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Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

284 points by latchkey 4y ago

latchkey 4y ago
https://archive.is/5uUGC https://archive.is/5uUGC
eigenhombre 4y ago
I worked in cosmic rays for a time and there is some overlap between the challenge of finding the capsule, and common astroparticle physics problems. > The capsule, which contains a small amount of cesium-137, is dangerously radioactive, according to the authorities. An hour of exposure at about a meter away is the equivalent of having 10 X-rays, and prolonged contact can cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness and cancer, they said. I'd think this should be enough information to calculate the size (which the authorities should know, but we probably don't), and from the size the total beta and gamma flux should be calculable. Once the fluxes are understood, I imagine that could tell you how fast/slow you could/should drive on the highway to have a good chance of detection (I imagine the penetrating gamma signal would give better odds), for any given detector, assuming some maximum distance of the capsule from the highway. Interesting problem, I hope they pick it up before someone gets hurt.
- kibwen 4y ago
  We know the dimensions of the capsule, there's a video where someone 3D-printed a replica and it's about the dimensions of a medicine capsule, though slightly squatter. Think lego-head sized.
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  but if it fell on a ditch on the side of the highway, the attenuation by the asphalt would be quite significant, even if the original max distance assumption was quite exaggerated. Interesting problem indeed !
karmakaze 4y ago
Here's a story about a lost capsule[0] that ended up being made into building material for the wall of an apartment if you think something small isn't worth being concerned about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...
- ehnto 4y ago
  There is a video game about this event called The Lights of Svetlov. It was a great indie game, and I had no idea what it was about so the mystery unraveling in front of you was quite impactful.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- londons_explore 4y ago
  The equipment to detect high levels of radiation is very cheap. Likewise the equipment to detect lead... And hundreds of other deadly pollutants. Part of owning a house should involve getting it tested, perhaps once per 10 years, for all these contaminants. They might have been put in during construction - or it might be arsenic in the wood of your bed... Or a mixing mistake while making the plastic for your toothbrush handle... Or that mercury lightbulb someone smashed 50 years ago is still soaking through the foundations... A simple test of the dust your vacuum cleaner picks up would detect most of the most hazardous stuff. However contamination got into your house, there should be a government scheme to test for it, and possibly to remediate it too (environmental contamination can be seriously expensive to fix, and the last thing you want to happen is someone to hide it from an inspector and sell the house on to someone else)
  - dsauss 4y ago
    Are there testing services you’ve used before or would recommend to perform the testing? There does not seem to be a major brand or service provider offering this. Thank you!
    - 4y ago
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.
- throwaway89201 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    Not my question at all. How can it be so deadly/radioactive, yet so hard to detect? Further, asking questions is indeed the point of these discussions. Re-reading the standards I see no prohibition. And reading that reference article, the loss it cites was 19Tb (19 trillion bequerels). This lost capsule in Australia contains less than 100. So around what? 10 billion times less dangerous? Thanks for the reference material, now I'm more sure than ever that this article is some kind of clickbait about a fairly miniscule risk being trumpeted as a national incident.
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      I think it’s more about a failure of process than this particular piece of radioactive material. Being proportionally cavalier about it would invite lazier handling. The next piece of radioactive material could be more dangerous. The mining company will be sent the bill and police get to practice a real life scenario. And everyone knows don’t do that again.
    - magicalhippo 4y ago
      > How can it be so deadly/radioactive, yet so hard to detect? First, it's important to keep in mind that there are different forms of radiation: ionizing[1] which is dangerous and non-ionizing which is not typically dangerous[2]. Furthermore, ionizing radiation consists of three types, alpha, beta and gamma which have different properties and thus dangerous in different ways and amounts. The source in question contained cesium-137, which decays almost entirely (95%) by emitting beta particles. The beta particles are stopped by about 1 meter of air[3], but can do significant damage to living cells if nearby. Thus, trying to detect it is a bit like trying to see a bright flashlight in a fog. Even though it's bright you won't see it until you're really close. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_particle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_particle
cloudking 4y ago
Interview question: can you design a system to safely locate and retrieve the capsule?
- throwanem 4y ago
  Do you want it to scale horizontally, vertically, or both?
  - cloudking 4y ago
    It could be stuck in a tree, so probably both.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      Dang it, I wish I didn't have real architecture design work to do today, because this seems like it'd be a lot of fun to research. Pure horizontal scaling would be trucks with survey counters. Pure vertical would be getting the US to retask one of those radiation-sensing satellites they use to characterize stuff like the Urals trace. (Not that that'd be likely to happen - national security, etc. But have the embassy in DC call NASA anyway, just in case they do have something.) Both would be GA aircraft doing a broad survey while trucks retrace the route. In any case the logistics would be critical, and speed as ever would be costly - good thing we have government-scale resources to work with. And, yes, the system in this case would be implemented on a human substrate, not a silicon one. This isn't Chernobyl; we don't need robots to do this job, the problem is of limited enough scope to be safely handled by properly trained and equipped humans - finding whom would be an early logistical concern. (The surveyors would be safe enough barring a forced landing or breakdown very near the source, which is unlikely but we still want to get rescue services on standby, or hire a couple of civil helicopters from the oil industry or similar, for fast recovery just in case.) And for a one-off job like this that needs to be done as fast as possible, there isn't time to design, build, and debug robots that can do it.
      - perihelions 4y ago
        - "Pure vertical would be getting the US to retask one of those radiation-sensing satellites they use to characterize stuff like the Urals trace." That's an extraordinary thing to mention in passing; do you have a source for this?
campuscodi 4y ago
A dingo will eat it, transform into Fenrir, and that's how Ragnarok starts
- number6 4y ago
  And soon the world will cease to be. The northern wind brings snow and ice Humans starve and freeze The Fimbul winter has arrived And soon the world will cease to be Brother will be brother′s bane No one shall be spared All will die, none remain That is mankind's share The southern sphere is set ablaze Muspel′s fire is set free The sun is on its final chase And soon the world will cease to be Across the western sky he runs A wolf so grim and mean Devours the eternal sun And soon the world will cease to be
- gtvwill 4y ago
  Nah they've shot and trapped most dingos over that side. They don't recognise them as native animals so they allow eradication. its sad af :( they rare as over west.
bayesianbot 4y ago
https://archive.is/9oNiT https://archive.is/9oNiT
jfk13 4y ago
Australia: the country where not only the wildlife but even the gravel on the road is out to kill you!
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Best reply on this thread. Everything in Australia kills you or at least causes horrible pain. Even that cute platypus or that harmless-looking shell on the beach. And now this.
  - anakaine 4y ago
    No moose, bears, wolves, cougars, or other alpha predators in Australia though. About the worst are wild dogs / dingos, though they typically won't be a problem unless they're in a pack. I'll take Australian dangers over North American every day of the week.
    - bogeholm 4y ago
      They do have the saltwater crocodile[0], which looks close to alpha. Maybe unless it encounters an orca. I bet is has a great name in Australia - any Ozzies around who can comment? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_crocodile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_crocodile
      - zh3 4y ago
        "Salties"
      - dragonsky 4y ago
        Only if you are stupid enough to go near the water in areas they live. Unfortunately plenty of drunk campers have a habit of doing this.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - lmpdev 4y ago
