Bad Po

The image you see above is of a small radiation detection device. It is the exact device I carry with me when I'm traveling. If I'm at the post office, airport, walking by a mosque, or anywhere and a radioactive substance is around it will trigger. It has directional capabilities and will respond in proportion to the radiation detected. The only downside is it would not detect alpha or beta emitters.

Poor Alexander Litvinenko died from a baddie: polonium-210 ('Po'). This element does not occur in nature, it is human-made in a reactor. The exact scenario of how it was introduced into the former Soviet spy may never be known.

Po is a heavy alpha emitter, and kept outside of the body it is relatively safe to handle. It is difficult to detect because alpha particles don't travel far and are easily blocked. Let someone ingest or inhale an invisible amount - milligrams - and it will kill. The type of slow death that terrorists would love to inflict.

Unspecified radiation was also found in the British Embassy in Moscow. Now one thing my readers should know is polonium-210 is one of the materials used in so-called suitcase nuclear bombs. Nukies need a trigger to emit a flood of neutrons that initiates the chain reaction. The half-life of PO is about 6 months, so such suitcase WMD's need fresh PO a couple of times a year.

In whatever form expect radiation to be used and abused in the hands of Islamic terrorists. The threat is guaranteed because governments of the free world still refuse to acknowledge the real source of the terrorist threats.

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