3 ms·
Tangentially related to this, I remember in the late 80's hearing about bacteria that ate nuclear material, drastically reducing the half life of plutonium. I
by snapetom 7y ago
Tangentially related to this, I remember in the late 80's hearing about bacteria that ate nuclear material, drastically reducing the half life of plutonium. I assume that research went nowhere since thirty years later, we don't hear about it.
Does anyone remember this or know anything about it?
- rleigh 7y agoNothing can reduce radioactive half-life. It's a constant value for each isotope. If you found a way, you would have rewritten physics as we know it.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoTechnically you could add or remove neucleons to change which isotope (or element) you've got, which would change the half-life. EG running a nuclear reactor changes the half-life of the fuel rod, by changing the materials in the fuel rod.
- stallmanite 7y agoNow we just need to engineer ourselves an organism incorporating a nuclear reactor. Are there any absolute showstoppers thermodynamics wise that would prevent such a thing?
- foxyv 7y agoUnlike many other isotopes, if you can concentrate plutonium you can reduce its half life dramatically while increasing radioactivity.