Man Sat on Hunk of Uranium.

From Lateral Science:

Belgian mining engineers at Shinkolobwe unearthed this seven ton lump of rich uranium ore in 1922. It contained enough fissile material to construct two Hiroshima type atomic weapons.

The man's got some balls (though soon afterwards, they probably fell off!) Link - via Scribal Terror

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Alex ... perhaps that rock has the potential or capacity of such?

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Two questions:

If the caption is right, then doesn't that hunk have the equivalent radioactivity as 2 fissile nuclear weapons' worth?

Also, is natural uranium and depleted uranium almost the same? Either are low on the highly radioactive form U-235, but DU has also been shown to have residual radioactivity and can cause cancer in lab animals.

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tempscire: i didn't notice that! he looks SO creepy!

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as stated, unenriched uranium is fairly harmless, plus uranium is a good shield for neutrons. it emits fast neutrons which pass thru the body quickly, the slow neutrons are shielded by the uranium. for a criticality to occur you need three things....mass, moderator and geometry.

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All I know is that I saw the word 'uranium' and saw this guy sitting on it and went "Aaaaaargh! Get him off! Get him off there!"

Thanks for pointing out the difference between HEU and Natural Uranium mrgoodbar.

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