fnands 4y ago
Oh, reminds me a of a time some students lost a Polonium source in the physics lab while I was a Masters student. The HoD had them crawling around the building for days with a Geiger counter, but they never found it. Luckily it was a small source and Polonium has a relatively short half-life, but the department had to go through a whole song and dance of declaring an incident.
- causality0 4y ago
  Sounds like either someone thought it would be cool to take it home or accidentally dropped it in a trash can that was taken out before it was missed.
- todd8 4y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Polonium is 5000 times more radioactive than Radium (just 0.001g of Po emits the same number of particles as 5g of Ra). It has a half life of just 138 days so in only 4.6 years the missing Polonium will be equivalent in radioactivity to Radium, which is known to cause cancer. This doesn't sound like something that should be treated lightly.
  - cshimmin 4y ago
    Sure but all that means is that 1g of radium will have the same activity as 0.2mg of polonium. Of course they will also have different decay spectra etc. We don't know how big the source was that the students lost, but I'm guessing that if they just gave up after a few days, it probably wasn't a very high activity. This means either very low mass, or a higher mass but just older so that it's decayed away.
    - fnands 4y ago
      It was tiny, I think something like this: https://www.flinnsci.com/alpha-source-polonium-210/ap8794/ https://www.flinnsci.com/alpha-source-polonium-210/ap8794/ They were letting undergrads handle it, so definitely wasn't a large source. Also, hey Chase! Funny to see you in the wild (Ferdi here)
barbazoo 4y ago
It's gonna be in the last place they look.
- euroderf 4y ago
  (*) by definition
- dalmo3 4y ago
  Nice try, but I've looked inside yesterday's pants' pockets and it's not there.
- kbutler 4y ago
  Probably not, as they will likely have multiple groups looking and some degree of delayed notification. Especially if they prank one group by not telling them. :-D
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Also, to avoid accidents, it's strongly advised to avoid the last ski run of the day.
- voxelghost 4y ago
  Someones going to come back from vacation and go like; -Yeah I took that out to prevent it from falling off during transport. Taped to the underside of bosses chair so we wont lose it.
propter_hoc 4y ago
Really scary. For those unaware of how badly this kind of situation can end up, read about the horrific Goiânia incident in Brazil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
- fblp 4y ago
  That story is crazy. Thanks for sharing!
  - csdvrx 4y ago
    The best part is how the person responsible for the problem (the director of Ipasgo) could redirect the blame to the owners who tried to prevent the catastrophy doing everything they could - he stopped them to do the right things with the help of cops: > Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the radioactive material that had been left behind.[7] Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb".[7] The Court of Goiás posted a security guard to protect the site.[8] Meanwhile, the owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site, but they could not remove the equipment by themselves once a court order prevented them from doing so.[7][8] > In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and operated IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of IGR's owners and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$100,000 for the derelict condition of the building. The two thieves were not included as defendants in the public civil suit.
    - bonzini 4y ago
      The owners also had left it there for two years. They weren't without blame either.
leaving 4y ago
This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy on the paved road that runs through the outback. If the tires of one of those hit the capsule, they could fling it a fair distance into the desert. There's nothing between the road and the sandy desert to stop it. If the capsule is a fair distance off the road, the inverse square law is going to reduce gamma detections closer to background. There won't be a clear peak in the data. If the vehicle with the detector moves slowly, there will be a wide peak in the time dimension that may just look like a natural variation in the background. If the vehicle moves fast, it may miss the source completely. It will be a matter of looking at the data to try to find a pattern that indicates where the capsule may be. This will be made more difficult becuase they don't likely have a pre-capsule-loss run that would allow them to subtract normal variations of the background. Adding to the problem is the stochastic nature of radiation. It is entirely possible to have a significant peak in the count rates that is not a strong point source; just a random variation in the background. Lower peaks from random confluence of background sources are likely; higher peaks are less likely, but not impossible. It may require a large number of runs to eliminate random events. Real vehicles on real roads experience a lot of variations in speed, plus random starts and stops because the driver had to pee, or eat, or because there was a dead kangaroo on the road or something. A fair bit of work will need to be done to standardize multiple runs. This can be partly solved by using multiple detectors on the same vehicle, with the idea being that peaks that are the result of natural variations in the background should only affect one detector at a time--so they can be subtracted out. But, again, CBRN teams have enough resources that they have already done this and they haven't found it. So it is reasonable to conclude that the capsule is either quite far off the road, or has been picked up by a passing vehicle. Another possibility is that the idea that it "fell off a truck" is wrong and that some human grabbed it by dissasembling the apparatus. This could be out of curiosity, or ignorance, or a misguided attempt to steal the source or use it for nefarious purposes. If that is the case, the capsule is going to be nearly impossible to find unless it happens to pass a fixed gamma detector somewhere, such as a port. The incident is a good argument for building scintillation crystals into all cellphones. This would be cheap and easy. Small scintillators are not very sensitive, and they are not great for spectroscopy, but they are extremely cool, very small, don't interfere with the workings of the phone, and use extremely little power. A network of scintillators in every phone would be amazing for finding stuff like this.
deleted 4y ago
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yummybear 4y ago
I really thought someone (US?) had technology (satellites) that could pinpoint radiation sources, even of this magnitude
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- geor9e 4y ago
  I had the same thought briefly, but then thought more about it. These are high energy particles. You might remember the article about cosmic rays that sometimes cause a single bit flip in a videogame, and that there is no easy way to shield against it. That makes satellite imaging difficult, because how do you focus some sort of lens, if the particles go right thru everything? You might detect that a cosmic ray or ionizing particle hit the satellite, but not where it came from. The sun? Australia? Space? Plus, think about particle accelerator images and cloud chambers. They are individual streaks. They aren't gradients the way normal light would create an image. So, the farther away you are, the less likely these particles will hit you. If you attached a geiger counter to a hot air balloon, starting from this radioactive capsule, you'd hear rapid clicks, then infrequent clicks, then no clicks, then the clicks would increase due to cosmic rays. If directional geiger counters existed, I feel like people would have been using those instead of what they currently use. So, I doubt satellite nuclear radiation imaging exists. I looked up Fukushima satellite maps, and they all say they are fluid simulations based on ground sensor data.
  - roywiggins 4y ago
    There are gamma-ray detectors that can determine direction: > The LAT detects gamma rays by using Einstein’s famous E = mc2 equation in a technique known as pair production. When a gamma ray, which is pure energy, slams into a layer of tungsten in the detector, it can create a pair of subatomic particles (an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron). The direction of the incoming gamma ray is determined by projecting the direction of these particles back to their source using several layers of high-precision silicon tracking detectors. https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/221503main_GLAST-041508.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/221503main_GLAST-041508.pdf
geor9e 4y ago
In some multiverse timeline, Apple launched an iPhone with a geiger counter built in for this very reason. Instead of crowdsourced Aigtag triangulation, it triangulates these capsules.
epaulson 4y ago
The article didn't really explain the original purpose of the now-missing capsule, other than it was part of a sensor used in a mine. Can anyone explain a bit more what the original purpose of the sensor it was part of was? What did the mine need a bit of radiation to measure?
