#The Elements of Marie Curie

[justforbooks]

The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel

A fresh and feminist study of the pioneering Nobel laureate reveals her impact on the women she mentored and set on the path to prominence

Marie Curie carried out some of her most pathbreaking work under an actual glass ceiling and the toxic particles that swirled beneath it eventually killed her. What Dava Sobel wants to convey to us in this unabashedly feminist account of the great woman’s life is that the metaphorical glass ceiling was just as toxic to the society over which it was clamped.

Each occasion the two-time Nobel laureate had a new advance to announce to the world, she had to beg a male colleague to present it to France’s scientific academy, which barred women from its ranks. This iron-clad rule outlived Curie, hobbling her daughter Irène – another Nobel laureate – in her turn, and by the time a woman was finally granted full membership, in 1979, not only were both Marie and Irène more famous than most of the men who had blocked them, but that first female member gave her affiliation as the “Pierre and Marie Curie University”, Paris.

The academy couldn’t even claim that Marie was riding on her husband’s coat-tails, since Pierre had died tragically early in their marriage and she went on to great things – including a second Nobel prize – alone. A true scientist, she was never really alone, though. There were individual men – Pierre first among them – who recognised her brilliance and whose support for her never faltered. The physicist Paul Langevin, briefly her lover once she had been widowed, remained loyal long after the affair and accompanying scandal had fizzled out. That much we knew. What wasn’t so well known, and which Sobel brings out in her new biography, is that Curie created her own school and that many of those she mentored and set on the path to prominence were women. Each of those women inspired many others, in a radioactive cascade that would have lit up one of Irène’s cherished cloud chambers.

These were, necessarily, unconventional careers – and all the more inspiring for that. It’s hard to imagine a young woman arriving in France or any western country today, as Marie Skłodowska did in 1891, penniless, lacking a university degree, barely speaking the local lingo and going on to win a Nobel prize just over a decade later – and credit must go to the institutions and individuals who made that possible. There were women who passed through the Curie lab whose discoveries were feted around the world before they had obtained their baccalaureate, let alone a PhD. These “laboratory daughters” were fiercely loyal to Curie, and when her real daughter showed intellectual promise, she assembled a version of the “flying university” that she had benefited from in her youth in Russian-occupied Warsaw to help realise that promise. Irène was home schooled by some of the most respected thinkers of their generation. This is how scientific dynasties are born.

There were enough holes in the periodic table in the early 20th century to keep Curie in the lab for several lifetimes, but she didn’t hesitate to step outside it when the world called. The first world war having created a demand for mobile X-ray units, she built the units and learned to drive, then enlisted the ever-willing Irène as her aide-de-camp. If the book has a fault, it’s that the world doesn’t get the same attention to detail as Dmitri Mendeleev’s brilliant ordering of the elements. In the spring of 1919, the Curies’ otherwise healthy second daughter, Ève, came down with double pneumonia, aged 14. Sobel doesn’t mention that this happened against the backdrop of a flu pandemic – a disaster that claimed many more lives than the war.

Overall, though, her short and well-paced book succeeds in dispelling the dust that clings to some accounts of this most famous of lives and makes it fresh again. Her explanations of the science allow the reader to grasp how one experiment led logically to the next in the search for radioactive elements and particles, and to puzzle or rejoice with the scientists as the results come in. Their thirst for knowledge might have come close to an addiction, because even after they knew how toxic their workspace was, they were drawn ineluctably back into it.

They paid the price. We knew that too, but perhaps not to what extent. In an appendix entitled The Radioactivists, Sobel provides potted biographies of the dramatis personae. It’s shocking how many died of the effects of radiation exposure – effects that were sometimes recognised at the time, sometimes only later – and of course they weren’t the only ones. But then there were the countless others whose lives were saved or prolonged thanks to Curie’s discoveries – as well as the discoveries of the many women (and some men) who, but for her, would never have seen the inside of a lab.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[shalegas34]

I am reading a book about Marie Curie and the women she worked with, and I have a new fave scientist to go with Lise Meitner: Ellen Gleditsch 😍😍💯👩‍🔬

• second female professor of norway, kicked off radioactivity research at the university of oslo. a bunch of men tried to stop her and failed

• determined the half life of radium-226 (1600 years) which is the value still accepted today

• her laboratory sheltered scientists fleeing from nazi germany, she also hid people in her home

• protested fascist regimes all the way to death

• took in some of her younger siblings after their parents passed away. never married and there is no mention of relationships in her life story 😎

This book has introduced me to so many cool scientists I’ve never heard of before. let’s go!

