Bloomberg Businessweek USA - 02.09.2019

75

WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE?

No one knows. The best

we can do is examine

a shard of uranium

ore and imagine the

hundred or so atoms

that lie somewhere in its

decaying mass.

WHY’S IT (MOSTLY)

USELESS?

If you had a visible

quantity, according

to the website of the

element collector

Theodore Gray, “you

would be dead, and

then it would vanish

before your body was

cold.” Fortunately, in

addition to being wildly

radioactive, astatine

is the rarest naturally

occurring element—

fewer than 30 grams are

decaying from uranium

or thorium in the Earth’s

crust at a given time.

WHAT’S IT USED FOR?

Scientists are

experimenting with an

isotope, At-211, whose

low-intensity alpha-

particle radiation might

kill isolated cancer cells

while leaving surrounding

healthy tissue unscathed.

CAN I GET SOME?

Not really. You could buy

a sample of uranium ore

for $39.95 on Amazon

and visualize its decay.

But for a truly stimulating

mental picture, consider

tracking down an early

20th century revigator,

a water crock made of

ceramic treated with

uranium or radium ore.

People once thought the

radioactivity made the

water healthier. It didn’t.

WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE?

Nothing. It’s a colorless,

odorless gas.

WHY’S IT (MOSTLY)

USELESS?

Its most stable isotope

has a half-life of less

than four days, decaying

first into polonium and

eventually into lead.

WHAT’S IT USED FOR?

To locate mineral

reserves. Geologists can

measure radon content in

water and trace it back

to deposits of uranium

and thorium.

○CAN I GET SOME?

If you buy a poorly built

house. Radon from

decaying uranium or

thorium in the ground

can spread through

cracks in the foundation

or plumbing; the

Environmental Protection

Agency says it’s the

leading cause of lung

cancer in American

nonsmokers. Risk takers

can also spend $380 for a

kilogram of thorium oxide

powder on Alibaba.com;

pack some into a glass

capsule, and a minute

quantity of radon will be

inside at all times as the

thorium decays. Just hope

the glass doesn’t break.

WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE?

Impossible to say. Given

where it appears in the

periodic table, scientists

suspect francium would

look metallic, like other

alkalis. But it’s the second-

rarest element on Earth,

and no one has artificially

manufactured more than

a few hundred thousand

atoms. “If you were ever

to look at a piece of pure

francium large enough to

be visible, it would be the

last thing you did,” says

Max Whitby of London

element-seller Red Green

& Blue. “It would explode

with the force of a small

nuclear bomb.”

WHY’S IT (MOSTLY)

USELESS?

The most stable form

of francium—produced

when actinium, already a

fleeting trace element in

uranium ore, decays in a

particular way—has a half-

life of just 20 minutes.

It’s also intensely

radioactive; Marguerite

Perey discovered francium

in 1939, and she’d set off

nearby radiation counters

for years afterward. She

died, finally, of bone

cancer.

WHAT’S IT USED FOR?

Pretty much just pub trivia.

(“A Western European

country has not one but

two elements named for it.

What are they?” Answer:

francium and gallium, the

latter after Gaul, the old

Roman term for France.)

“It can’t even be used as a

medical isotope,” Whitby

says. “How would you

transport it anywhere?

You’d have only a few

minutes to get it there

before it decayed.”

CAN I GET SOME?

Apart from the old trick of

imagining the appearance

and disappearance of

francium atoms inside

decaying uranium? No.

85

At

Astatine

(MOSTLY)

USELESS

By Samanth Subramanian

86

Rn

Radon

(MOSTLY)

USELESS

By Samanth Subramanian

87

Fr

Francium

(MOSTLY)

USELESS

By Samanth Subramanian

83

Bi

Bismuth

84

Po

Polonium

Bloomberg Businessweek / SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 THE ELEMENTS

WHAT IF YOU EAT IT?

 Bismuth $10.80 / kg U.S. market

 Polonium $86 1-inch radioisotope disk

 Astatine $39.95 Uranium + decay

ismuth

○Who eats bismuth?

Sufferers of diarrhea, nausea, or upset stomach.

○What does it taste like?

The most common form, Pepto-Bismol, also

known as “pink bismuth,” tastes chalky and a

bit medicinal.

○What does it do?

The active ingredient, bismuth subsalicylate,

is used mostly as an antacid, but it also

has anti-inflammatory and bactericidal

properties that help with diarrhea. And it can

turn your tongue and stool black.

WHAT IF YOU EAT IT?

○ Who eats polonium?

The Russian spy and defector

Alexander Litvinenko, in London

in 2006.

○ What does it taste like?

The tea into which it’s been dissolved.

○ What does it do?

Polonium causes fatal radiation exposure. Litvinenko

was initially diagnosed with gastroenteritis; within days

his blood and bone marrow failed, his hair fell out, and

his mucous membranes ulcerated. Eventually, when his

organs failed, he fell unconscious and died.

 Radon $380 / kg Thorium oxide +

decay

 Francium $39.95 Uranium + decay