- seized 4y ago
  Not sure if the mine in question does this, but there are X-Ray sensors that can go on the excavator buckets to measure ore content on each scoop. I'm sure there are other methods eg on conveyors as well.
- martyvis 4y ago
  We used radiation sources and detectors at the steelworks for thickness gauge - you set them on either side of the plate and measure the lost and from that calculate the steel thickness very accurately. I presume in a mine it could be used say on a conveyor belt where you measure the lost radiation to help determine the density or weight of the ore.
  - CyberDildonics 4y ago
    That's just an xray with a single pixel
EGreg 4y ago
Come on, what are the chances people will spend 10 minutes next to the thing? It will just be lying out in the desert somewhere, and maybe some animals might wander by for 2 minutes. Of course, on the off chance someone does find it and pick it up, and then bring it into a town, etc. it can be bad. But I thought that, in Australia, most of that desert road is basically desolate for decades, except for cars coming by occasionally. Perhaps when they do road work, however...
erentz 4y ago
This is really weird. FTA: "These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration,” Dr. Robertson said at a news conference on Saturday, “so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has." See also this [1] article with a picture of an example gauge. Again making the point that this is really weird: "Radiation Services WA general manager Lauren Steen said it was a “highly unlikely” scenario, due to the safety measures typically in place for the transit of radioactive materials." New material for a future Plainly Difficult episode once the investigation is complete. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-search-perth-to-pilbara-/101902914 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-s...
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  It was probably tampered with.
- mach1ne 4y ago
  Is there any chance it was theft?
  - grouchomarx 4y ago
    "They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road." This explanation sounds pretty bogus so theft makes sense to me
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Thanks. I was confused why the NYT didn't include a picture of it for public safety if for no other reason...
  - bendews 4y ago
    NYT does not have any reach in Australia, and especially so with the population that lives around where the capsule was misplaced.
karaterobot 4y ago
> They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road. I have a bag of locking washers I would be more than happy to donate if it makes this kind of thing less likely to happen in the future. In the mean time, good luck.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  For something like this, I'd think you would want some red Loctite as well! https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/specialty-products/specialty/loctite_threadlockerred271.html https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/specialty-produc...
- toss1 4y ago
  These Nord-Lock washers [0] are excellent for that purpose. Do NOT use common split-washers, throw them away — they can actually speed the unlocking & loss of a nut. (No relation, just a satisfied customer after finding they work well after being strongly recommended by a racecar engineer I know) [0] https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/ https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/
micromacrofoot 4y ago
I don’t really buy the “fell off a truck” story, will be very surprised if they find this before it gives someone cancer… and if whoever took it knows what they’re doing, it will never be found.
- pantry-man 4y ago
  What motive would someone have to do this? Seems like a baseless conspiracy theory
  - xwdv 4y ago
    It’d be very useful. Imagine having a weapon capable of killing someone off covertly. You could keep the capsule in a lead box, and whenever you want to get rid of an enemy, put the capsule somewhere close to where they sleep, and leave it there long enough to induce radiation sickness or cancer in the target. Then you could retrieve the capsule and continue this process with another enemy.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Radiation sickness is not particularly covert.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    I guess maybe it's a lack of detail leading me to this suspicion, but I've moved lots of stuff, thousands of tons of stuff. I don't understand how a capsule this small could even possibly be unsecured to the point that it falls out of containment and into the road on its lonesome. > Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing If they were transporting it this sloppily it could have easily killed the transporters. I've moved empty USB sticks with more caution. If they find this just lying on the side of the road somewhere I'll eat my hat.
perihelions 4y ago
Some relevant-looking thing I found on Google: - "9. SEARCHING FOR RADIOACTIVE OBJECTS" - "The first part of this section describes three different airborne surveys that successfully located lost radioactive sources. The three incidents were quite different in nature and provide useful information should similar accidents occur in the future. Section 9 concludes with a discussion showing how to estimate the count rate which would be observed by AGRS from a radioactive source. These results can be used to plan searches for lost radioactive sources." - "9.1. RECOVERY OF A LOST 60CO SOURCE" - "9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE" - "9.3. COSMOS-954 INCIDENT" https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/072/22072114.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... ("Airborne Gamma Ray Spectrometer Surveying", 1991) Their first incident is basically identical to this one: - "On 21 June 1968, a 325 mCi 60Co source3 was lost in transit somewhere between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Kansas City, Missouri, a distance of 1800 km."
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > 9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE" Where can I read more about this? How does one lose a missile?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lantry 4y ago
    A test fire went way off course https://wsmrmuseum.com/2021/11/10/in-1970-an-athena-missile-went-deep-into-mexico/ https://wsmrmuseum.com/2021/11/10/in-1970-an-athena-missile-...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
simple10 4y ago
Adafruit sells a geiger counter kit. It's been on my list of things to tinker with for scanning living and work environments for potential hazards. Just for fun. I'm curious if anyone here has ever found high levels of radiation while playing around with geiger counters? https://www.adafruit.com/product/483 https://www.adafruit.com/product/483
- donatj 4y ago
  I have had an old Geiger counter in my office for a number of years my dad gave me he got in a crate of junk he purchased. Best I can tell it doesn't work, I've tried bananas and the like. I've always had a mild fear that the thing itself might be radioactive.
  - mkl 4y ago
    People are more radioactive than bananas [1], so that's probably not too surprising. DrAwdeOccarim's sibling comment to yours mentions you can buy rocks to test with. [1] https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-many-bananas-would-i-need-to-eat-to-become-radioactive/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-many-bananas-would-...
- DrAwdeOccarim 4y ago
  I have one, it works, but I really want to connect it to a pi for data logging and visualization but I don’t have the time to code it up. If you go down this road, please let me know if you wind up finding a good open source project for managing the data! You can purchase rocks off ebay that have some radioactivity, which I use to show my kids how radiation works much to the chagrin of my spouse : )
Animats 4y ago
Here's what gauge sources like this look like.[1] Here are some packed for shipping. bolted to a crate, as described in the NY Times article.[2] The locks are $8 Master Lock combination padlocks, probably just to keep people from opening the things by accident. The lock looks optional on the model in [2]. The lock is on the shutter end, anyway. The cover plate that gives access to the source for replacement is secured by four security-type Torx screws. No sign of anything like aircraft safety wires to prevent the screws loosening. That cover plate looks like the weak point here. The wooden crate shown is "Type A" packaging, which is rated for "conditions normally encountered during transportation".[3] Doesn't even have to be fully watertight, just spray-resistant. Not super tough, just strong enough to stack 5 high. That's all that the IAEA requires. So you can see how a few hundred miles on a flatbed truck on a bumpy road could cause this accident. Especially on a decade old source. These gauge sources need a new radiation source every 10-15 years, so shipping them back for source replacement is routine. IAEA overview of such gauges.[4] [1] https://www.advgauging.com/product/berthold-7440-d-cr-500-mci-cs-137-source/ https://www.advgauging.com/product/berthold-7440-d-cr-500-mc... [2] https://www.qsa-global.com/industrial-cs-137-gamma-sources https://www.qsa-global.com/industrial-cs-137-gamma-sources [3] https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/28/027/28027981.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... [4] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/rmem2_0.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/rmem2_0....
