Fascinating how relevant our studies of isotopes can be to “everyday life”…
Shortage Slows a Program to Detect Nuclear Bombs – NYTimes.com: “WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has spent $230 million to develop better technology for detecting smuggled nuclear bombs but has had to stop deploying the new machines because the United States has run out of a crucial raw material, experts say.
The ingredient is helium 3, an unusual form of the element that is formed when tritium, an ingredient of hydrogen bombs, decays. But the government mostly stopped making tritium in 1989. “
