And now we have a good idea of why. Because it looks like the original paper that established the amyloid plaque model as the foundation of Alzheimerās research over the last 16 years might not just be wrong, but a deliberate fraud.
Soooo, itās a prehistoric politician - all the crap came out of its mouth?
I was going to say āSo what? Our last president had an anus but no mouth.ā
Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.
(Often attributed to Mark Twain, but true origin is uncertain)
So I should drop the screwdriver and runā¦
Is that a reference to criticality?
I was tempted to say something similarā¦ If youāre tickling the dragonās tail, running wonāt help once youāve dropped the screwdriver.
(Iām not sure where I saw it, but I heard there was recent research that indicates that the Core wouldnāt have reached criticality without Slotinās own hand covering it and adding reflectivity. Being hands off during the demonstration would have made it even more difficult to control, but otherwise seems to be pretty good advice in general for exciting things along those lines.)
(Ah-hah, found it!)
I finally understood the screwdriver and criticality references on seeing the name Slotin. And here I just finished reading Atomic Accidents a month or two ago. Itās a really interesting (and frightening) book.
I would add chemists, especially of the previous couple of centuries, who isolated fluorine and so on.
And then thereās thisā¦
A wee bit scary. One of the materials in the kit:
Owing to its much shorter half-life, a milligram of 210Po emits as many alpha particles per second as 5 grams of 226Ra.[10] A few curies of 210Po emit a blue glow caused by excitation of surrounding air.
And:
Oh boy! Sign me up.
Better living through chemistry!