[woodelf68]

I got 48, which I was extremely pleased with, considering the last time I looked at a periodic table was in 7th grade science class, which I did not do so well in. There were probably about ten more I should have got, including the two which I KNEW were in there, but I didn't know what kind of ending to stick on the main word. (Like I knew it was fluor- something, and roentgen- something, but failed at getting the right suffix).

We all had fun with geography class now onto science! take this quiz to name as many elements as you can :)

obligatory rb for sample size <3

[faline5roses2010]

How to discover an element:

Test the yellow dye. It is radioactive.

Process the yellow dye. Put away the leftovers.

Test the Uranium. It is radioactive.

Test the leftovers. They are still radioactive.

Process the leftovers. Put away the meta leftovers.

Test the Polonium. It is radioactive.

Test the meta leftovers. They are still radioactive.

Process the meta leftovers. Put away the meta meta leftovers.

Test the Radium. It is the most radioactive element in existence. (So far)

Test the meta meta leftovers. They are not radioactive.

Throw away the meta meta leftovers.

Die of radiation poisoning. You are Marie Curie.

[seasonplacko1973blog]

[sad-boys-book-club]

"&" Ampersand - A Literary Companion

Selected stories with the themes of Bastille's upcoming project "&" Ampersand. And, of course, a love letter to my favourite band.

PART 1

Intros & Narrators: Wallace, David Foster. Oblivion: Stories. Little, Brown and Company, 2004./ Nancherla, Aparna. Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome. Penguin Publishing Group, 2023.// Eve & Paradise Lost: Bohannon, Cat. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023. / Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Alma Classics, 2019.// Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky: Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them. Harvard University Press, 2016. /Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson: Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011.// Blue Sky & The Painter: Prideaux, Sue. Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream. Yale University Press, 2019. / Knausgaard, Karl Ove. So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch. Random House, 2019.//

PART 2

Leonard & Marianne: Hesthamar, Kari. So Long, Marianne: A Love Story - Includes Rare Material by Leonard Cohen. Ecw Press, 2014./ Cohen, Leonard. Book of Longing. Penguin Books Limited, 2007.// Marie & Polonium: Curie, Eve. Madame Curie. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./Sobel, Dava. The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024.// Red Wine & Wilde: Wilde, Oscar, et al. De Profundis. Harry N. Abrams, 1998./ Sturgis, Matthew. Oscar: A Life. Head of Zeus, 2018.// Seasons & Narcissus: Ovid. Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation. Penguin, 2004./ Morales, Helen. Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths. PublicAffairs, 2020.//

PART 3

Drawbridge & The Baroness: Rothschild, Hannah. The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./ Katz, Judy H. White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-racism Training. University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.// The Soprano & Her Midnight Wonderings: Ardoin, John, and Gerald Fitzgerald. Callas: The Art and the Life. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974./ Abramovic, Marina. 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. Damiani, 2020.// Essie & Paul: Ransby, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Haymarket Books, 2022./ Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press, 1998.//

PART 4

Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze: Gautier, Theophile. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Penguin Classics, n.d./ Gardiner, Kelly. Goddess. HarperCollins, 2014.// Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her: Chang-Eppig, Rita. Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023./ Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy. Penguin Books, 1975. // Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024: Kaufman, Bob. Golden Sardine. City Lights Books, 1976./ Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Pan Macmillan Australia Pty, Limited, 2008.

Original artwork created by Theo Hersey & Dan Smith. Printed letterpress at The Typography Workshop, South London.

[marauderswolf22]

Instead of a normal tag game im often doing, let's do this because im so tired of this as a pole myself

This woman is Maria Skłodowska-Curie, not Marie Curie. She was polish, she was born in Warsaw. After she married her husband she kept her maiden name because she loved poland and wanted to be known as a polish female scientist. She made sure to learn her daughters polish. She named one of the two elements she discovered polonium after her homeland!!!

