It wasn’t until 1914 that radium-based luminescent paint started to be produced in the US. According to the Oak Ridge Associated Universities, it was wildly popular in Europe first, and the people who worked with it would glow as they walked through the streets at night. While he didn’t patent the invention, Tiffany & Company did. Hammer mixed it with zinc sulfide and created a paint. Just a few years after it was discovered, William J. It didn’t take long for entrepreneurs to see the potential value in the luminescent properties of radium. It was a great job… before the Radium Girls began to disintegrate It glowed, and seriously, how exciting is that? Unfortunately, it was also deadly - as the so-called Radium Girls would find out. It was first discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie, after they extracted a single milligram from ten tons of a uranium ore called pitchblende. Today, the Royal Society of Chemistry says there’s really only one use for radium - targeted cancer treatments, because it’s so good at killing cells. Need proof? Look no further than the Radium Girls. There’s no shortage of things that can kill us or do horrible, terrible things to our soft and squishy bodies, and every time we think we know about them all, it turns out there’s something else lurking around the corner.Īnd sometimes, it’s disguised as something awesome. History is filled with episodes that prove mankind is just sort of making everything up as it goes.
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