Both natural uranium (u-238) and thorium (Th-232) emit low-level alpha particles, which are stopped by a few centimeters of air (or the shell of a metal container). It is difficult to understand how they could be detected. The chemicals, if properly sealed, would likewise have no tell-tale emissions. Probably no more dangerous than the storeroom for a high school chemistry teacher. People are always the most deeply afraid of what they are ignorant. (And there's a lot of ignorance about.)
The other thing about natural elements like U238 and Th232 and others and the synthetic isotopes is how astonishingly poisonous they are. The Soviets and their puppets used heavy metal micropellets as an assassination weapon.
You may be referring to the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by a pellet of polonium-210. What killed him was acute radiation syndrome, not heavy metal poisoning. Polonium-210 has a half-life of ~138 days, whereas radium-226 (the most common natural isotope) has a half-life of 1600 years. Naturally occurring uranium and thorium are nowhere as radioactive. Natural uranium can sometimes be found in granite used for counter-tops, as included pitchblende. U-238 is often used as radiation shielding, notwithstanding its own (small) radioactivity.
It's basic science. I was an avid science student in junior and senior high school. On one occasion, in my senior chemistry class, after a demonstration of the vaporization of iodine (purple vapor), I asked the teacher if he had a bromine sample in his chemical stores behind the main classroom. After a pause, it occurred to him that he might, so we went back into the storeroom, and he rummaged around to produce a box somewhat smaller than a shoebox. We looked at each other. He took the lid off. There was cotton packing. He removed it. There was a large, capped tin cylinder...with nasty-looking brown corrosion at the seams. (Bromine in its elemental state is a dark brown liquid.) We looked at that for a silent moment. "I don't think we should open this," he finally said. I nodded in agreement.
I went on to handle solid rocket fuel later in life.
Both natural uranium (u-238) and thorium (Th-232) emit low-level alpha particles, which are stopped by a few centimeters of air (or the shell of a metal container). It is difficult to understand how they could be detected. The chemicals, if properly sealed, would likewise have no tell-tale emissions. Probably no more dangerous than the storeroom for a high school chemistry teacher. People are always the most deeply afraid of what they are ignorant. (And there's a lot of ignorance about.)
The other thing about natural elements like U238 and Th232 and others and the synthetic isotopes is how astonishingly poisonous they are. The Soviets and their puppets used heavy metal micropellets as an assassination weapon.
You may be referring to the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by a pellet of polonium-210. What killed him was acute radiation syndrome, not heavy metal poisoning. Polonium-210 has a half-life of ~138 days, whereas radium-226 (the most common natural isotope) has a half-life of 1600 years. Naturally occurring uranium and thorium are nowhere as radioactive. Natural uranium can sometimes be found in granite used for counter-tops, as included pitchblende. U-238 is often used as radiation shielding, notwithstanding its own (small) radioactivity.
Good info! Did you work in this area of science?
It's basic science. I was an avid science student in junior and senior high school. On one occasion, in my senior chemistry class, after a demonstration of the vaporization of iodine (purple vapor), I asked the teacher if he had a bromine sample in his chemical stores behind the main classroom. After a pause, it occurred to him that he might, so we went back into the storeroom, and he rummaged around to produce a box somewhat smaller than a shoebox. We looked at each other. He took the lid off. There was cotton packing. He removed it. There was a large, capped tin cylinder...with nasty-looking brown corrosion at the seams. (Bromine in its elemental state is a dark brown liquid.) We looked at that for a silent moment. "I don't think we should open this," he finally said. I nodded in agreement.
I went on to handle solid rocket fuel later in life.