alt Hacker NewsAtomic "Bomb" Ring from KiX (1947)
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At first I thought this was just a toy, until I got to the Polonium-210. Holy cow. Wikipedia calls it "highly radioactive" and "extremely dangerous to humans" and says that "has the ability to become airborne with ease." Wonder how many kids managed to ingest it. This is the stuff that was used to poison Alexander Litvinenko.
But it was just "minute traces."
Who even knows if they actually put anything in there lol
The last century was so exciting and filled with wonder of technology and the future. Unfortunately, popular feelings are somehow much more negative now, even though we've still got mind-boggling technology being developed like AI, self driving cars, cheaper access to space, autonomous drones, and even finally flying cars are being attempted in a new and more hopeful way than before. I blame climate change for a culture of negativity.
Radium watches, on the other hand, were quite dangerous.
As noted in another comment, I wouldn't consider Polonium to be "harmless."
But I grew up in an environment that would cause most parents, today, to defecate masonry. I grew up in Africa, and we had some really fun critters going through our backyard, like Black Mambas, Gaboon Vipers, and even the damn bugs were nasty. Bug bites could hurt for a month.
I somehow survived.