Here at the Emporium antique shop in Gaithersburg, something is spitting radioactivity.
"Whoa! Did you see that?" cries Ray Johnson, a sweet-faced man with a trim white beard and 30 years of experience in radiation safety. The needle on his Geiger counter has swung right off the scale and a loud clicking declares the presence of something hot.
"Radiation is not inherently sinister or dangerous," says Ray Johnson, with some of his trove of Geiger counters and radioactive household objects.
(Michael Lutzky - The Washington Post)
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Johnson was moving slowly through the shop, methodically sweeping his pocket-size detector over juicers and casserole dishes, tea caddies and glass dinner bells, when he got the hit.
Few people are as well versed as Johnson in detecting and measuring radiation. He's got two advanced degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is director of the Radiation Safety Academy, a private training and consulting company. For 15 years, his staff has calibrated the radiation meters at the National Institutes of Health and conducted daily inspections of the labs for signs of contamination. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was the chief of radiation surveillance at the Environmental Protection Agency -- the government official in charge of monitoring all sources of public exposure to radiation.
The sight of a radiation expert like Johnson waving a Geiger counter through the air -- even in an antique shop -- could evoke a gallery of nightmare images. The place names alone ring with dread: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl. And lately there's a new fear: a terrorist's dirty bomb.
But on this occasion, Johnson isn't on the job. He's just having a little fun. He has zeroed in on the source of the radioactivity: a square-faced travel clock in a beat-up red leather case. Price: $45. Its age is unknown; it's probably a relic of the 1930s. Its value to Johnson doesn't lie in its quality as a timepiece -- he doesn't even care whether it works. What fascinates him are the dabs of green paint on the hands and numbers of the clock face. That paint, laced with the radioactive element radium to glow in the dark, was used widely in consumer and military products early in the previous century.
Over the screeching Geiger counter, Johnson says reverently of the sorry-looking antique: "That's definitely hot." The price is too high, he grumbles. "But you know what, I'm tempted to buy it anyway. That'd be the hottest thing I own."
What Makes Them Tick
Collecting radioactive timepieces and uranium ore isn't quite the same as chasing after bottle caps or Beanie Babies. A special tool is required: a Geiger counter for alerting the user to invisible electrons and other particles flying off atoms in the process of radioactive decay. The detector becomes a kind of mechanical body part providing, as one collector described it, a "sixth sense." The most fanatical hobbyists pass their probes over everything in sight, jotting in their notebooks the radiation levels in cat litter, camera lenses and old spark plugs. Some prized collection pieces are everyday consumer items that just happen to be hot: radium clocks, alpha-ray-emitting smoke detectors, uranium-glass butter dishes, Fiesta Ware dinner plates tinted orange with uranium oxide, Coleman lantern gas mantles containing thorium.
Also popular are straight-from-the-earth minerals such as carnotite, monazite and pitchblende, the ore that Marie Curie spent years boiling and stirring in her acid-stained smock on her way to the discovery of radium. A rare specimen known to elicit oohs and aahs is trinitite, a glassy, grayish-green material created from the fusion of sand and earth in the first atomic bomb blast -- the Trinity test -- at Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945.
For the collector, the lure isn't so much any particular rock discovered on a mountainside or a dinner plate found on eBay. The joy comes in tracking down and witnessing a mysterious force of nature. Radioactivity defies the human senses: you can't see it, smell it, hear it, taste it or feel it. It is this hidden quality that enchants the collector. When a Geiger counter chirps intensely over a hot find, the hunter stops and listens with rapt attention -- as if the Earth itself is speaking.
Risky Business
Popular apprehension has defined radioactivity since its discovery more than a hundred years ago. One of the earliest researchers said it suggested that Armaggedon now lay at the whim not just of God but of man as well. H.G. Wells fed the fear in 1914 with his novel "The World Set Free," prophesying the creation of atomic bombs capable of nearly wiping out civilization.
