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[Music]
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when it was first discovered that some
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elements in our universe were not stable
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that they would in fact Decay over time
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some of the smartest people in history
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immediately saw medical applications
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maybe this radioactivity would allow us
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to see inside the body without surgery
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maybe it could help fight cancer
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unfortunately conmen would see potential
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applications as
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well early fascination with the
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potential benefits of radioactivity
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would stop abruptly and tragically after
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one radioactive cure all turned a one
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eban buers once wealthy industrialist
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socialite in manab about town into a
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rapidly deteriorating husk with holes in
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his skull this is the true
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story of rator
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the accident occurred here at the 3M
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Island nuclear power
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plant it was a gray day in Paris in late
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February almost 130 years ago in
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1896 French physicist enri Beckel was
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investigating mysterious and exciting
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x-rays which were discovered only months
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before
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Beckel suspected a connection between
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X-rays and the phenomenon of
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phosphorescence which he was currently
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studying maybe the phosphorescent
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uranium salts he was working with
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emitted x-rays after absorbing energy
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from the sun he thought but on this
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particular day the weather in France
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wasn't cooperating so he gathered his
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photographic plates together with the
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uranium salts and placed them in a dark
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drawer on March 1st for whatever reason
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Beckel decided to develop the plates
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like you wood old camera film expecting
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nothing imaged upon them there wasn't
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any sunlight in the drawer and so the
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uranium wouldn't be emitting anything at
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least this was his
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hypothesis what he saw became one of the
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great accidental discoveries in all of
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physics amazing images where the uranium
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salt sat on the plates something was
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coming from the metal but it had nothing
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to do with
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sunlight 2 years later in 1898 Marie and
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Pierre C also in France were proc
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processing uranium ore and found
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something else
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unexpected when they separated out the
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uranium what was left behind was
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actually more
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energetic the curies had discovered
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polonium and
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radium Mar herself coined the term
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radioactivity to describe the
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spontaneous emission of ionizing
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penetrating Rays by certain
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atoms in 1903 Beckel and the curies
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would share a Nobel Prize for their work
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on radioactivity the curies immediately
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medely saw potential medical
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applications for the ionizing radiation
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they discovered Marie herself widely
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promoted the use of x-rays during World
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War I she even developed roaming
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radiologically equipped cars or petite
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cures as they came to be known that
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allowed surgeons to x-ray wounded
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soldiers right on the battlefield she
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would visit hospitals and explain the
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benefits of radium treatment to nurses
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as she and her husband had discovered
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that radiation kills diseased human
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cells faster than healthy ones
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what the CES didn't immediately see or
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appreciate was the long-term danger of
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their discoveries the popularity of
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radium in particular was outpacing
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safety concerns the element represented
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all the potential benefits of a new
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science and as such it made its way into
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everything toothpaste hair cream even
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food it wouldn't be long before radium
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made it into snake oil as well
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William ja Bailey knew that there was a
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sucker born every minute and he spent
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his entire life taking advantage of it a
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Harvard Dropout who falsely claimed to
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be a doctor of medicine Bailey had been
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investigated fined and shut down many
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times before he found radium and decided
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to exploit it around the same time that
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a Nobel Prize winner was trying to
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rapidly image soldiers wounds in 198
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Bailey was starting companies to sell
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radium as a miracle cure he claimed the
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highly radioactive element could treat
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mental illness headaches diabetes
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constipation anemia and Asthma if taken
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in water Bailey sold radium tablets
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radium lotion radium teeth cleaner and
