33,000 people are being contacted who were on those three British planes.

[applegrove]

Thirty Three Thousand air travelers. On CNN a few moments ago.

[NOLADEM]

1. Can these planes be decontaminated or must they be decommissioned?

[mom cat]

2. To hell with the planes. What about the passengers?

I still don't know if my daughter was one of them!

[applegrove]

3. Oh that is so harsh. Your daughter. I think these things have a half life

and get less and less potent. Sending vibes your way. There are hundreds of planes flying through London every day. Hundreds. The odds are very small.

[mom cat]

5. That is what I keep telling myself, but other peoples daughters and

sons were on those planes, even if mine wasn't.

[applegrove]

10. I just heard on CBC News that Polonium cannot hurt you unless you injest

it. You could hold it in your hands and as long as you took a shower and washed your hands .. you would be okay. It cannot go through skin.

Vibes.

[brer cat]

6. That's awful to consider, mom cat!

Thousands of people are in your shoes....was it that flight or not.

So sorry.

Sending good vibes. :hug:

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. The half life of PO

is only about 5 days.

[tiptoe]

8. Half life of Polonium = 138 days, no? (Bismuth half-life = 5 days)

Polonium (emphasis mine)

Submitted by drthompson on 25 November 2006 - 2:43pm.

Polonium has no biological role and any sample used to kill the former KGB spy must have come from either a research laboratory or nuclear facility. It is found in uranium ores but at miniscule levels 0.00000001%. So small that the Curie's were awarded the Nobel prize for their superhuman effort to extract it. Could a terrorist smuggle Polonium into this country or is there a human leak at a UK Defence Establishment? Gramme quantities of polonium-210 are synthesized from bismuth in nuclear reactors. Carrying quantities of polonium is difficult because of the high temperature from radioactive decay <500oC> and the emission of deadly alpha particles. These radioactive particles are most dangerous when ingested. They pick up electrons from cells in the body and escape as helium gas. Polonium-210 has a relatively short half life [138 days] so the 'evidence' diminishes constantly with time. Also Polonium is fairly volatile and will evaporate if not kept in a sealed container. Polonium is one of the deadliest known substances and is believed to be a trillion more times toxic than HCN [hydrogen cyanide] weight for weight.

Submitted by WebElements on 25 November 2006 - 12:21pm

It is suggested that poisoning by polonium-210 may have caused the death of Alexander Litvinenko, said to be a former Russian spy, in November 2006. Following his death at the end of November 2006, traces of polonium were found at several places he had visited before becoming ill. Before his death it was thought that thallium, or even radiothallium, might have been the cause of his illness. At the time of writing it is not clear who killed him, but not surprisingly the Russians deny it. Polonium-210 decays through the emission of α-particles and these emissions are noramlly easy to stop, but they are very dangerous if the polonium is inside the body.

Polonium is radioactive and present only in extremely low abundances in the environment. It is quite metallic in nature despite its location beneath oxygen in the periodic table. It is made in very small quantities through a nuclear reaction of bismuth. Neutron irradiation of 209bismuth (atomic number 83) gives 210polonium (atomic number 84).

²⁰⁹Bi + ¹n → ²¹⁰Po + e-

Polonium-210, ²¹⁰Po, transmutes into the lead isotope ²⁰⁶Pb by the emission of an α-particle. The half life for this process is just over 138 days meaning that after 138 days one-half of the original ²¹⁰Po has disappeared and after 2 times 138 days 3/4 has gone.

²¹⁰₈₄Po → ²⁰⁶₈₂Pb + ⁴₂He

The short half life of polonium-210 and the heat generated with the above radioactive decay means that polonium metal generates considerable heat (141 W), meaning that the metal and its compounds self-heat. This is a useful property and polonium can be used as a small heat source (if expensive!). It can be used in space satellites for this purpose and is especially desirable as there are no moving parts. It was also used in the lunar rovers to keep internal parts warm during the frigid lunar nights.

Polonium metal is unique in that it is the only element whose structure (known as the α-form) is a simple cubic array of atoms in which each atom is surrounded by six other polonium atoms. On gentle warming to 36°C, this converts into a second form known as the β-form.

Bismuth

Half-Life

Radioactive decay proceeds according to a principal called the half-life. The half-life (T½) is the amount of time necessary for one-half of the radioactive material to decay. For example, the radioactive element bismuth (210Bi) can undergo alpha decay to form the element thallium (206Th) with a reaction half-life equal to five days. If we begin an experiment starting with 100 g of bismuth in a sealed lead container, after five days we will have 50 g of bismuth and 50 g of thallium in the jar. After another five days (ten from the starting point), one-half of the remaining bismuth will decay and we will be left with 25 g of bismuth and 75 g of thallium in the jar. As illustrated, the reaction proceeds in halfs, with half of whatever is left of the radioactive element decaying every half-life period.

(disclaimer: IANA -Chemist -Physicist)

[schrodingers_cat]

7. Could you please give a little more information on this? What are

you talking about - Poison Oak? Pachydermatic Osteoarthritis? I cannot glean what the story is from what's written above.

Thanks!

[applegrove]

9. Sorry - I was vague. People were talking about Polonium all day. My bad.

[MadHound]

11. More baseless panic

Polonium is an alpha emitter. Alpha waves are blocked by the skin, therefore if these people didn't ingest or inhale the stuff(highly unlikely) they're fine. This is just more sensationalism to keep people scared. Oh, and the decon is easy enough, simply wipe it up with a mauslin cloth, and throw it away.

Oh, and to get you really scared, most plane passengers ride with large honking alpha emitters all the time. The balast that planes carry to keep them on an even keel is *gasp* depleted uranium.

[tiptoe]

12. Brit HPA: "though low levels of Po-210...on two of the planes, there was no risk to passengers."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16002222/from/RS.2/

...
Also on Saturday, British Airways said three jetliners grounded by investigators looking into Litvinenko’s death had been cleared to resume service. Small traces of radioactive substances had been found on the planes, which traveled between Moscow and London since the former spy turned Kremlin critic was poisoned.

“They have all been cleared and they will be back in service in the next few days,” said a BA spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Britain’s Health Protection Agency said though low levels of polonium 210 were found on two of the planes, there was no risk to passengers.

Another airline, easyJet, said Scaramella had flown with them to London from Naples on Oct. 31 and returned on Nov. 3, two days after his meeting with 43-year-old Litvinenko. The HPA said there was no risk to the public from those flights.
...

[fredsanford]

13. Scary stuff

It must make Tom Clancy jealous.