Alex Litvinenko was a famous dissident and denouncer of Russian leader Putin. Not one known for his thick skin, the Russian president sent two hitmen to take him out. The murder weapon? An estimated 300 nanograms of polonium-210 sprinkled over his tea and crumpets as he enjoyed breakfast with his assassins one fine morning in London back in 2006. While the plan succeeded in its ultimate goal, it turned into a monumental public relations failure because they weren't counting on the British medical team figuring out the source of the poison. Despite the active ingredient being far too small to be directly observable they didn't think a doctor would have the foresight to have their patient's urine sent for spectrographical analysis. But this was no ordinary patient, of course, and MI5 had been hard at work covering every possible angle.

And so, nearly overnight polonium became infamous worldwide as one of nature's deadliest concoctions. While cyanide kills in the milligram range, and most nerve agents kill in the micrograms, polonium does so three zeroes further to the right: just 50 nanograms (billionths of a gram) is considered lethal if ingested. To put this into perspective, a gram of polonium dispersed over New York City would basically wipe out every soul living there. And for those having trouble visualizing a gram think of a penny (or Euro cent) --> that's three grams.

Deadly as it is, polonium is safe to collect - in very small quantities, of course. Its form of radiation, alpha emission, is the most energetic and potentially lethal but also the easiest to shield. A fistful of pure polonium would burn your hand off instantly but from a few feet away it would be about as deadly as a hot cup of coffee. Ok as a collectible then if shielded but... an apparently intractable problem. Where to get some? For years we were aware that in the U.S. one could buy polonium-laced brushes which are sold as static electricity neutralizers. The problem with using these is that the amount of polonium decreases the minute it rolls off the line and given that its commercially available isotope, Po-210, has a half life of just 138 days, by the time the sample arrives in your mail chances are that most of it has already spontaneously transmutated to the much less exciting isotope Pb-206 (yeah, lead). Within a couple of years the brush is essentially all tapped out of those expensive polonium-210 atoms. It is this reason why our customers have so far been left out in the lurch for this hole in their collection.

Luckily, a solution is available in the form of so-called “check sources”. For the calibration of sensitive equipment and as a particularly effective method to activate cloud chambers (truly the ultimate STEM gift!), nuclear laboratories have been allowed to sell small quantities of radioactive lead. These are typically deposited in the eye of a sewing needle which is then mounted on a piece of cork. Luciteria now offers these repackaged in a collectible format.

Now for the fun details as explained to me by people gifted with a good grasp of math and physics:

From the moment of creation, each source needle’s Pb-210 begins to decay into Bi-210. This isotope of bismuth is very unstable with a half life of just 5 days, which promptly decays into Po-210. While this form of polonium, the only one found in nature, is itself barely more stable at a half life of a mere 138 days, the number of atoms will nevertheless continue to grow while there is a viable quantity of its parent Pb-210 source. Given the 2023 manufacture of this sample it is estimated that somewhere in the latter half of 2025 each of these cubes will contain a peak quantity of 9 nanocuries, or 1.6 trillionths of a gram, of polonium. After that point it will begin to decline slowly to 7.5 nCi by 2033, 5 nCi by 2053 and then peter out so that, statistically, we can say that the last atom of polonium will go poof somewhere around 726 years from now.

Conveniently, we offer a lifetime guarantee limited to 725 years ;-)