Calling her french, not saying her maiden name (okay I know it can be hard to pronouce but just try to say sklodowska), changing her name for it to sound french, it's like you're erasing a part of her, a part that was so important to her. Most of her life Poland was not even on the maps, it didn't theoretically exist under partitions. She was growing up in a time that was full of romantic patriotism. During the first world war she helped to train polish nurses, she wanted to help her country with the knowledge she had.

In 1915, she signed, along with Henryk Sienkiewicz (a famous polish writer) and Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pianist and social activist/civic leader (i can't find the right word)), a proclamation published in the press calling for contributions to the General Committee for Aid to War Victims in Poland, founded in Vevey.

After the war, when poland was reborn, she wrote a letter to her brother saying: “So, born in slavery, fertilized in the womb, we will see the rebirth of our homeland that we dreamed of. We had no hope that we would see this moment ourselves, we thought that maybe our children would see it. But this moment has come for us. Like you, I believe in our future"

During her stay in the USA, Maria used her collected money to buy a gram of radium, which was very expensive at that time, and donated it to Poland so that the Radium Institute in Warsaw could be launched. She did much more, but I listed just this.

Please stop trying to erase her origin, disconnect her country from her

im tagging so that more people can read this, im constantly seeing "Marie Curie" and i hope i can change it even just a little (and it's a no pressure tag ofc): @vellichorius @brokendoor16 @crikey01 @kurt-cobain-is-jesus-in-disguise @midnights-dragon

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Polonium was the first element discovered by Marie Curie, and she named it after her home country, Poland. It is highly radioactive; a gram of polonium will generate enough radiation to heat itself up to 500F.

[forsoobado137]

The anon from the country-people getting hurt again!

1) thank you for the compliment on my English:D

2) can't imagine being in a coma for so long is fun rip Feliks

3) While yes Poland as a country wasn't there but people still learned polish and tried to keep the nation alive in any way possible

Examples cuz I'm a nerd:

- one of the books called "Syzyfowe pracę (Sisyphean labors)" by Stefan Żeromski is autobiographical novel which described the school life under Russian occupation. One of the scenes I remember of off the top of my head is that in school children were secretly being taught Polish and one of the teachers had to stand guard outside the classroom

- Maria Skłodowska-Curie kept (most of the times) signing her name as Skłodowska-Curie and named the element she discovered Polonium. Poles often get annoyed when people just say Maria Curie because it erases the polish heritage she had and (most likely) tried to keep alive by signing with her maiden name and the name of the element, yes she was a french citizen but Poland wasn't on the map back then so she had to do it that way (<- dunno if I'm making sense sorry if not)

There are many other examples but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Back to Hetalia, I like to think that Feliks wasn't in a coma but lived in hiding, quietly fighting among humans, teaching the language and helping as much as he could. Of course he would have been much weaker, maybe chronically sick? (Which is what I head canon is happening to Gilbert, chronically sick and pretty weak) After all he was only alive in the hearts of his people

Personally, I like the idea of him being presumed dead, I mean most people wouldn't think a country that got wiped from the map 3 times one time for over 100 years would came back and yet here he was, sick yet still standing

I'm polish so that's why I'm so into it lol sorry for the long read but I just really love thinking what happens to nation-people when the nation is basically gone -✨Anon (<- naming myself in case I will want to write in again lol)

Wow, thank you for the history info! Especially about Marie Skłodowska-Curie. I will definitely call her that from now on. Thank you, ✨ Anon!

And I like the idea of Feliks being chronically sick instead of a coma. He is very resilient, and I think that he was in a similar situation to Gilbert now, where he lost most/all of his healing powers.

So that also means he was probably dodging assassination attempts left and right! God damn, Poland!

[geniuseccentric]

What's your favorite chemical element?

Radium. Fascinating element. Discovered by the incredible female scientist, Marie Curie.

I love seeing women in science. We need more of them.

[chronicbeans]

Hazbin Hotel Rewrite - Charlie/Rebecca's and Baxter's Rooms

A little explanation of what they're rooms look like and, for Baxter, how his room works.

