5 January 2012 - potassium

Every second, thousands of radioactive atoms in your body decay. At any moment an innocent-looking carbon-14 atom in your DNA may transmute into nitrogen, and you won’t know a thing until the doctor says “It’s cancer.” How are we to protect ourselves from this invisible menace? A good first step is to live deep underground, since carbon-14 is created in the atmosphere by cosmic rays, which are of course dangerous in themselves. That will save a lot of trouble—no more flying means no more security checks! But next we must cope with the even more deadly potassium-40, which occurs naturally. The solution will take many years, so we should begin laying plans now for the isotope separation of the entire Earth’s crust.