Bioaccumulation of polonium-210 (t1/2 5 138 d) in marine phytoplankton can introduce this naturally occurring radioisotope into food chains, where it accounts for most of the radiation dose to marine organisms and to human consumers of seafood. Moreover, this isotope could be useful as a tracer of the flux of organic matter in ocean surface waters. We performed laboratory experiments with eight...

Radon is a noble gas formed from the natural radioactive decay of uranium (U) and thorium (Th), natural components of the earth’s crust, which decay to radium (Ra) and then to radon (Rn). Decay chains include Ra and Rn for U; Ra and Rn for U; and Ra and Rn for Th. As radium decays, radon is formed and released into pores in the soil. Fissures and pores in the substrate allow the radon to migrat...

Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934) [1] Maria Skłodowska-Curie is the only scientist in history to receive the Nobel Prize twice, once in Physics (1903) for the discovery of radioactivity and once in Chemistry (1911) for the discovery of polonium and radium and studies concerning the nature of these elements. Scientific work, which she started together with her husband Pierre Curie and continued...

Accumulatlon of polonium In the common prawn Palaemon serratus and the sea perch Serranus scnba was studied expenmentally to clanfy the relative Importance of water and food as sources of the hlgh 210Po concentrations usually found in marlne organisms A double-tracer technlque was used whlch enables dlfferentlating the bioaccun~ulation of PO dissolved in seawater (as 210Po) and the dlgestlve tr...

We present a nucleosynthesis calculation of a 25 M star of solar composition that includes all relevant isotopes up to polonium. In particular, all stable isotopes and necessary nuclear reaction rates are covered. We follow the stellar evolution from hydrogen burning till iron core collapse and simulate the explosion using a “piston” approach. We discuss the influence of two key nuclear reactio...

The calculations of the alpha decay half-lives some Polonium isotopes in mass range 186 - 218 have been carried out using Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) semiclassical approximation. alpha-nucleus effective potential used contains Coulomb potential, centrifugal and nuclear potential. is obtained via double folding model, with microscopic NN interactions derived from relativistic mean field theo...

We report a simple new technique for measuring low-level radium isotopes (224Ra and 226Ra) in natural waters. The radium present in natural waters is first preconcentrated onto MnO2-coated acrylic fiber (Mn fiber) in a column mode. The radon produced from the adsorbed radium is then circulated through a closed air-loop connected to a commercial radon-in-air monitor. The monitor counts alpha dec...

Tobacco leaves are large and have sticky exudates that retain the radon decay products once they deposit on the leaves. The study of Po in tobacco is required, because of the cumulative alpha-radiation dose delivered to humans from inhaled Po in cigarette smoke. Pb is the other element of interest since it is the Po precursor in the radioactive decay chain. In the present study, the concentrati...