Charlie/Rebecca's Room: They share a room, which is split right down the middle in design. Rebecca's side is filled with a nice blue, white, and silver color scheme. There's a lot of plushies, a few punk and goth style posters and makeup sets, and a slight icy sheen over the window on her side. The walls on her side of the room is a baby blue. Charlie's is filled with a gold, red, orange and black color scheme. It has a lot of flowers in pots, particularly roses and poppies. She has a few fidget toys, as well, which she keeps next to her flower makeup bag. The walls on her side of the room are pastel yellow, and the windows feel a lot warmer to the touch on her side. The bed is in the middle of the room, with the blanket's colors being split right down the middle between baby blue and pastel yellow. A lot of people they let in say that standing in the middle of the room is most comfortable temperature wise, with Rebecca's side being too cold and Charlie's too hot. They're room is on the top floor.

Baxter's Room: It's in the basement. Charlie didn't know exactly how to handle someone who is radioactive, and out of fear that the radioactive particles would sink into the other floors if he was on a higher floor of the hotel, she decided to refurbish the basement into being his room and lab. He then added a decontamination room in the small hallway between the stairs and his room to make sure any radiation doesn't leave his room by sticking to the hazmat suits. His actual room is constantly dark, besides the radioactive particles glowing. The design fits a deep sea floor aesthetic, with a few lava lamps around the room mimicking bubbles and tall, dying indoor plants mimicking seaweed. By his bed, which is an antique hospital bed so that he can raise the head of it to get out, there's a lot of posters of Marie Curie. There's also a lot of empty space by his bed so he can park his wheelchair, as well as railings lining the walls of his room to help him move around. Because his room is extremely big due to just being the entire basement, half of it is taken up by his lab. In his lab, there's a lot of fish tanks, boxes full of radioactive elements and materials, and his medications.

Side note: Baxter constantly complains about the fact that a lot of the hotel is inaccessible for him, which includes the fact that to leave his room and enter the rest of the hotel, he needs to climb stairs while carrying his wheelchair. The same goes for entering and exiting the hotel itself, since there's no ramp.

[prozerpina2001]

After Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I just had a flashback of reading „Chain of thorns” for the first time and experiencing a huge, feminist rage caused by Maria Skłodowska-Curie being refered to as Marie Curie (the author @cassandraclare couldn’t even got her name right? C’mon, do a research!). The west world erasing the fact that Maria (not „Marie”) was Polish is such a big problem. It’s not only xenophobic, because for some reason people can’t accept that a Polish scientist could be that successful, but also misogynistic, since you’re trying to belittle her and make everything about her being a wife of a FRENCH MAN. Her being married didn’t stop the undeniable fact that she was Polish and she named one of the chemical elements POLONIUM (clearly after her freaking homeland), not Frenchonium (lol). Her wish was to be remembered as a Polish scientist who couldn’t live and study in her own country, because it was occupied by Prussia, Austria and Russia for 123 years.

So her being admired by both Christopher Lightwood and Astrid and also being called the FEMINIST ICON while constantly getting both her name, surname and nationality (not citizenship) wrong is such a disgusting joke. I had enough.

I know that the only people who care are Polish, but I’m so tired and bitter about this. If you can’t even remeber her name (Maria SKŁODOWSKA-Curie, that’s not so difficult!), then don’t call yourself feminist, that’s a hypocrisy 🤣 Or just leave her alone, that poor woman doesn’t deserve such a treatment.

Again, I’m just very tired and bitter about this whole thing. If you want to call me out on this, I will just block you. I don’t have enough strenght and time and will to fight in Internet. Enough Poles tried to educate others. Just go read Wikipedia (oh right, most of the versions couldn’t get her name right) or something.

[thoughtportal]

The Congo’s role in creating the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was kept secret for decades, but the legacy of its involvement is still being felt today.

“The word Shinkolobwe fills me with grief and sorrow,” says Susan Williams, a historian at the UK Institute of Commonwealth Studies. “It’s not a happy word, it’s one I associate with terrible grief and suffering.”

