this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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A bottle with a highly concentrated solution of polonium, radium, plutonium or anything spicy and ionizing.
Preferably coupled with something that glows nicely, like ZnS. Just pick a suitable fluorescent dye and make it blue or green for bonus points.
I'm reminded of the real-life Brazilian scavengers that found some medical cesium, and decided to do body paint with their kids. :(
I can imagine the body paint story ended badly... No need to look up the facts with an introduction like that.
Wasn't there also a Russian RTG core that was so hot it would melt the snow around it? Some scavengers found it, and got immediately blasted with a lethal does of radiation—as you would expect.
With this post, OP was clearly aiming for a minor annoyance or a frustrating little prank, but that story just gave me an idea that goes a fair bit beyond that... More like diabolical malice, but here goes anyway.
Sending one of those plutonium cores back in time to the neanderthals would be a pretty good candidate too. It doesn't really glow, which is a bummer, but it has other "magical" properties to compensate. The heat might still attract them to it, and the intense radiation would kill them within a day or two. If they somehow manage to touch the plutonium itself—a feat worthy of recognition—they could also experience its toxicity.
Interesting, I hadn't heard about that one. A little bit more caution around the mysteriously steaming machine would have been wise, even if you don't know about radiation - they didn't just get close, but made camp around it, and possibly wore it while working.
The RTG in the accident was using Strontium-90; weapons-grade plutonium is actually not super lethal to handle, FYI. It's mainly an alpha emitter, so a good pair of gloves is enough. Unless you eat it. Then you're dead, same as Polonium.