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Making glow-in-the-dark Strontium Aluminate
- jawns 2y agoWhen my kids were little, we had glow in the dark pacifiers that lasted ALL NIGHT. I still don't know what sorcery was used to accomplish that, but if any of you have little ones, the MAM brand is what we used. Being able to spot the pacifier in the crib at 5am was a huge help some nights. And now my kids each have an extra eyeball, which has proven very useful indeed.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI have a tritium keychain that makes it delightfully easy to find my dropped keys in the dark garage. And some GMO petunias that glow 24/7. https://www.instagram.com/p/C8_Dgqvuq2C/ https://www.instagram.com/p/C8_Dgqvuq2C/
- xattt 2y agoTritium-lit pacifiers sure sound like a legitimate 1950s atomic age product.
- pfdietz 2y agoThere's a youtube channel from someone who finds and reports frivolous radioactive products to the NRC, getting them banned. It happens even today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BA5bw1EV5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BA5bw1EV5I
- mrgaro 2y agoNot sure what the modern one are, but they will still glow in the morning hours. They are very very handy!
- xattt 2y agoSame thing with kids’ toothbrush handles. Getting up in the night and seeing them glowing 5-6 hours since lights were last on is pretty impressive.
- swayvil 2y agoLooking for seed. Only seeing little plants (which ship terribly and cost way too much). Petunias are dead easy to grow from seed.
- pentamassiv 2y agoNot the Firefly petunia. They were engineered to not grow from a seed so they don't accidentally spread
- swayvil 2y agoSo they make infertile seeds. Well fudge. So cuttings or roots or whatever EDIT according to google they can be grown from seed. So experimentation is called for
- ceejayoz 2y agoPetunias don’t breed true, but people have gotten viable glowing seedlings from them. Might be a mess in 10-20 years when some inevitably escape.
- Auracle 2y agoWe had one in a pot with another plant and it got out-competed hard. I doubt it’ll be an issue. It’s not like glowing is an evolutionary advantage.
- Modified3019 2y agoExactly. When’s the last time you’ve seen normal petunias being invasive. Firefly petunias need a lot of light. The entire plant (roots too) are literally burning precious energy 24/7 for the glowing. There seems to be a direct correlation between the light they receive and how long the internodes are from what I’ve seen putting them under grow lights. More light, shorter internodes. Here in the Pacific Northwest various worm (caterpillar) larvae also love shredding them and eating through seed pods, and they are susceptible to downy mildew complexes which seem to become persistent within the plant. They also are finicky about warmth, water and fertilizer. They are a princess of a plant, not the next kochia or pigweed. Honestly it would be more viable to take invasive weeds and hamper them by introducing glow genes.
- gus_massa 2y agoWe had a pacifier chain shapped like an elphant head that included a hidden rattle. It's very useful to find it when it's indide the sheets or cloths.
- the8472 2y agoWould Strontium-90 make it glow ~permanently?
- ur-whale 2y ago> permanently Depends on your definition of "permanent" With enough Strontium-90 involved, that might not be very long indeed.
- GravitasFailure 2y agoHuh, it very well might. 90Sr is a beta emitter, which should excite phosphorescent materials nicely. Even better, it decays into Yttrium 90, and Yttrium Aluminate is also phosphorescent (it's also the YA in YAG lasers). Anyone have some spare 90Sr we can test this with?
- 0culus 2y agoWell, with a 28.8 years half life it should glow a while. BUT, the largest license exempt quantity one can get iirc is 0.1 uCi. Plus it’s a fission product so good luck making it yourself. :) I don’t recommend the radioactive Boy Scout approach.
- ianmcgowan 2y agoAlso allow the baby to read minds and see through walls - that triggered a burst of nostalgia for the comic Strontium Dog: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog
- swayvil 2y agoHey I bought this stuff on amaz. It's good. Made glow plastic (mix with epoxy), glow goo (mix with water gel)
- dekhn 2y agoYeah, I've used this- I CNC shapes into plastic, then backfill with glow-epoxy. It works incredibly well with a UV lamp.
- lightedman 2y agoHey, I mine the stuff needed to make this stuff, but it sits as display pieces in my fluorescent cases. 34.7576, -116.2790 Lots of agate in the area, too.
- latchkey 2y agoWoah, two weeks ago, I just randomly boondocked a few miles directly south from there.
- lightedman 2y agoSo Pisgah or Lavic or Amboy. All great places to escape.
- latchkey 2y agoLittle bit further... 34°09'54.6"N 116°12'57.0"W Was heading through JTree...
- lightedman 2y agoOh that's the Homestretch mine. There is also a uranium prospect somewhere on that same southern section of mountain.
- code_duck 2y agoPretty interesting. I knew someone years ago who made batches of borosilicate glass with this stuff. It’s difficult to work, unfortunately. The glow effect fades if you work it too much. I still have a bunch of his glow glass.
- Aardwolf 2y agoThe combination of green glow and strontium somehow sounds very radioactive, even though I assume it's not a radioactive isotope they're using here
- f1shy 2y agoA video about it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SIWcvudEPVA&pp=ygUTc3Ryb250aXVtIGFsdW1pbmF0ZQ%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SIWcvudEPVA&pp=ygUTc3Ryb250aXV...
- crazydoggers 2y agoThis is what is typically used in nice mechanical watch dials nowadays.