Radioactive Lanthanum 138

Today we will take a closer look at another naturally occurring radioactive element, Lanthanum! Lanthanum is a rare earth element and it’s the first element in the lanthanide series. It has an atomic number of 57 and was first discovered by a Swedish chemist, Carl Gustaf Mosander in 1839 but pure Lanthanum wasn’t obtained until […]

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Radioactive Vintage Lenses

In the 1940s, scientists and lens designers at Kodak, a world-famous camera and filmmaker, started experimenting with mixing rare earth elements into their lenses. After a series of tests, they found out that by adding Thorium 232 to lenses they can improve the quality of images produced. Not long after, other companies followed and as […]

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