Few people know what, or even where, Shinkolobwe is. But this small mine in the southern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), played a part in one of the most violent and devastating events in history.

More than 7,500 miles away, on 6 August, bells will toll across Hiroshima, Japan, to mark 75 years since the atomic bomb fell on the city. Dignitaries and survivors will gather to remember those who died in the blast and resulting radioactive fallout. Thousands of lanterns carrying messages of peace will be set afloat on the Motoyasu River. Three days later, similar commemorations will be held in Nagasaki.

No such ceremony will take place in the DRC. Yet both nations are inextricably linked by the atomic bomb, the effects of which are still being felt to this day.

The Shinkolobwe mine – named after a kind of boiled apple that would leave a burn if squeezed – was the source for nearly all of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project, culminating with the construction of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

But the story of the mine didn’t end with the bombs. Its contribution to the Little Boy and Fat Man has shaped the DRC’s ruinous political history and civil wars over the decades that followed. Even today the mine’s legacy can still be seen in the health of the communities who live near it.

“It’s an ongoing tragedy,” says Williams, who has examined the role of Shinkolobwe in her book Spies in the Congo. She believes there needs to be greater recognition of how the exploitation and desire to control the mine’s contents by Western powers played a role in the country’s troubles.

Mombilo too is campaigning to raise awareness of the role played by the Congo in deciding the outcome of World War Two, as well as the burden it still carries because of this. In 2016, the CCSSA’s Missing Link forum brought together activists, historians, analysts, and children of those affected by the atomic bomb, both from Japan and from the DR Congo. “We are planning to bring back the history of Shinkolobwe, so we can make the world know,” says Mombilo.

Out of Africa

The story of Shinkolobwe began when a rich seam of uranium was discovered there in 1915, while the Congo was under colonial rule by Belgium. There was little demand for uranium back then: its mineral form is known as pitchblende, from a German phrase describing it as a worthless rock. Instead, the land was mined by the Belgian company Union Minière for its traces of radium, a valuable element that had been recently isolated by Marie and Pierre Curie.  

In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found – Tom Zoellner

It was only when nuclear fission was discovered in 1938 that the potential of uranium became apparent. After hearing about the discovery, Albert Einstein immediately wrote to US president Franklin D Roosevelt, advising him that the element could be used to generate a colossal amount of energy – even to construct powerful bombs. In 1942, US military strategists decided to buy as much uranium as they could to pursue what became known as the Manhattan Project. And while mines existed in Colorado and Canada, nowhere in the world had as much uranium as the Congo.

“The geology of Shinkolobwe is described as a freak of nature,” says Tom Zoellner, who visited Shinkolobwe in the course of writing Uranium – War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. “In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found.”

In a deal with Union Minière – negotiated by the British, who owned a 30% interest in the company – the US secured 1,200 tonnes of Congolese uranium, which was stockpiled on Staten Island, US, and an additional 3,000 tonnes that was stored above ground at the mine in Shinkolobwe. But it was not enough. US Army engineers were dispatched to drain the mine, which had fallen into disuse, and bring it back into production.

Under Belgian rule, Congolese workers toiled day and night in the open pit, sending hundreds of tonnes of uranium ore to the US every month. “Shinkolobwe decided who would be the next leader of the world,” says Mombilo. “Everything started there.”

All of this was carried out under a blanket of secrecy, so as not to alert Axis powers about the existence of the Manhattan Project. Shinkolobwe was erased from maps, and spies sent to the region to sow deliberate disinformation about what was taking place there. Uranium was referred to as “gems”, or simply “raw material”. The word Shinkolobwe was never to be uttered.

This secrecy was maintained long after the end of the war. “Efforts were made to give the message that the uranium came from Canada, as a way of deflecting attention away from the Congo,” says Williams. The effort was so thorough, she says, that the belief the atomic bombs were built with Canadian uranium persists to this day. Although some of the uranium came from Bear Lake in Canada – about 907 tonnes (1,000 tons) are thought to have been supplied by the Eldorado mining company – and a mine in Colorado, the majority came from the Congo. Some of the uranium from the Congo was also refined in Canada before being shipped to the US.

Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests

After the war, however, Shinkolobwe emerged as a proxy ground in the Cold War. Improved enrichment techniques made Western powers less dependent on the uranium at Shinkolobwe. But in order to curtail other nations’ nuclear ambitions, the mine had to be controlled. “Even though the US did not need the uranium at Shinkolobwe, it didn’t want the Soviet Union to get access to the mine,” explains Williams.

When the Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, the mine was closed and the entrance filled with concrete. But Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests.

So important was stopping the Communist threat, says Zoellner, that these powers were willing to help depose the democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba and install the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965 for a decades-long reign of ruinous plutocracy.

Attempts by the Congolese people to negotiate better conditions for themselves were attacked as Communist-fuelled sedition. “The idealism, hope, and vision of the Congolese for a Congo free of occupation by an external power was devastated by the military and political interests of the Western powers,” says Williams.

A wound unhealed

Mobutu was eventually toppled in 1997, but the spectre of Shinkolobwe continues to haunt the DRC. Drawn by rich deposits of copper and cobalt, Congolese miners began digging informally at the site, working around the sealed mineshafts. By the end of the century, an estimated 15,000 miners and their families were present at Shinkolobwe, operating clandestine pits with no protection against the radioactive ore.

Accidents were commonplace: in 2004, eight miners were killed and more than a dozen injured when a passage collapsed. Fears that uranium was being smuggled from the site to terrorist groups or hostile states vexed Western nations, leading the Congolese army to raze the miners’ village that same year.

Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept

Despite the mineral wealth present at Shinkolobwe, since Union Minière withdrew in the early 1960s there has never been an industrial mine that could safely and efficiently extract the ores and return the proceeds to the Congolese people. After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, any interest in extracting the uranium for civilian use withered away. “Uranium, even in its natural condition, resists control,” says Zoellner. “Right now Shinkolobwe exists in a limbo, a symbol for the inherent geopolitical instability of uranium.”

The ongoing secrecy around Shinkolobwe (many official US, British and Belgian records on the subject are still classified) has stymied efforts to recognise the Congolese contribution to the Allied victory, as well as hampering investigation into the environmental and health impacts of the mine.

“The effects are medical, political, economic, so many things,” says Mombilo. “We’re not able to know the negative effects of radiation because of this secrecy.” Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept. “I had a witness who died with his brain coming out of his head, because of the radiation,” says Mombilo. “In all these years, there is not even a special hospital, there is no scientific study or treatment.”

Many of those affected by Shinkolobwe are now campaigning for recognition and reparation, but knowing who should receive them – and who should pay – is compounded by the lack of information made available about the mine and what took place there.

“Shinkolobwe is a curse on the Congo,” says Mombilo.

But he adds that for over a century, the country’s rich resources have made possible one global revolution after another: rubber for tyres made automobiles possible, uranium fuelled nuclear reactors, coltan built the computers of the information age, and cobalt powers the batteries of mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“Our world is moved by the minerals of the Congo,” says Mombilo. “The positive thing I can say is that in all these advanced technologies, you’re talking about the Congo.”

The Congo’s impact on the world has been immeasurable. Recognising the name Shinkolobwe alongside Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be the first step to repaying that debt. {read}

[the-tmnt-ficfinder]

Ficfinder finds: The Neon Void

Chapter 2: Houdini

Rottmnt Fanfic Summary: Big Mama has a surprise guest at the Grand Nexus Hotel.

Houdini: Appraisal and Ratings

(Don't know what fanfic "Appraisal and Ratings" means? Check out my explanation on my Main Masterpost! Looking for a different fanfic to read? Head on over to my Fanfic List Masterpost!)

Disclaimer: This fanfic is completed, and is written by @sugarpasteltmnt, so go show them some love and kindness!

The fanfic ratings are not based on quality, favoritism, or how good I think it is, but rather, how intense a subject may be. Like a movie review, or the tags on Ao3, letting the readers know what to expect.

Plot: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Plot is four out of five!! Immediately, the plot for this story shows right up. This is in no way a slow burn story, jumping right into the drama at first chance."