Radiation also was recognized early on for its value in the treatment of some cancers and other ailments. But the harmful effects of prolonged exposure soon showed up in scientists and doctors. Safety precautions were little understood and not a high priority. Consumer products containing radium, such as glow-in-the-dark watches, became the rage in the 1920s and 1930s. Young factory women who painted the watch dials licked their brushes to produce a fine point -- unaware of the danger -- and died gruesome deaths from ingesting the radium. Marie Curie herself suffered ill effects throughout her life and eventually died of radiation poisoning. Her furniture is radioactive to this day.
After Hiroshima, the Cold War sustained the public's fear of nuclear annihilation with help from a flood of science fiction movies. In the 1950 film "Rocketship X-M," a crew from Earth lands on Mars to discover the remnants of a civilization wiped out by nuclear war. The low-budget film spurred a genre that capitalized on radiation terror and gave moviegoers memorable afternoons with radiation-spawned mutants such as the giant ants that swarm the Trinity test site in 1954's "Them!"
In the post-Sept. 11 world, public fears have shifted to the possible terrorist use of radioactive materials. But the small-dose items favored by these collectors are exempt from federal regulatory restrictions, according to John Hickey, a senior technical adviser at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "As for using them for terrorist or illegal purposes, these are very low-risk materials," he says.
The NRC specialist says he's not a collector himself, but he does own a chunk of uranium ore picked up out West, and a radioactive Fiesta Ware dinner plate purchased at a flea market. "The guy in the shop said, 'You know, that's got uranium in it,' " Hickey recalls. " 'I know,' I said, 'that's why I'm buying it.' "
Experts say the emissions from collectibles such as a radium clock or a chunk of uranium ore are so low that there is no danger of radiation poisoning. That condition occurs after exposure to a massive radiation dose from a nuclear explosion or accident and can produce life-threatening nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging and infection. If a risk does exist from collectibles, it is from the delayed effects of long-term exposure, according to Paul Frame, a health physicist and director of the nation's most extensive public collection of radioactive artifacts, at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities in Tennessee.
"Regulatory agencies and radiation safety professionals operate under the assumption that even the smallest of doses that a collector might receive would carry an increased risk of cancer," Frame says. "But there is no conclusive evidence that this is the case. At the same time, it is not possible to rule out that there is zero risk at low doses."
Green glass containing radioactive uranium is in the collection of Ray Johnson, director of the Radiation Safety Academy, a private training and safety company.
(Michael Lutzky - The Washington Post)
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The collectors try to strike a balance between their passion and the needs of safety. Kat Rogers, a 24-year-old geology student at the University of Wyoming, is crazy about rocks. Her apartment in Laramie is filled with hundreds of specimens, including a growing assortment that spurts the invisible rays. Her favorite is a chunk of hyalite opal. Under ultraviolet light, she says, "it glows so wonderfully."
When she first started handling radioactive materials, Rogers wore a special pair of bulky radiation-proof gloves. But they made it difficult to handle small or delicate items, and she has since weaned herself off them, preferring to apply her knowledge of basic safety precautions. These include washing her hands after touching radioactive materials, minimizing any crumbling of minerals because of the danger of inhaling the dust, storing specimens in protective containers, and ventilating storage areas.
But the strictest precautions won't mollify everyone. "One of my friends won't bring her children into my apartment because she fears they'll get sick from the radiation," Rogers says.
Nutty Results
Tracy Albert grew up on a farm in Saginaw Township, Mich., with goats and pigs in the yard and a chip on his shoulder. In his youth he was more of a brawler than a bookworm -- he eventually dropped out of high school -- but he always had an aptitude for math and science. What money he had he'd take with him on long bike rides to Radio Shack and come home with the latest electronics kit. Today he can't spell well, but ask him to explain the alpha ray emission of radon and you'll hear a learned lecture straight from his own experiments. Some time ago, Albert tired of building Geiger counters and moved on to more complicated devices such as radon detectors. He is so proficient with his gadgets that the 40-year-old traffic electrician for the city of Saginaw is certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a first responder in the event of a radioactive incident. "I've got better detection equipment than anybody around here for 300 miles," he boasts.
