Radium

fashion is the example of Chemist Marie Curie. Best known for her work with radioactivity, Madame Curie cast off the social convention that women were not scientists. However, had she held a frying pan and rotisserie rather than flasks of Polonium and Radium, the world would not have many of its largest advancements to medicine. A final example, quite possibly one of the most well-known individualists in history, is Confucius. As a child, Confucius never attended school, as an alternative he…

Protecting our homes and our families is our responsibility. Perhaps, we humans are still not aware of the bigger responsibility that we have on our shoulders. Being able to afford a place for living and taking care of it is our ultimate responsibility. But without planet earth everything is useless. We have forgotten resources for future generations and the consequences of this have resulted in global warming. There are numerous solutions to global warming such as, investing in geothermal…

Radioisotopes are atoms that consist of unstable combination of neutrons and protons. All elements which have their atomic numbers greater than 83 are radioisotopes and have unstable, radioactive nuclei. They have at least one stable isotope and one unstable isotope. In order to gain stable conformation the nucleus of the atoms loses a neutron due to which radiation energy is given off and the atom is said to be in radioactive state. They are also called as radionuclides because they have more…

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black farmer from Virginia who led a life that would be described as typical at the time. She had children when she was young, raised them to the best of her ability while working to survive. But “typical” would not be the word to describe the impact Henrietta had on the scientific world. While admitted to a hospital, a sample of tissue unwillingly taken from her tumor gave rise to one of the most important cell lines in medical advancement and research. The cells that…

For example, Madame Curie was intrigued by the fact that Uranium compounds emitted rays that could fog a photographic plate, and thus began experimental work on Uranium compounds immediately. As a result of her experimentation she found the element radium, Ra. Scientists have built upon Madame Curie’s discovery to produce radon, a radioactive gas used to treat some types of cancer, consequently developing the natural sciences ("Research Breakthroughs (1897-1904)"). Scientists could not ignore…

The atomic theory has revolutionized the field of science. The ideas behind it began in the times of Ancient Greece. From there the ideas were put under trial, proven, disproven, and formed into what we now recognize as the atomic theory. Since the beginning of time, people believed that matter was made from a few fundamental building blocks. In ancient times, these fundamental elements were thought of as water, fire, earth, and air. Around 400 BCE, Democritus and Leucippus developed a…

Introduction Radiation protection policy is distributed among several governmental Agencies in the United States. Each agency is tasked with controlling exposure to radiation and the safe use of radioactive materials and radiation generating devices. These agencies inform their policy with reports and recommendations from a number of organizations, including the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). The NCRP is a longstanding organization that strives to provide…

thousands of Americans have had their cancers treated by cobalt-60 irradiation, and it is also used to sterilize medical products and equipment” (36). Shortly later, Seaborg and David Graham, his fellow graduate classmate, borrowed their professors radium-beryllium neutron source to disprove a theory reported by a Japanese scientist named Seishi Kikuchi. They concluded that the neutrons involved were colliding with a nucleus rather than electrons. In fact, the Japanese scientist acknowledged…

it is not enough to not do harm, one must also do additional work to provide benefits to the patient (Coale, 2015). According to Henrietta’s attending physician Howard Jones, “Henrietta got the same care any white patient would have; the biopsy, radium treatment and radiation were all standard” (Skloot, 2010). Despite proper beneficial treatment, Henrietta’s death is linked with having a more aggressive adenocarcinoma, diagnosed years after her death, as well as being immunosuppressed due to…

Radiation therapy is the use of high-beamed, frequently external, radiation to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often gets its power from X-rays, but power can also come from protons. Radiation therapy was originated in 1989 and began as radium with low-voltage diagnostic machines. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was found that radiation could also cause cancer. At this time, erythema dose was discovered, which is the appropriate daily dose of radiation. Many testers…