- jl6 4y ago
  Wow, I thought maybe these devices were available only through some kind of secure government channel, but nope, “Add to cart” right there. I guess at least they have this footnote: “Note: Users must be licensed to possess them before they can be purchased.”
  - userbinator 4y ago
    You can always request to purchase one, but I doubt they'll just ship it without checking who you are first.
- eternityforest 4y ago
xwdv 4y ago
They should issue a nationwide announcement for people to check their tires for the lodged capsule.
- Denvercoder9 4y ago
  They have, it even made the news in my country halfway across the world.
mlazos 4y ago
COMB THE DESERT! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5eqBDPMDg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5eqBDPMDg
doubleunplussed 4y ago
Manifold market on whether the capsule will be found: https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-radioactive-capsule-lost-i https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-radioacti...
mytailorisrich 4y ago
With sd cards, USB sticks, etc. I have concluded that anything very valuable should be made big enough so that its presence or absence is unmissable. Maybe this capsule was kept in a bigger container, maybe not. In any case, if they are so dangerous, IMHO every capsule should be kept in its own large container individually tracked. Hell, nowadays you could cheaply fit a container with its own GPS tracker and eliminate risks of loss altogether.
- aendruk 4y ago
  It already was kept in a bigger container. Reportedly the bigger container fell apart.
dheera 4y ago
For something that radioactive wouldn't it be easy to find by just driving the highway with a Geiger counter? It should be about 100 times easier to find than a lost FedEx package.
BetterGeiger 4y ago
Radiation detection is my specialty. This source is Cs-137, few hundred mCi. It's easy to detect within a few seconds at distances of a few tens of meters or more with professional detection equipment if there is direct line of sight. If it was knocked off the road, though, the question will be if it fell into a crack or other such place because then the radiation is somewhat shielded and it would take much more measuring time to identify it. I suspect if a few passes with vehicle-mounted detectors don't find it then some drones with detectors traveling along the sides of the road would be a good next step. If a critter moved it or ate it then it's probably gone forever. At a distance of 1 meter the dose rate from that source is already not extremely hazardous unless a person were exposed for an extended period of time (like a full day or two). Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  [flagged]
- sn9 4y ago
  This is an interesting algorithm problem. Given the parameters to maximize detection and minimize time/resources, how would you direct a drone or something to find the capsule? How would that change with 2 drones? 4? 8? As many drones as there are flyable Geiger counters in the country?
  - animal531 4y ago
    What if we recreate the journey, use the same truck with the same type of containers and see if we can re-create the malfunction, then start the search forward/backwards from there?
  - cdjk 4y ago
    It’s called Bayesian Search Theory, and is even more interesting when you consider that not finding it at a given location gives you information about where it might or might not be.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
apatheticonion 4y ago
Related but off topic question. Why isn't radiation used for food preservation?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- beckingz 4y ago
  It is. Some vegetables are blasted with radiation to sterilize them so they last longer in shipping.
- mgsouth 4y ago
  It is [1]. Note the last paragraph: "The FDA requires that irradiated foods bear the international symbol for irradiation. Look for the Radura symbol along with the statement 'Treated with radiation' or 'Treated by irradiation' on the food label." "Radura" isn't the three-triangle red scary thing. It's the green plant in a circle you may have noticed on meat or egg packaging. [2] [1] https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irra... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radura_international.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radura_international.svg
jiggawatts 4y ago
A factor in this case is that this highway is in the middle of nowhere. The northern part of Western Australia, especially away from the coast is some of the most sparsely populated land anywhere. The highway looks like this for pretty much its entire length: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-24.8925923,119.4609135,3a,75y,263.62h,80.26t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sICkhNIxM68IIrutyF0jB9Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-24.8925923,119.4609135,3a,7... Nobody is stopping regularly by the side of this road to wander around and pick up shiny objects. The search team has thoroughly checked all of the rest stops where the driver took a break, which was easy enough since the truck had GPS tracking.
- netsharc 4y ago
  I wonder if they asked all drivers who drove that stretch of road to contact them. Imagine getting the thing stuck in a tread of a tyre and taking it to civilization..
shirro 4y ago
Good luck finding something that small in a country that lost a Prime Minister and never found him.
- harrydehal 4y ago
  For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt
triggercut 4y ago
Update: https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/radioactive-capsule/ https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/radioactive-capsule/ :-)
protocolture 4y ago
I will find, locate and devour the forbidden penny.
jonathanoliver 4y ago
Obligatory Spaceballs reference about combing the desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYge6ehH9fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYge6ehH9fo
jhoechtl 4y ago
A penny screaming "Here I am" on various frequencies
hooby 4y ago
On one hand, the capsule is described as being highly dangerous - to the point of even causing radiation burns on the skin. On the other hand, for a transport route that takes several days, it's NOT put into any form of sealed, shielded or lead-lined container - but just stuck to another item (where it can come off through vibrations) which in turn is carried around in a wooden box? Isn't that a health risk to the truck driver, even if nothing goes wrong?
- concordDance 4y ago
  No because distance and shielding matter a lot. The cab driver several meters away and with material (including the equipment material likely made to absorb and block radiation) between him and the capsule will be exposed for several orders of magnitude less radiation than the person who includes it in their necklace.
aosmith 4y ago
If you haven't heard of him before now is a good time to look up David Hahn aka "The Nuclear Boy Scout"
StopHammoTime 4y ago
Incidentally, “fell off the back of a truck” is a euphemism for stolen goods/goods of unknown origin. When I read the summary I thought they were going to say someone flogged it.
concordDance 4y ago
Given the location it was lost in its extremely unlikely to ever be found by a civilian or kill anyone. Just let it be and don't spend a fortune on a search that can be better spent on healthcare or fighting pollution.
zachrip 4y ago
The capsule was not lost through cartoonish buffoonery, but through an almost cinematic series of events. According to the authorities, the sensor containing the capsule was placed inside a wooden box, which was screwed onto a pallet and placed in the back of a flatbed truck. They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road. I kept reading articles looking for this information, questioning what process could have possibly lead to this "surely it wasn't just standalone, surely it was in some form of lead box or something." This finally answers my question but leads to even more questions: Why is it just hanging out in the flatbed of a truck in a box? Does the driver know they're hauling something radioactive? Did nobody consider that this might happen?
Haga 4y ago
[dead]
bogomipz 4y ago
The article states: >"The capsule was not lost through cartoonish buffoonery, but through an almost cinematic series of events." It then goes on to state: >"Although the truck made the journey from Jan. 12 to Jan. 16, the capsule was not discovered to be missing until Jan. 25." and >"It was only when the box was unpacked for inspection for the first time on Jan. 25 that the capsule was discovered missing, he added." Doesn't that sequence of events constitute buffoonery though? I mean why wouldn't you inspect the contents on arrival given all the special attention paid to packing it for transport? Instead they waited 9 days after arrival before doing so?
jraph 4y ago
It has been found! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34607423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34607423

