The poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko in November caused by the radioactive isotope polonium-210 sparked a sharp interest in the exotic material, but the onetime Russian spy was not the first to ...

British doctors have linked polonium to the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy. Polonium is a highly radioactive metallic element and is most often used as polonium 210.

Naturally occurring radioactive elements are substances whose atomic nuclei are unstable. To become stable, these nuclei spontaneously break down, or decay, by releasing energy in the form of ...

A LARGE number of investigations have been carried out on the disintegration of light nuclei bombarded with α-particles. In several cases excitation curves have been obtained for the γ-Radiation as a ...

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have discovered that Iran produced and experimented with polonium, an element useful in initiating the chain reaction that produces a nuclear explosion, ...

THE elements 81 (thallium), 82 (lead), and 83 (bismuth) have both radioactive and inactive isotopes, whereas the elements 84–92 are only known in an active form. Several attempts have been made to ...