The American College of Radiology has posted an article from Reuters describing some of the ways that US hospitals are coping with the loss of needed medical isotopes. Basically, it involves wait lists, rationing or switching to more expensive or less accurate tests.

The Society for Nuclear Medicine has put together a clearing house of information and recommendations here.

One person subscribes to the notion that the Chinese symbol for crisis is also the symbol for opportunity.

In an unrelated story, Orac celebrates Homeopathy Awareness Week by pointing out a story about a British store that sells homeopathic plutonium.

Boing Boing had this quite a while ago, but I just ran across it courtesy of Dubious Quality. The A.C. Gilbert company sold educational science sets back in the 50’s, and one of their less successful offerings was the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab sold from 1950-51.

This was the most elaborate Atomic Energy educational set ever produced, but it was only only available from 1951 to 1952. Its relatively high price for the time ($50.00) and its sophistication were the explanation Gilbert gave for the set’s short lifespan. Today, it is so highly prized by collectors that a complete set can go for more than 100 times the original price.

The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual “Prospecting for Uranium.”

There is no spec given for source activity. Hopefully it was really low. It’s amazing looking back from a time where chemistry sets are considered too dangerous that kids were actually encouraged to play with radioactive materials. I wonder, though, if part of the reason we’ve lost interest in science as a society is because we no longer encourage our kids to explore the “cool” things in science. My father-in-law, also a physicist, nearly blew up his childhood home making homemade fireworks. In my younger days I used my high school physics to optimize potato cannon design. By relegating science to a sterile classroom lab, I think we’ve taken away some of its allure.