Suspense/Mystery: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Suspense/Mystery is four out of five!! Chapter two is filled with mystery regarding who The Neon Void is, along with the suspense of a good fight!! This chapter will have you on the edge of your seat!!"

Angst/Hurt:💛 🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Angst/Hurt is one out of five!! Minimal angst, mostly action and excitement for this chapter!! ^^"

Fluff/Comfort: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Fluff/Comfort is one out of five!! Once again, very little fluff, just as there is very little angst. Simply a thrilling chapter indeed!!"

Emotions Conveyed: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Emotions Conveyed is two out of five!! Chapter two of The Neon Void is definitely a thrilling chapter. This chapter is less about the feels and more about the excitement as it plunges right into a good plot!!"

Drama/Tension Level: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Drama/Tension Level is five out of five!! Absolutely, the drama is a five for this chapter!! Between the fight scenes, and the wild craziness of The Neon Void, this chapter has a ton of action!!"

Triggers: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Triggers are one out of five!! This chapter is minimally triggering. The only thing to look out for, is your classic TMNT violence ^^"

Legibility (Reading): 💛💛💛💛💛

"Legibility (Reading) is five out of five!! This chapter was incredibly fun to read!! The funky fonts used are really fun to look at, and add such a cool element to the story!!"

Legibility (Audio): 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Legibility (Audio) is two out of five! While the story itself is good for listening to, the funky fonts mess with reading quality, making it hard to understand. This chapter is much better read than listened to for sure!! Plus, there's fanart imbedded into the bottom of the chapter than you wouldn't want to miss."

Length: 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Length is three out of five!! Chapter two of The Neon Void takes about 21-22 minutes to listen too!!"

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The Neon Void: Ratings and Chapter List

Personal thoughts on chapter below cut (Contains Spoilers)

The design for The Neon Void is such a fun and colorful one!!

There was a loud snapping sound. The yokai glitched. Shuttering in the air—looking like what old 3D movies looked like without the glasses—before coming back into focus two feet to the left from where he just was. Huh—?

I can't imagine how cool this actually looked!!

“SØⱤⱤɎ. ł ĐØ₦'₮ Ⱨ₳VɆ ₮ł₥Ɇ ₮Ø ₱Ⱡ₳Ɏ. ₲Ø₮ ₱Ⱡ₳₵ɆS ₮Ø ฿Ɇ. ⱧɆⱧɆ.”

I have no idea how the author got his effect, but its darn freaking cool looking!!

“…What in sweet Marie Curie’s name was that about?” Donnie was the first to break the silence. Raph was too shaken by the echo of the yokai’s laughter in his head to respond. Mikey dissipated his chains with a sizzle, exhaling a loud gasp. The three brothers sat still for a minute. Stunned.

Random fact because who doesn't like facts? Marie Curie was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She did a ton of research on a cure for cancer!! There you are, fact of the day!!

“I don’t know what he was looking for,” Big Mama sighed, “He was pestering me about some fibble-fabble ‘key’.” Big Mama clearly didn’t notice the boys freezing. Donnie felt the color drain from his face. A…key? A key to what? It could have meant a million things— there were countless possibilities to what it was probably for…the chances of it being that key were practically nonexistent…Right? Donnie’s feeble hope for reassurance from his brothers shattered when he glanced over and saw their faces. He could tell they were wondering the same thing he was.

Right when Big Mama said something about a 'key' my mind immediately jumped to the same conclusion that the brothers came up with. Its kinda fun to realize things like that.

“To teleport, you wouldn’t bend the space around you—you’d have to bend every molecule in your body at the same time. It would be like performing brain surgery, calculating the trajectory of a flying rocket, and folding YOURSELF into an impossible origami shape all at the same time!” He threw his hands up, exasperated, “That, AND there’s no risk of portal-jacking. A perfect, instantaneous, limitless control. ALL while having more power than several atomic bombs! It’s literally the holy grail of transportation! The highest score imaginable!”

The way this concept is explained is immaculate!! How portaling and teleportation differs, how one is easier while the other is dangerous. The whole concept of this is creative, unique, yet draws on knowledge we already have.