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radium hair tonic for the radio endocrin
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nator to deliver its Miracles it was to
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be strapped under a man's scrotum where
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it put out an estimated 2,000 micro CS
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per hour of
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radiation you can find similar levels on
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the discarded boots of chernobyl's
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firefighters continually investigated by
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the Federal Trade Commission Bailey's
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snake oil never really sold until one of
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his companies the Bailey radium
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Laboratories in East Orange New Jersey
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started producing
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rator rator was radium salt dissolved
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and diluted in 16.5 mL of water marketed
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as a cure for the living dead and
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Perpetual
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Sunshine it like Bailey's previous
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products was supposed to treat a variet
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of physiologically unrelated symptoms
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over 150 endocrinologic diseases in fact
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and especially sexual impotence the idea
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was that if radiation in large amounts
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could destroy tissue as the CES had
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discovered then maybe minuscule amounts
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of radiation could heal tissue in adom a
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day keeps the doctor away so to speak
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dilutions traces and tinctures like
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rator are nothing new so-called
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alternative medicine as a whole ho is
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propped up by both the placebo effect
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and the fact that many of its supposed
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treatments contain little to no active
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or biologically relevant
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ingredients Homeopathy the core tenants
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of which go against everything we know
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about chemistry generally and Medicine
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specifically is still popular today the
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practice claims that substances that can
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cause diseases can also cure them if
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diluted enough the more dilutions the
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better in fact especially if there isn't
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likely a single atom of active
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ingredient remaining unlike Homeopathy
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however rator contained more than
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nothing specifically Bailey sold the
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bottles with two micro curies of
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radiation from radium 226 and radium 228
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if rator was regulated like radiation
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from drinking water is now it would be
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found to be roughly 20 million times
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over the legal
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limit between 1925 and 1930 William
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Bailey would sell over
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400,000 bottles of rator worldwide he
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would even give Kickbacks to doctors
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that prescribed it to their patients one
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of these patients would down over a
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thousand of these bottles and his
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gruesome death would almost
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single-handedly give the US Food and
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Drug Administration sweeping new
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Authority by all accounts Ebenezer eban
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buers was at the top of his game game
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both figuratively and literally he was a
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Yale graduate the heir of a successful
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American industrialist known Ladies Man
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and in 1906 the US amateur golf champion
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his downfall began in 1927 on a train
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ride back from the annual Yale Harvard
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game an unexpected jolt caused buyers to
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Tumble from his bunk and injure his arm
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fearing the persistent pain would mean
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the end of his championship golf swing
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buyers went to a Pittsburgh doctor for
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help one of the doctors who was taking
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kickbacks from William Bailey the doctor
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prescribed rator and it apparently
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worked the mobility of buyer's arm and
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shoulder was restored as well as his
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self-reported libido buyers began
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drinking up to three bottles a day of
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rator six micr curies of radium this
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copious consumption continued unabated
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for years he gave it to his colleagues
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and girlfriends he fed it to his race
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horses
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of the radioactive elements that occur
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in nature in significant quantities
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radium is considered to be the most
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toxic not only is it highly radioactive
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1 gram of radium is what the cury unit
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of measurement was initially based on it
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shares a column in the periodic table
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with
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calcium when radium is ingested
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therefore the human body sees the atoms
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as building blocks like it sees calcium
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and radium eventually accumulates in the
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bones where Alpha radiation and gamma
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rays can destroy bone marrow and mutate
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bone cells during the Manhattan Project
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the tolerance level for workers was set
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at .1 microG of ingested
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radium eban buers was ingesting 60 times
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that amount every single day and the
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rator buyers was taking wasn't cheap
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radium only exists in extremely small
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amounts in nature and so extracting and