284 points by latchkey 4y ago

https://archive.is/5uUGC https://archive.is/5uUGC

I worked in cosmic rays for a time and there is some overlap between the challenge of finding the capsule, and common astroparticle physics problems. > The capsule, which contains a small amount of cesium-137, is dangerously radioactive, according to the authorities. An hour of exposure at about a meter away is the equivalent of having 10 X-rays, and prolonged contact can cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness and cancer, they said. I'd think this should be enough information to calculate the size (which the authorities should know, but we probably don't), and from the size the total beta and gamma flux should be calculable. Once the fluxes are understood, I imagine that could tell you how fast/slow you could/should drive on the highway to have a good chance of detection (I imagine the penetrating gamma signal would give better odds), for any given detector, assuming some maximum distance of the capsule from the highway. Interesting problem, I hope they pick it up before someone gets hurt.

kibwen 4y ago
We know the dimensions of the capsule, there's a video where someone 3D-printed a replica and it's about the dimensions of a medicine capsule, though slightly squatter. Think lego-head sized.
4gotunameagain 4y ago
but if it fell on a ditch on the side of the highway, the attenuation by the asphalt would be quite significant, even if the original max distance assumption was quite exaggerated. Interesting problem indeed !

karmakaze 4y ago

Here's a story about a lost capsule[0] that ended up being made into building material for the wall of an apartment if you think something small isn't worth being concerned about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

ehnto 4y ago
There is a video game about this event called The Lights of Svetlov. It was a great indie game, and I had no idea what it was about so the mystery unraveling in front of you was quite impactful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
londons_explore 4y ago
The equipment to detect high levels of radiation is very cheap. Likewise the equipment to detect lead... And hundreds of other deadly pollutants. Part of owning a house should involve getting it tested, perhaps once per 10 years, for all these contaminants. They might have been put in during construction - or it might be arsenic in the wood of your bed... Or a mixing mistake while making the plastic for your toothbrush handle... Or that mercury lightbulb someone smashed 50 years ago is still soaking through the foundations... A simple test of the dust your vacuum cleaner picks up would detect most of the most hazardous stuff. However contamination got into your house, there should be a government scheme to test for it, and possibly to remediate it too (environmental contamination can be seriously expensive to fix, and the last thing you want to happen is someone to hide it from an inspector and sell the house on to someone else)
- dsauss 4y ago
  Are there testing services you’ve used before or would recommend to perform the testing? There does not seem to be a major brand or service provider offering this. Thank you!
  - 4y ago

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Curious. I would expect something that seems so threatening, has such a tiny effect on the environment that it can't even be detected. Something not adding up.

throwaway89201 4y ago
[flagged]
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Not my question at all. How can it be so deadly/radioactive, yet so hard to detect? Further, asking questions is indeed the point of these discussions. Re-reading the standards I see no prohibition. And reading that reference article, the loss it cites was 19Tb (19 trillion bequerels). This lost capsule in Australia contains less than 100. So around what? 10 billion times less dangerous? Thanks for the reference material, now I'm more sure than ever that this article is some kind of clickbait about a fairly miniscule risk being trumpeted as a national incident.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    I think it’s more about a failure of process than this particular piece of radioactive material. Being proportionally cavalier about it would invite lazier handling. The next piece of radioactive material could be more dangerous. The mining company will be sent the bill and police get to practice a real life scenario. And everyone knows don’t do that again.
  - magicalhippo 4y ago
    > How can it be so deadly/radioactive, yet so hard to detect? First, it's important to keep in mind that there are different forms of radiation: ionizing[1] which is dangerous and non-ionizing which is not typically dangerous[2]. Furthermore, ionizing radiation consists of three types, alpha, beta and gamma which have different properties and thus dangerous in different ways and amounts. The source in question contained cesium-137, which decays almost entirely (95%) by emitting beta particles. The beta particles are stopped by about 1 meter of air[3], but can do significant damage to living cells if nearby. Thus, trying to detect it is a bit like trying to see a bright flashlight in a fog. Even though it's bright you won't see it until you're really close. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_particle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_particle

cloudking 4y ago

Interview question: can you design a system to safely locate and retrieve the capsule?

throwanem 4y ago
Do you want it to scale horizontally, vertically, or both?
- cloudking 4y ago
  It could be stuck in a tree, so probably both.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    Dang it, I wish I didn't have real architecture design work to do today, because this seems like it'd be a lot of fun to research. Pure horizontal scaling would be trucks with survey counters. Pure vertical would be getting the US to retask one of those radiation-sensing satellites they use to characterize stuff like the Urals trace. (Not that that'd be likely to happen - national security, etc. But have the embassy in DC call NASA anyway, just in case they do have something.) Both would be GA aircraft doing a broad survey while trucks retrace the route. In any case the logistics would be critical, and speed as ever would be costly - good thing we have government-scale resources to work with. And, yes, the system in this case would be implemented on a human substrate, not a silicon one. This isn't Chernobyl; we don't need robots to do this job, the problem is of limited enough scope to be safely handled by properly trained and equipped humans - finding whom would be an early logistical concern. (The surveyors would be safe enough barring a forced landing or breakdown very near the source, which is unlikely but we still want to get rescue services on standby, or hire a couple of civil helicopters from the oil industry or similar, for fast recovery just in case.) And for a one-off job like this that needs to be done as fast as possible, there isn't time to design, build, and debug robots that can do it.
    - perihelions 4y ago
      - "Pure vertical would be getting the US to retask one of those radiation-sensing satellites they use to characterize stuff like the Urals trace." That's an extraordinary thing to mention in passing; do you have a source for this?

campuscodi 4y ago

A dingo will eat it, transform into Fenrir, and that's how Ragnarok starts

number6 4y ago
And soon the world will cease to be. The northern wind brings snow and ice Humans starve and freeze The Fimbul winter has arrived And soon the world will cease to be Brother will be brother′s bane No one shall be spared All will die, none remain That is mankind's share The southern sphere is set ablaze Muspel′s fire is set free The sun is on its final chase And soon the world will cease to be Across the western sky he runs A wolf so grim and mean Devours the eternal sun And soon the world will cease to be
gtvwill 4y ago
Nah they've shot and trapped most dingos over that side. They don't recognise them as native animals so they allow eradication. its sad af :( they rare as over west.

bayesianbot 4y ago

https://archive.is/9oNiT https://archive.is/9oNiT

jfk13 4y ago

Australia: the country where not only the wildlife but even the gravel on the road is out to kill you!