[eucanthos]

Polonium (T+: highly toxic)

The Deadliest of them all on the Periodic Table (118 Elements) It occurs naturally and has the power to kill millions. Extremely hard to detect and 5,000 times more radioactive than Radium (Ra). The concentrations of 210 Po (isotope) in cigarette tobacco are in the range of 2.8–37 Bq/kg and vary with the cigarette brand. Effective and convenient poison. It emits pure alpha particles, which outside the body can be stopped by a sheet of tissue paper. Because polonium emits only alpha particles, it can be safely carried in glass vials and will not set off radiation detectors at airports. Swiss forensic scientific tests on samples taken from Yasser Arafat's corpse [Died November 11, 2004] have shown unexpectedly high levels of radioactive polonium-210. Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Po in London's Millennium Hotel, November 1, 2006. Discovered on July 18, 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie, when it was extracted from the uranium ore, it was named after Marie Skłodowska-Curie's homeland (Poland)

Book suggestion:

Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. Publisher: Ecco, 2024

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

15 Inventors Who Were Killed By Their Own Inventions

Marie Curie -  Marie Curie, popularly known as Madame Curie, invented the process to isolate radium after co-discovering the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She died of aplastic anemia as a result of prolonged exposure to ionizing radiation emanating from her research materials. The dangers of radiation were not well understood at the time.

William Nelson - a General Electric employee, invented a new way to motorize bicycles. He then fell off his prototype bike during a test run and died.

William Bullock - he invented the web rotary printing press. Several years after its invention, his foot was crushed during the installation of the new machine in Philadelphia. The crushed foot developed gangrene and Bullock died during the amputation.

Horace Lawson Hunley - he was a marine engineer and was the inventor of the first war submarine. During a routine test, Hunley, along with a 7-member crew, sunk to death in a previously damaged submarine H. L. Hunley (named after Hunley’s death) on October 15, 1963. 

Francis Edgar Stanley - Francis crashed into a woodpile while driving a Stanley Steamer. It was a steam engine-based car developed by Stanley Motor Carriage Company, founded by Francis E. Stanley and his twin Freelan O. Stanley. 

Thomas Andrews - he was an Irish businessman and shipbuilder. As the naval architect in charge of the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic, he was travelling on board that vessel during her maiden voyage when the ship hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912. He perished along with more than 1,500 others. His body was never recovered.

Thomas Midgley Jr. - he was an American engineer and chemist who contracted polio at age 51, leaving him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from the bed. He was accidentally entangled in the ropes of the device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.

Alexander Bogdanov - he was a Russian physician and philosopher who was one of the first people to experiment with blood transfusion. He died when he used the blood of malaria and TB victim on himself.

Michael Dacre -  died after testing his flying taxi device designed to permit fast, affordable travel between regional cities.

Max Valier - invented liquid-fuelled rocket engines as a member of the 1920s German rocket society. On May 17, 1930, an alcohol-fuelled engine exploded on his test bench in Berlin that killed him instantly.

Mike Hughes - was killed when the parachute failed to deploy during a crash landing while piloting his homemade steam-powered rocket.

Harry K. Daghlian Jr. and Louis Slotin -  The two physicists were running experiments on plutonium for The Manhattan Project, and both died due to lethal doses of radiation a year apart (1945 and 1946, respectively).

Karel Soucek -  The professional stuntman developed a shock-absorbent barrel in which he would go over the Niagara Falls. He did so successfully, but when performing a similar stunt in the Astrodome, the barrel was released too early and Soucek plummeted 180 feet, hitting the rim of the water tank designed to cushion the blow.

Hammad al-Jawhari - he was a prominent scholar in early 11th century Iraq and he was also sort of an inventor, who was particularly obsessed with flight. He strapped on a pair of wooden wings with feathers stuck on them and tried to impress the local Imam. He jumped off from the roof of a mosque and consequently died.

Jean-Francoise Pilatre de Rozier -  Rozier was a French teacher who taught chemistry and physics. He was also a pioneer of aviation, having made the first manned free balloon flight in 1783. He died when his balloon crashed near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais during an attempt to fly across the English Channel. Pilâtre de Rozier was the first known fatalities in an air crash when his Roziere balloon crashed on June 15, 1785.