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amassing it was unbelievably costly to
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make a single Grand of radium required
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Milling up to 500 tons of ore and
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processing it with 500 tons of chemicals
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10,000 tons of purified and distilled
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water and 100 tons of coal in 1921 a
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paper clip's weight of radium was worth
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$120,000 over $2 million per gram
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today the race to include radium in
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everything from toothpaste to scrotal
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straps had made it the most expensive
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material in the world radium's record
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would only be broken decades later when
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scientists got good at creating even
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rarer materials like
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antimatter after taking perhaps 1,400
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doses of rathor between 1927 and 1930
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the toned up feeling that Ean buers was
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getting had been replaced with weight
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loss and headaches his teeth were
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falling out buyer's bones at this point
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had now accumulated a lethal dose of
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radiation more than three times over
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over what was about to happen to the
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former golf champion in manab about town
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was going to be so gruesome so shocking
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that the commercial market for radium
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cure alls would collapse literally
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[Music]
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overnight I can't actually show you
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radium in one of these beautiful display
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samples a safe amount would be barely
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visible just a boring moat of metal but
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at the same time that rator was killing
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EB and buers radium was very visible as
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a product that would forever link
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anything nuclear to an ominous Green
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Glow between 1917 and 1938 the US radium
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Corporation was mixing radium together
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with zinc sulfide to create undar a
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luminous paint used primarily to
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illuminate clock and watch faces the
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alpha radiation and the gamma rays from
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the small amount of radium in the paint
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would energize the zinc sulfide which
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would in turn release photons of light
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to satisfy the US military's needs
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during World War I the corporation was
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employing as many as 375 young women at
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their Orange New Jersey plant actually
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within walking distance from William
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Bailey's rator company to work 24/7 with
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the radium mixture the girls would
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meticulously paint hundreds of watch
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dials a day using their mouths and
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tongues to resharpen their paint brushes
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as they did so according to the now many
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pieces of media on the so-called radium
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girls before the end of world War I an
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estimated 95% of all the radium produced
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in the United States was used in Radium
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paint on Military dials one in six
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American soldiers owned a luminous watch
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by then and it was a young girl in New
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Jersey who painted it the women would
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also paint their nails teeth and faces
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with undar as a kind of party trick they
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were proud to be one of The Shining
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girls they were proud to be doing their
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part but they had no idea what they were
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doing the US radium Corporation did they
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knew that radium was dangerous they had
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distributed medical literature about it
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among the plant operators and scientists
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they handled the material with gloves
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tongs and other protective equipment the
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women they hired got no such protection
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The Shining girls were left in the dark
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by 1927 more than 50 women working with
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radium paint had died slow painful
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deaths the element had concentrated in
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their bones and especially in their jaws
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where they were ingesting it horrible
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disfigurements developed and amputations
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had to be performed this is what Molly
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maia's Jawbone looked like when her
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dentist removed it with nothing but his
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fingers their plight and ensuing legal
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fight is now detailed in many books and
00:13:22
movies if you'd like to learn more
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thankfully the deaths of so many radium
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girls wasn't in vain the publicity and
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lawsuits that came from their tragedy
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was directly responsible for the
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creation of forceful workplace safety
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regulations in the United States and of
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government organizations like the
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occupational safety and health
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administration or OSHA dozens of young
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women had died because information about
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the world's most toxic element was kept
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from them that same year eban buers
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started drinking rator it's impossible
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to know whether or not conman William
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Bailey intentionally kept information
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from buyers and and his buyers he said