AlbertCory 4y ago
Best reply on this thread. Everything in Australia kills you or at least causes horrible pain. Even that cute platypus or that harmless-looking shell on the beach. And now this.
- anakaine 4y ago
  No moose, bears, wolves, cougars, or other alpha predators in Australia though. About the worst are wild dogs / dingos, though they typically won't be a problem unless they're in a pack. I'll take Australian dangers over North American every day of the week.
  - bogeholm 4y ago
    They do have the saltwater crocodile[0], which looks close to alpha. Maybe unless it encounters an orca. I bet is has a great name in Australia - any Ozzies around who can comment? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_crocodile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_crocodile
    - zh3 4y ago
      "Salties"
    - dragonsky 4y ago
      Only if you are stupid enough to go near the water in areas they live. Unfortunately plenty of drunk campers have a habit of doing this.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lmpdev 4y ago

fnands 4y ago

Oh, reminds me a of a time some students lost a Polonium source in the physics lab while I was a Masters student. The HoD had them crawling around the building for days with a Geiger counter, but they never found it. Luckily it was a small source and Polonium has a relatively short half-life, but the department had to go through a whole song and dance of declaring an incident.

causality0 4y ago
Sounds like either someone thought it would be cool to take it home or accidentally dropped it in a trash can that was taken out before it was missed.
todd8 4y ago
According to Wikipedia, Polonium is 5000 times more radioactive than Radium (just 0.001g of Po emits the same number of particles as 5g of Ra). It has a half life of just 138 days so in only 4.6 years the missing Polonium will be equivalent in radioactivity to Radium, which is known to cause cancer. This doesn't sound like something that should be treated lightly.
- cshimmin 4y ago
  Sure but all that means is that 1g of radium will have the same activity as 0.2mg of polonium. Of course they will also have different decay spectra etc. We don't know how big the source was that the students lost, but I'm guessing that if they just gave up after a few days, it probably wasn't a very high activity. This means either very low mass, or a higher mass but just older so that it's decayed away.
  - fnands 4y ago
    It was tiny, I think something like this: https://www.flinnsci.com/alpha-source-polonium-210/ap8794/ https://www.flinnsci.com/alpha-source-polonium-210/ap8794/ They were letting undergrads handle it, so definitely wasn't a large source. Also, hey Chase! Funny to see you in the wild (Ferdi here)

barbazoo 4y ago

It's gonna be in the last place they look.

euroderf 4y ago
(*) by definition
dalmo3 4y ago
Nice try, but I've looked inside yesterday's pants' pockets and it's not there.
kbutler 4y ago
Probably not, as they will likely have multiple groups looking and some degree of delayed notification. Especially if they prank one group by not telling them. :-D
BurningFrog 4y ago
Also, to avoid accidents, it's strongly advised to avoid the last ski run of the day.
voxelghost 4y ago
Someones going to come back from vacation and go like; -Yeah I took that out to prevent it from falling off during transport. Taped to the underside of bosses chair so we wont lose it.

propter_hoc 4y ago

Really scary. For those unaware of how badly this kind of situation can end up, read about the horrific Goiânia incident in Brazil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

fblp 4y ago
That story is crazy. Thanks for sharing!
- csdvrx 4y ago
  The best part is how the person responsible for the problem (the director of Ipasgo) could redirect the blame to the owners who tried to prevent the catastrophy doing everything they could - he stopped them to do the right things with the help of cops: > Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the radioactive material that had been left behind.[7] Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb".[7] The Court of Goiás posted a security guard to protect the site.[8] Meanwhile, the owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site, but they could not remove the equipment by themselves once a court order prevented them from doing so.[7][8] > In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and operated IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of IGR's owners and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$100,000 for the derelict condition of the building. The two thieves were not included as defendants in the public civil suit.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    The owners also had left it there for two years. They weren't without blame either.

leaving 4y ago

This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy on the paved road that runs through the outback. If the tires of one of those hit the capsule, they could fling it a fair distance into the desert. There's nothing between the road and the sandy desert to stop it. If the capsule is a fair distance off the road, the inverse square law is going to reduce gamma detections closer to background. There won't be a clear peak in the data. If the vehicle with the detector moves slowly, there will be a wide peak in the time dimension that may just look like a natural variation in the background. If the vehicle moves fast, it may miss the source completely. It will be a matter of looking at the data to try to find a pattern that indicates where the capsule may be. This will be made more difficult becuase they don't likely have a pre-capsule-loss run that would allow them to subtract normal variations of the background. Adding to the problem is the stochastic nature of radiation. It is entirely possible to have a significant peak in the count rates that is not a strong point source; just a random variation in the background. Lower peaks from random confluence of background sources are likely; higher peaks are less likely, but not impossible. It may require a large number of runs to eliminate random events. Real vehicles on real roads experience a lot of variations in speed, plus random starts and stops because the driver had to pee, or eat, or because there was a dead kangaroo on the road or something. A fair bit of work will need to be done to standardize multiple runs. This can be partly solved by using multiple detectors on the same vehicle, with the idea being that peaks that are the result of natural variations in the background should only affect one detector at a time--so they can be subtracted out. But, again, CBRN teams have enough resources that they have already done this and they haven't found it. So it is reasonable to conclude that the capsule is either quite far off the road, or has been picked up by a passing vehicle. Another possibility is that the idea that it "fell off a truck" is wrong and that some human grabbed it by dissasembling the apparatus. This could be out of curiosity, or ignorance, or a misguided attempt to steal the source or use it for nefarious purposes. If that is the case, the capsule is going to be nearly impossible to find unless it happens to pass a fixed gamma detector somewhere, such as a port. The incident is a good argument for building scintillation crystals into all cellphones. This would be cheap and easy. Small scintillators are not very sensitive, and they are not great for spectroscopy, but they are extremely cool, very small, don't interfere with the workings of the phone, and use extremely little power. A network of scintillators in every phone would be amazing for finding stuff like this.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yummybear 4y ago

I really thought someone (US?) had technology (satellites) that could pinpoint radiation sources, even of this magnitude

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
geor9e 4y ago
I had the same thought briefly, but then thought more about it. These are high energy particles. You might remember the article about cosmic rays that sometimes cause a single bit flip in a videogame, and that there is no easy way to shield against it. That makes satellite imaging difficult, because how do you focus some sort of lens, if the particles go right thru everything? You might detect that a cosmic ray or ionizing particle hit the satellite, but not where it came from. The sun? Australia? Space? Plus, think about particle accelerator images and cloud chambers. They are individual streaks. They aren't gradients the way normal light would create an image. So, the farther away you are, the less likely these particles will hit you. If you attached a geiger counter to a hot air balloon, starting from this radioactive capsule, you'd hear rapid clicks, then infrequent clicks, then no clicks, then the clicks would increase due to cosmic rays. If directional geiger counters existed, I feel like people would have been using those instead of what they currently use. So, I doubt satellite nuclear radiation imaging exists. I looked up Fukushima satellite maps, and they all say they are fluid simulations based on ground sensor data.
- roywiggins 4y ago
  There are gamma-ray detectors that can determine direction: > The LAT detects gamma rays by using Einstein’s famous E = mc2 equation in a technique known as pair production. When a gamma ray, which is pure energy, slams into a layer of tungsten in the detector, it can create a pair of subatomic particles (an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron). The direction of the incoming gamma ray is determined by projecting the direction of these particles back to their source using several layers of high-precision silicon tracking detectors. https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/221503main_GLAST-041508.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/221503main_GLAST-041508.pdf

geor9e 4y ago

In some multiverse timeline, Apple launched an iPhone with a geiger counter built in for this very reason. Instead of crowdsourced Aigtag triangulation, it triangulates these capsules.

epaulson 4y ago

The article didn't really explain the original purpose of the now-missing capsule, other than it was part of a sensor used in a mine. Can anyone explain a bit more what the original purpose of the sensor it was part of was? What did the mine need a bit of radiation to measure?

