Sydney ‘science nerd’ may face jail for importing plutonium in bid to collect all elements of periodic table | Sydney | The Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Don't we all have a teeny bit of uranium in our homes in smoke detectors? Or was that some urban myth I'm remembering?

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Not an urban myth, but a combination of slightly incorrect and very out of date. "Ionisation" smoke alarms typically contain Americium-241, which is radioactive just like uranium is (that's the slightly incorrect).

But ionisation smoke alarms are illegal to install in Queensland (probably other states too, I just didn't check), and haven't been recommended since at least 2006 (that's the very out of date). Instead, these days, smoke alarms are typically photoelectric.

this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025

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