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Friday, December 1, 2006 12:00 AM

Who poisoned the KGB agent?

Only a state with a highly sophisticated nuclear program could kill a person with a radioactive toxin.

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  • Friday, December 1, 2006 07:07 AM

    Polonium not an isotope of Uranium

    Some factual corrections (retired professor of physcience here).

    For Polonium to be an isotope of Uranium it would have to have the same atomic number (# of protons in its nucleus).

    Polonium is an element in its own right: #84 to be precise. Uranium is #92. Uranium undergoes a series of spontaneous decays until it reaches a stable state. For Uranium-238 that stable state is Lead-206 (element #82).

    Polonium-210 is a short-lived isotope (half-life 138.39 days), and when it emits an alpha particle (two protons and two neutrons) it becomes Lead-206. Polonium-210 is made by bombarding Bismuth-209 (#83) with neutron in a reactor, which creates Bismuth-210, which has a half-life of 5-days, and by beta-decay becomes Polonium-210. The most stable isotope of Polonium is Polonium-209, which has a half-life of 102-years. Polonium-210 is much more radioactive that Polonium-209.

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