seized 4y ago
Not sure if the mine in question does this, but there are X-Ray sensors that can go on the excavator buckets to measure ore content on each scoop. I'm sure there are other methods eg on conveyors as well.
martyvis 4y ago
We used radiation sources and detectors at the steelworks for thickness gauge - you set them on either side of the plate and measure the lost and from that calculate the steel thickness very accurately. I presume in a mine it could be used say on a conveyor belt where you measure the lost radiation to help determine the density or weight of the ore.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  That's just an xray with a single pixel

EGreg 4y ago

Come on, what are the chances people will spend 10 minutes next to the thing? It will just be lying out in the desert somewhere, and maybe some animals might wander by for 2 minutes. Of course, on the off chance someone does find it and pick it up, and then bring it into a town, etc. it can be bad. But I thought that, in Australia, most of that desert road is basically desolate for decades, except for cars coming by occasionally. Perhaps when they do road work, however...

erentz 4y ago

This is really weird. FTA: "These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration,” Dr. Robertson said at a news conference on Saturday, “so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has." See also this [1] article with a picture of an example gauge. Again making the point that this is really weird: "Radiation Services WA general manager Lauren Steen said it was a “highly unlikely” scenario, due to the safety measures typically in place for the transit of radioactive materials." New material for a future Plainly Difficult episode once the investigation is complete. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-search-perth-to-pilbara-/101902914 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-28/radioactive-capsule-s...

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
It was probably tampered with.
mach1ne 4y ago
Is there any chance it was theft?
- grouchomarx 4y ago
  "They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road." This explanation sounds pretty bogus so theft makes sense to me
LatteLazy 4y ago
Thanks. I was confused why the NYT didn't include a picture of it for public safety if for no other reason...
- bendews 4y ago
  NYT does not have any reach in Australia, and especially so with the population that lives around where the capsule was misplaced.

karaterobot 4y ago

> They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road. I have a bag of locking washers I would be more than happy to donate if it makes this kind of thing less likely to happen in the future. In the mean time, good luck.

mindcrime 4y ago
For something like this, I'd think you would want some red Loctite as well! https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/specialty-products/specialty/loctite_threadlockerred271.html https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/specialty-produc...
toss1 4y ago
These Nord-Lock washers [0] are excellent for that purpose. Do NOT use common split-washers, throw them away — they can actually speed the unlocking & loss of a nut. (No relation, just a satisfied customer after finding they work well after being strongly recommended by a racecar engineer I know) [0] https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/ https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/

micromacrofoot 4y ago

I don’t really buy the “fell off a truck” story, will be very surprised if they find this before it gives someone cancer… and if whoever took it knows what they’re doing, it will never be found.

pantry-man 4y ago
What motive would someone have to do this? Seems like a baseless conspiracy theory
- xwdv 4y ago
  It’d be very useful. Imagine having a weapon capable of killing someone off covertly. You could keep the capsule in a lead box, and whenever you want to get rid of an enemy, put the capsule somewhere close to where they sleep, and leave it there long enough to induce radiation sickness or cancer in the target. Then you could retrieve the capsule and continue this process with another enemy.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Radiation sickness is not particularly covert.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  I guess maybe it's a lack of detail leading me to this suspicion, but I've moved lots of stuff, thousands of tons of stuff. I don't understand how a capsule this small could even possibly be unsecured to the point that it falls out of containment and into the road on its lonesome. > Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of the four mounting bolts missing and the source itself and all screws on the gauge also missing If they were transporting it this sloppily it could have easily killed the transporters. I've moved empty USB sticks with more caution. If they find this just lying on the side of the road somewhere I'll eat my hat.

perihelions 4y ago

Some relevant-looking thing I found on Google: - "9. SEARCHING FOR RADIOACTIVE OBJECTS" - "The first part of this section describes three different airborne surveys that successfully located lost radioactive sources. The three incidents were quite different in nature and provide useful information should similar accidents occur in the future. Section 9 concludes with a discussion showing how to estimate the count rate which would be observed by AGRS from a radioactive source. These results can be used to plan searches for lost radioactive sources." - "9.1. RECOVERY OF A LOST 60CO SOURCE" - "9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE" - "9.3. COSMOS-954 INCIDENT" https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/072/22072114.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... ("Airborne Gamma Ray Spectrometer Surveying", 1991) Their first incident is basically identical to this one: - "On 21 June 1968, a 325 mCi 60Co source3 was lost in transit somewhere between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Kansas City, Missouri, a distance of 1800 km."

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> 9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE" Where can I read more about this? How does one lose a missile?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lantry 4y ago
  A test fire went way off course https://wsmrmuseum.com/2021/11/10/in-1970-an-athena-missile-went-deep-into-mexico/ https://wsmrmuseum.com/2021/11/10/in-1970-an-athena-missile-...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

simple10 4y ago

Adafruit sells a geiger counter kit. It's been on my list of things to tinker with for scanning living and work environments for potential hazards. Just for fun. I'm curious if anyone here has ever found high levels of radiation while playing around with geiger counters? https://www.adafruit.com/product/483 https://www.adafruit.com/product/483

donatj 4y ago
I have had an old Geiger counter in my office for a number of years my dad gave me he got in a crate of junk he purchased. Best I can tell it doesn't work, I've tried bananas and the like. I've always had a mild fear that the thing itself might be radioactive.
- mkl 4y ago
  People are more radioactive than bananas [1], so that's probably not too surprising. DrAwdeOccarim's sibling comment to yours mentions you can buy rocks to test with. [1] https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-many-bananas-would-i-need-to-eat-to-become-radioactive/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-many-bananas-would-...
DrAwdeOccarim 4y ago
I have one, it works, but I really want to connect it to a pi for data logging and visualization but I don’t have the time to code it up. If you go down this road, please let me know if you wind up finding a good open source project for managing the data! You can purchase rocks off ebay that have some radioactivity, which I use to show my kids how radiation works much to the chagrin of my spouse : )

Animats 4y ago

Here's what gauge sources like this look like.[1] Here are some packed for shipping. bolted to a crate, as described in the NY Times article.[2] The locks are $8 Master Lock combination padlocks, probably just to keep people from opening the things by accident. The lock looks optional on the model in [2]. The lock is on the shutter end, anyway. The cover plate that gives access to the source for replacement is secured by four security-type Torx screws. No sign of anything like aircraft safety wires to prevent the screws loosening. That cover plate looks like the weak point here. The wooden crate shown is "Type A" packaging, which is rated for "conditions normally encountered during transportation".[3] Doesn't even have to be fully watertight, just spray-resistant. Not super tough, just strong enough to stack 5 high. That's all that the IAEA requires. So you can see how a few hundred miles on a flatbed truck on a bumpy road could cause this accident. Especially on a decade old source. These gauge sources need a new radiation source every 10-15 years, so shipping them back for source replacement is routine. IAEA overview of such gauges.[4] [1] https://www.advgauging.com/product/berthold-7440-d-cr-500-mci-cs-137-source/ https://www.advgauging.com/product/berthold-7440-d-cr-500-mc... [2] https://www.qsa-global.com/industrial-cs-137-gamma-sources https://www.qsa-global.com/industrial-cs-137-gamma-sources [3] https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/28/027/28027981.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... [4] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/rmem2_0.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/rmem2_0....

jl6 4y ago
Wow, I thought maybe these devices were available only through some kind of secure government channel, but nope, “Add to cart” right there. I guess at least they have this footnote: “Note: Users must be licensed to possess them before they can be purchased.”
- userbinator 4y ago
  You can always request to purchase one, but I doubt they'll just ship it without checking who you are first.
eternityforest 4y ago

xwdv 4y ago

They should issue a nationwide announcement for people to check their tires for the lodged capsule.