With his wife and two young children in the house, he takes strict precautions with his radioactive collectibles: a 1952 radium clock ("the hottest, baddest thing I ever had"), about 40 thorium lantern mantles, some monazite sand from Guatemala, and pitchblende. He keeps it all in an old metal first-aid kit painted bright yellow and labeled "RADIOACTIVE" and stores the kit in a locked building away from the house.
Not long ago, Albert decided to investigate for himself what experts have long said: that Brazil nuts are a highly radioactive food. At the grocery store, he says, "I couldn't find whole Brazil nuts so I got mixed pre-shelled nuts." Back home, he peeled three of the nuts, tossed them into a mortar and pounded them with a pestle until he had a consistent sample in the form of Brazil nut butter. He spread the butter in a small container. When he turned his Geiger counter on the nuts, he discovered that they registered as much as 33 percent hotter than the natural radiation level of the room.
The Brazil nut tree absorbs radium from the soil and concentrates it in the meat of the nut. Research into the radiation risks of consuming the nuts is scarce. A report published in the journal Health Physics in 1968 noted the high level of radioactivity, concluding that "it is to be expected that individuals who regularly eat Brazil nuts for many years will eventually build up elevated radium body burdens." The Food and Drug Administration has no recommendation on Brazil nut consumption other than warning of a possible allergic reaction, as with other nuts.
"I used to eat three to five pounds of Brazil nuts every year," Albert says. "I still eat some, but not as many."
Albert is a member of a Yahoo chat group, CDV700Club, named after a civil defense Geiger counter produced by the tens of thousands during the Cold War. Collectors meet online to share knowledge and experiences, seek answers to knotty questions and locate parts. The rules demand that the discussion remain scientific and cordial, steering clear of politics. For Albert, the members are a lifeline to his passion. "They're like reverend brothers," he says.
Member Jim Hale recently confessed to the chat group that he was injected with a radioactive substance for a gallbladder scan. He scoffed when his wife worried that the medical procedure would leave him radioactive enough to cook the children. Home from the doctor, Hale flipped on his new Geiger counter. "It goes nuts," he says. "I thought, okay, it's broke." Then he tried his vintage CDV-700 instrument once, twice, three times, and on each occasion the needle flew off the scale. Hale had received about 300 millirems of radiation, equal to the average natural exposure a person gets in a year. But that burst -- common in diagnostic tests -- is not strong enough to prompt serious concern, according to G. Donald Frey, a professor of radiology at the Medical University of South Carolina. The usefulness of the scan outweighs the risk. Within a few days, the radioactive substance vanishes from the body, Frey says.
Hale wasn't worried. "I may not be the best," he says, "but as I have demonstrated, I am the brightest."
Radioactive Man
Back at Johnson's safety radiation classroom in Gaithersburg, a poster of Bart Simpson's favorite comic book hero, Radioactive Man, shares wall space with a chart showing all the known radioactive elements. The wall reflects the perennial clash between fear and science. Johnson believes that his role as a teacher is to find a middle ground. He instructs high school teachers, government officials, corporate executives, hospital workers and police officers in everything from radiation awareness to nuclear terrorism. Not just a radiation safety expert, Johnson also is trained as a counselor. "I want to make people feel more comfortable with radioactivity by dealing with their fears," he says.
His classroom is lined with collector's items: enough Fiesta dishes, jugs, cups and saucers, and salt and pepper shakers to fill the cupboards of a kitchen; green glass pieces containing uranium -- a horse, a revolver, a pair of shoes; a shelf of bright yellow Cold War Geiger counters; 1920s and 1930s radium travel clocks and watches; and quack cures, including a radium water dispenser known as a Revigator. Because his collection is already excessive -- numbering 800 pieces in all and spilling from the classroom into his home -- Johnson decided against buying the hot watch that thrilled him earlier in the day. "My son says we're running out of room, so I need to look for things I don't already have," he says.
Standing in the center of the classroom 15 feet away from the shelves, Johnson flips on a Geiger counter. It barely ticks, registering only natural background radiation -- proving, he says, that even in a place jampacked with radioactive antiques, the risk is minimal. "Radiation is not inherently sinister or dangerous," Johnson says. "Am I going to convert the world? No. But if I can talk to one person at a time, maybe I'll get somewhere."
