then they must have measured very close to the source(s). So it should be easy to ascertain if the radiation came from a particular vessel (bottle, cup, glass) or was found on or around the table Mr Litvinenko used.
Ivan any more on this sushi bar?
The revelation came as police confirmed that traces of radiation had been discovered at two premises - a hotel and sushi bar in London - which Mr Litvinenko visited on Nov 1, the day he fell ill.
Ex-KGB spy 'poisoned by alpha radiation'
A bit strange this, if the substance was ingested via a fluid why would it leave traces in both places- unless they have been measuring in the "gents".
And again, why wasn't the radiation discovered previously. Curious...
What is it that makes this a focused personal attack and not a terrorist endeavor which happened to make a KGB agent an unfortunate victim.
Is this material only available in Russia?
Fortunately, polonium is found only in minute amounts in Nature. Polonium is so radioactive that a 0.50 gram sample will reach temperatures greater than 500 degrees all by itself. The radiation energy is so great that an amount too small to see would be a lethal dose!"
http://www.ilpi.com/fun/toxic/index.html
AND:
In the survival study, rats injected in intravenously solely with a lethal amount of 210Po (1.45 MBq kg-1 body mass) died within 14-44 days
My guess is they are looking in the "gents" also.
Something else ...could he have been sick at the sushi bar and hotel after ingesting the poison...throwing up maybe.
500 degrees?
There is a Gamma associated with that alpha decay. About 4-500 KeV. One can detect the gamma from a thorium 232 decay in an old Coleman lantern mantle from a foot away or more.
232Th has a lower specific activity than 210Th.
What does that do to the body...
Didn't he have lunch with someone at the sushi bar? Wonder how come he wasn't contaminated too?
According to the reports in the newspapers that person did not have anything to eat.
Thanks for the info re the decay.
Fascinating, and very scary.
Glow in the dark wasabbi?
Meeting someone in the restaurant and not eating while the other person eats is rude. Also draws unnecessary attention to the pair on seemingly clandestine meeting.
Something smells like a rotten fish here.
I was not following story to the detail level, but BBC claimed that Police found some ingested objects in his stomach, too large to be ingested unknowingly.
Does anyone know what they were?
It kills or mutates cells wherever it is transported. While alpha particles do not penetrate much, they pack a lot of energy (~4.5 Million Electron Volts).
A classic case of alpha mortality happened during WWII. Young women who painted aircraft dial numbers with luminous paint that contained Radium 226 developed some serious symptoms, because at that time in their lives they were taking up a lot of calcium. Both calcium and radium are in Group IIA of the periodic table, and the body did not discriminate. Radium was transported to, and incorporated into growing bone. The bone marrow was irradiated. Upon autopsy, some many years later, micrographs revealed "Alpha Tracks" (Burns or trajectories of damage) left in the bone structure by the particles as Radium decayed.
Thorium 210 and 232 are suspected as being the primary cause of lung cancers in smokers, because thorium is a natural contaminant in Superphosphate fertilizers used in tobacco growing. A geiger counter stuck into a bag of 5-10-5 will show an above-background reading.
A huge "slug" of polonium 210 will cause a lot of trouble, and the timeline is about right, based on rat studies.
I'll have the Eff-you, Pootie-Poo.
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