Ralf Sudowe

I had the same thought at first, that's why I did weigh the sample and it does correspond to 0.683 lbs.

We got another donation for Show-and Tell today! This 1 cubic inch cylinder of uranium metal was apparently given by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Feed Stock Production Center to some of its employees. It weighs an incredible 310 grams or 0.683 lbs. We are very grateful to the donor. #nukesky

Photo of someone holding an old radium wrist watch.

Someone found this radium watch in their grandfather's belongings and brought it to us. What a treasure! The brown "burn marks" are caused by the radiation damage from the alpha particles stopping in the glass. Next step: activity determination. #nukesky

A little bit late, but earlier this month Raissa Chunko successfully passed her qualifying exam and is now officially a Ph.D. candidate. Congratulations Raissa, you did a fantastic job!

Happy Nuclear Science Week! #nukesky

Darleane Hoffman, Innovator in Nuclear Chemistry, Dies at 98

The New York Times posted an obituary for Darleane.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/s...

Thank you for that information. I had assumed that it was below the intervention level, but that is higher than I would have guessed.

Hello #nukesky community, has anyone been able to find an actual Cs-137 activity concentration for the shipment of cloves that the FDA flagged for contamination last week? I have only been able to find notices for shrimp.

When Darleane invited me to come to the US to work as a postdoc for her, it literally changed the course of my life. I would not be where I am now without her. She was an incredible scientist and an amazing human being. She will be deeply missed by by all of her students, postdocs and colleagues.

Did he bring the cutouts of Oppenheimer and Roosevelt and handed out T-shirts and newspapers? He put on quite the show at the MARC conference.

Sounds like you were exposed to a hefty dose of Steinhauser. 😉

This is below the FDA’s Derived Intervention Level for Cs-137 of 1200 Bq/kg as well as below the more stringent Japanese standard of 100 Bq/kg.

I stand corrected. The most recent update to the press release states that radionuclide analysis confirmed the presence of Cs-137 in one sample of breaded shrimp at a level of 68 Bq/kg.

We usually teach the students about the "Goiania incident" as one of the worst case scenarios for a lost source.

If you had a leaking Cs-137 capsule with sufficient activity to be used in food irradiation, then the shrimp would be the least of your concern. It would help to know if the contamination was on the food packaging or on the walls of the shipping containers.

Mantis Shrimp Takeover?

There was no Cs-137 found in the food, but the fact that multiple shipping containers at four ports showed up contaminated can give you nightmares. Makes you wonder what the containers were used for previously.

Especially if multiple containers are contaminated simultaneously. Makes you wonder what the containers were used for last.

No traces of Cs-137 were found in the food. The concerning part is that multiple shipping containers were contaminated at the same time.

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years on Siegfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, expresses concern that, 80 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the world is on the wrong path—instead of c...

A very sobering piece by former LANL director Sig Hecker.
thebulletin.org/2025/08/refl...

Couch companion

Picture of a group of people standing in front of a sign that says Colorado State University

New group picture - Sudowe Research Group 2025

#nukesky

In it we continue to expand our work on the separation of americium from curium using sodium bismuthate both as a oxidizer as well as a chromatographic material. In this paper the effect of different dispersal agents as well as of the ratio of sodium bismuthate to dispersal material is investigated.

Adsorption and Chromatographic Behavior of Dispersed Sodium Bismuthate Systems for the Separation of Americium from Curium The selective partitioning of americium (Am) and curium (Cm) is integral for nuclear science areas such as the nuclear fuel cycle, stockpile stewardship, and isotope production but remains a long-stan...

Very happy to say that the second paper from @slabbxo.bsky.social's dissertation was just published online in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Nothing says we care about the workforce pipeline than letting go of the newer employees.

In particular, funding for health physics, i.e., radiation safety and radiochemistry has suffered while nuclear engineering has been favored.

More funding for university programs would help with that. 😉 Seriously though, funding opportunities for nuclear science at universities have been decreasing or limited to a select few universities due to the consortium approach.

Let me know if you have travel finding some. Our program is located in Colorado, but there are several other programs across the country (although not as many as needed). The demand for health physicists is great right now. In 2022 there were close to 1000 jobs posted and only 78 students graduated.

In that case you should look for Health Physics programs. The name is a little misleading, but Health Physics is the science of radiation protection. We train students that work, e.g., as radiation safety officers for companies or the government. We also provide training on how to measure radiation.