Denvercoder9 4y ago
They have, it even made the news in my country halfway across the world.

mlazos 4y ago

COMB THE DESERT! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5eqBDPMDg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5eqBDPMDg

doubleunplussed 4y ago

Manifold market on whether the capsule will be found: https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-radioactive-capsule-lost-i https://manifold.markets/chrisjbillington/will-the-radioacti...

mytailorisrich 4y ago

With sd cards, USB sticks, etc. I have concluded that anything very valuable should be made big enough so that its presence or absence is unmissable. Maybe this capsule was kept in a bigger container, maybe not. In any case, if they are so dangerous, IMHO every capsule should be kept in its own large container individually tracked. Hell, nowadays you could cheaply fit a container with its own GPS tracker and eliminate risks of loss altogether.

aendruk 4y ago
It already was kept in a bigger container. Reportedly the bigger container fell apart.

dheera 4y ago

For something that radioactive wouldn't it be easy to find by just driving the highway with a Geiger counter? It should be about 100 times easier to find than a lost FedEx package.

BetterGeiger 4y ago

Radiation detection is my specialty. This source is Cs-137, few hundred mCi. It's easy to detect within a few seconds at distances of a few tens of meters or more with professional detection equipment if there is direct line of sight. If it was knocked off the road, though, the question will be if it fell into a crack or other such place because then the radiation is somewhat shielded and it would take much more measuring time to identify it. I suspect if a few passes with vehicle-mounted detectors don't find it then some drones with detectors traveling along the sides of the road would be a good next step. If a critter moved it or ate it then it's probably gone forever. At a distance of 1 meter the dose rate from that source is already not extremely hazardous unless a person were exposed for an extended period of time (like a full day or two). Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes.

pxmpxm 4y ago
[flagged]
sn9 4y ago
This is an interesting algorithm problem. Given the parameters to maximize detection and minimize time/resources, how would you direct a drone or something to find the capsule? How would that change with 2 drones? 4? 8? As many drones as there are flyable Geiger counters in the country?
- animal531 4y ago
  What if we recreate the journey, use the same truck with the same type of containers and see if we can re-create the malfunction, then start the search forward/backwards from there?
- cdjk 4y ago
  It’s called Bayesian Search Theory, and is even more interesting when you consider that not finding it at a given location gives you information about where it might or might not be.
- Scoundreller 4y ago

apatheticonion 4y ago

Related but off topic question. Why isn't radiation used for food preservation?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
beckingz 4y ago
It is. Some vegetables are blasted with radiation to sterilize them so they last longer in shipping.
mgsouth 4y ago
It is [1]. Note the last paragraph: "The FDA requires that irradiated foods bear the international symbol for irradiation. Look for the Radura symbol along with the statement 'Treated with radiation' or 'Treated by irradiation' on the food label." "Radura" isn't the three-triangle red scary thing. It's the green plant in a circle you may have noticed on meat or egg packaging. [2] [1] https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irra... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radura_international.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radura_international.svg

jiggawatts 4y ago

A factor in this case is that this highway is in the middle of nowhere. The northern part of Western Australia, especially away from the coast is some of the most sparsely populated land anywhere. The highway looks like this for pretty much its entire length: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-24.8925923,119.4609135,3a,75y,263.62h,80.26t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sICkhNIxM68IIrutyF0jB9Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-24.8925923,119.4609135,3a,7... Nobody is stopping regularly by the side of this road to wander around and pick up shiny objects. The search team has thoroughly checked all of the rest stops where the driver took a break, which was easy enough since the truck had GPS tracking.

netsharc 4y ago
I wonder if they asked all drivers who drove that stretch of road to contact them. Imagine getting the thing stuck in a tread of a tyre and taking it to civilization..

shirro 4y ago

Good luck finding something that small in a country that lost a Prime Minister and never found him.

harrydehal 4y ago
For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt

triggercut 4y ago

Update: https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/radioactive-capsule/ https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/radioactive-capsule/ :-)

protocolture 4y ago

I will find, locate and devour the forbidden penny.

jonathanoliver 4y ago

Obligatory Spaceballs reference about combing the desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYge6ehH9fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYge6ehH9fo

jhoechtl 4y ago

A penny screaming "Here I am" on various frequencies

hooby 4y ago

On one hand, the capsule is described as being highly dangerous - to the point of even causing radiation burns on the skin. On the other hand, for a transport route that takes several days, it's NOT put into any form of sealed, shielded or lead-lined container - but just stuck to another item (where it can come off through vibrations) which in turn is carried around in a wooden box? Isn't that a health risk to the truck driver, even if nothing goes wrong?

concordDance 4y ago
No because distance and shielding matter a lot. The cab driver several meters away and with material (including the equipment material likely made to absorb and block radiation) between him and the capsule will be exposed for several orders of magnitude less radiation than the person who includes it in their necklace.

aosmith 4y ago

If you haven't heard of him before now is a good time to look up David Hahn aka "The Nuclear Boy Scout"

StopHammoTime 4y ago

Incidentally, “fell off the back of a truck” is a euphemism for stolen goods/goods of unknown origin. When I read the summary I thought they were going to say someone flogged it.

concordDance 4y ago

Given the location it was lost in its extremely unlikely to ever be found by a civilian or kill anyone. Just let it be and don't spend a fortune on a search that can be better spent on healthcare or fighting pollution.

zachrip 4y ago

The capsule was not lost through cartoonish buffoonery, but through an almost cinematic series of events. According to the authorities, the sensor containing the capsule was placed inside a wooden box, which was screwed onto a pallet and placed in the back of a flatbed truck. They believe that vibrations from the truck caused the sensor to shake apart and also dislodged a mounting bolt, leaving a hole in the bottom of the box. The capsule is believed to have fallen out of the sensor, through the bolt-hole, onto the surface of the truck, and bounced off into the road. I kept reading articles looking for this information, questioning what process could have possibly lead to this "surely it wasn't just standalone, surely it was in some form of lead box or something." This finally answers my question but leads to even more questions: Why is it just hanging out in the flatbed of a truck in a box? Does the driver know they're hauling something radioactive? Did nobody consider that this might happen?

Haga 4y ago

[dead]

bogomipz 4y ago

The article states: >"The capsule was not lost through cartoonish buffoonery, but through an almost cinematic series of events." It then goes on to state: >"Although the truck made the journey from Jan. 12 to Jan. 16, the capsule was not discovered to be missing until Jan. 25." and >"It was only when the box was unpacked for inspection for the first time on Jan. 25 that the capsule was discovered missing, he added." Doesn't that sequence of events constitute buffoonery though? I mean why wouldn't you inspect the contents on arrival given all the special attention paid to packing it for transport? Instead they waited 9 days after arrival before doing so?

jraph 4y ago

It has been found! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34607423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34607423