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that he was an avid rator user himself
00:14:03
what we do know is that the description
00:14:05
of what happened to eban buyers was so
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horrible it would create misinformation
00:14:10
that lingered about this story until
00:14:12
this very
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day by 1930 the US Federal Trade
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Commission had started looking into the
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claims of radium Water Products were
00:14:24
they actually safe there would be no
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better person to ask than power user
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eban buyers who had only stopped using
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rator that year so an agency lawyer was
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dispatched to buyer mansion in Long
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Island to take his testimony what the
00:14:38
lawyer saw would Shock the World Mr
00:14:41
byer's whole upper jaw and most of his
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lower jaw had been removed quote all the
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remaining bone tissue of his body was
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disintegrating and holes were actually
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forming in his
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skull he was once a golf champion and
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Ladies
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Man now he was the Living
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Dead if you believe the internet this is
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what eban buyers look like before he
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died this image is both horribly
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gruesome and terribly intriguing case in
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point it is the image that every single
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piece of media on this topic highlights
00:15:22
and every single one of these retellings
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is wrong this story's most famous image
00:15:28
is not of eban buers it's of a soldier
00:15:31
Who had most of his face blown off in
00:15:33
battle whenever it happened however it
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happened the internet seized upon a
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random image of an unfortunate veteran
00:15:41
and made it Mr buers maybe it's because
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it's a gruesome jaw injury from a World
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War even though it's the wrong one maybe
00:15:49
it's as simple as a viral video or blog
00:15:51
post canonizing incorrect information it
00:15:54
wouldn't be the first time virality led
00:15:56
to nuclear memes the point is that that
00:15:59
disturbing stories often dull critical
00:16:01
thinking in the moment there are no
00:16:04
images of eban buers in his final days
00:16:07
but his death was no less
00:16:10
impactful 3 months after the FTC ordered
00:16:13
a cease anded assist on the advertising
00:16:15
a rator just weeks after their lawyers
00:16:17
saw him in a state of radioactive decay
00:16:20
Ebenezer buers died in a New York City
00:16:22
Hospital on March 31st
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1932 he was
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51 the very next day the New York Times
00:16:30
ran a front- page story with autopsy
00:16:32
findings that shocked a public that had
00:16:35
up until that point believed radium was
00:16:37
harmless but buyers had died of radium
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poisoning in the coming days more
00:16:44
stories and Swift action from regulatory
00:16:47
bodies radium products were sweeped off
00:16:50
the shelves and William Bailey's rator
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company was ordered shut down it is now
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widely reported that the death of eban
00:16:57
buers was the single biggest reason for
00:16:59
the collapse of the commercial
00:17:01
radioactive medicine industry hindsight
00:17:04
is of course 2020 and it's easy today to
00:17:07
scoff at the idea of drinking
00:17:08
radioactive water for General Health but
00:17:11
it's not completely crazy for decades
00:17:14
there has been rigorous scientific
00:17:15
debate over the existence of so-called
00:17:17
radiation hor mesis or the idea that low
00:17:20
levels of ionizing radiation can
00:17:22
actually be beneficial and not harmful
00:17:25
could low-level radiation be triggering
00:17:27
certain defense mechanisms in the body
00:17:29
and lead to overall positive effects
00:17:32
that's what Advocates of radiation
00:17:33
hormesis claim they have some evidence
00:17:36
to back them up too but below a certain
00:17:39
threshold where health effects are
00:17:40
obvious like an increased risk of cancer
00:17:43
for example it's very hard to separate
00:17:45
signal and noise low-level radiation
00:17:48
from cosmic rays natural uranium and
00:17:51
radon and other sources are all around
00:17:54
us after
00:17:55
all the ideological opposite of
00:17:58
radiation hormon meis is the linear no
00:18:00
threshold model which holds that there
00:18:02
is no threshold that there is no
00:18:04
beneficial or even safe level of
00:18:06
radiation most governments and
00:18:08
Regulatory bodies around the world use
00:18:10
this model A long- held position no
00:18:12
doubt partially influenced by the
00:18:14
simultaneous tragedies of eban buers and
00:18:16
the radium girls so which model is right
00:18:20
hormesis or no threshold no scientific
00:18:24
consensus yet linear no threshold
00:18:27
appears on its face to be the most
00:18:29
except when the right circumstances can
00:18:31
expose its obvious deadly flaws and
00:18:35
hormesis makes evolutionary sense given
00:18:37
that we are bombarded by radiation every
00:18:39
second of every day and our bodies have
00:18:41
evolved repair mechanisms to deal with
00:18:43
it at the time of buyer's death rator
00:18:46
maker William Bailey refuted the
00:18:48
findings I have drunk more radium water
00:18:51
than any man alive Bailey said and I
00:18:54
have never suffered any ill effects
00:18:56
Bailey would live another 17 years
00:18:59
at the same time Ean Bayer's body would
00:19:02
be buried in a leadline
00:19:09
casket William Bailey was never tried
00:19:12
for buyer's death but rator and other
00:19:14
radium based commercial cures were no
00:19:16
more the US Food and Drug Administration
00:19:19
moved quickly empowering itself to
00:19:21
regulate the drug industry before buyers
00:19:23
it was primarily concerned with
00:19:25
agriculture today rator is taught at as
00:19:28
one of the defining examples of a
00:19:30
Crackdown on medical
00:19:33
quackery years later scientists would
00:19:36
exume the bodies of both eban buers and
00:19:38
William Bailey for study the two men had
00:19:40
been dead for decades but both had
00:19:42
consumed thousands of doses of rthor
00:19:44
with long Half Lives Bailey's body or
00:19:48
what was left of it was reportedly
00:19:50
ravaged by
00:19:52
radiation his bones were still hot when
00:19:54
they pulled them out of the ground
00:19:56
scientists dug up Ean byer's body in
00:19:59
1965 on average human bodies measure
00:20:02
around 4,400 radioactive disintegrations
00:20:05
per second thanks to Natural radioactive
00:20:07
isotopes like potassium 40 after 30
00:20:10
years in the ground buyer bones measured
00:20:14
225,000 disintegrations per second 50
00:20:18
times
00:20:19
higher Mari curri brilliant scientist
00:20:23
Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of
00:20:25
radium died of radiation induced
00:20:28
leukemia on July 4th 1934 after years of
00:20:32
constant radiation sickness working with
00:20:34
radiation in what would be considered
00:20:36
today abhorent conditions and volunteer
00:20:39
work with x-rays during World War I her
00:20:42
radium contaminated laboratory papers
00:20:44
are stored in lead boxes they are still
00:20:47
hot today just one year after her death
00:20:50
C's daughter and lab assistant irin
00:20:53
stood on her mother's giant shoulders
00:20:55
and won the 1935 Nobel Prize in
00:20:57
chemistry jointly with her husband as
00:21:00
her mother
00:21:01
did but also like her mother irin worked
00:21:05
intimately and recklessly with radiation
00:21:08
some say it was the years of working
00:21:11
with and like her mother others say it
00:21:13
was the capsule of polonium that had
00:21:15
exploded in her face a decade earlier
00:21:19
whatever the actual cause in 1956 iren C
00:21:23
died of leukemia in the hospital named
00:21:26
after her mother just like her mother
00:21:29
did her husband died of leukemia 2 years
00:21:32
later her sister Eva took a different
00:21:36
path in life she died in
00:21:40
2007 at the age of
00:21:42
102 she was the only one of her
00:21:45
immediate family members to not research
00:21:48
radiation but she was also the only one
00:21:52
without a Nobel
00:21:54
Prize until next time
00:22:17
[Music]
00:22:31
[Music]
00:22:39
[Music]
