[Analytical chemistry in works of Maria Sklodowska-Curie]. / Chemia analityczna w pracach Marii Sklodowskiej-Curie.

Maria Sklodowska-Curie--a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry--the elements of learning of chemistry gained just by a dint of work of more than ten months in Warsaw in the Institute of Industry and Agriculture Museum. The Nobel Prize concerned a contribution to the progress of chemistry through the discovery of radium and polonium, separation of radium and study of properties of this amazing element. It was awarded for an extremely arduous work, during which the chemical reactions being the principles of analytical chemistry were realized. Unlike to a typical analytical procedure, an initial attempt here was the thousands of kilograms of uranium ore: pitchblende. The final effect was small amounts of new elements: polonium and radium. Both the knowledge and the intuition of the researcher let her have a triumph. The difficulties she experienced because the properties of the searched chemical elements could only be evaluated thanks to the knowledge on other chemical elements. A significant achievement was the determination of the samples by means of radioactivity measurement, which gave rise to radiochemical analytical methods. An extreme analytical precision was demanded in multiple processes of fractional crystallization and precipitation which finally led to the calculation of the atomic mass of radium.

Murder by radiation poisoning: implications for public health.

On November 23, 2006, former Russian military intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital. Authorities determined he was deliberately poisoned with the radionuclide Polonium-210 (210Po). Police subsequently discovered that those involved in this crime had--apparently inadvertently--spread 210Po over many locations in London. The United Kingdom Health Protection Agency (HPA) contacted many persons who might have been exposed to 210Po and provided voluntary urine testing. Some of those identified as potentially exposed were U.S. citizens, whom the HPA requested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assist in contacting. CDC also provided health care professionals and state and local public health officials with guidance as to how they might respond should a Litvinenko-like incident occur in the U.S. This guidance has resulted in the identification of a number of lessons that can be useful to public health and medical authorities in planning for radiological incidents. Eight such lessons are discussed in this article.

Review of chemical and radiotoxicological properties of polonium for internal contamination purposes.

The discovery of polonium (Po) was first published in July, 1898 by P. Curie and M. Curie. It was the first element to be discovered by the radiochemical method. Polonium can be considered as a famous but neglected element: only a few studies of polonium chemistry have been published, mostly between 1950 and 1990. The recent (2006) event in which (210)Po evidently was used as a poison to kill A. Litvinenko has raised new interest in polonium. 2011 being the 100th anniversary of the Marie Curie Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the aim of this review is to look at the several aspects of polonium linked to its chemical properties and its radiotoxicity, including (i) its radiochemistry and interaction with matter; (ii) its main sources and uses; (iii) its physicochemical properties; (iv) its main analytical methods; (v) its background exposure risk in water, food, and other environmental media; (vi) its biokinetics and distribution following inhalation, ingestion, and wound contamination; (vii) its dosimetry; and (viii) treatments available (decorporation) in case of internal contamination.

The Polonium brief: a hidden history of cancer, radiation, and the tobacco industry.

The first scientific paper on polonium-210 in tobacco was published in 1964, and in the following decades there would be more research linking radioisotopes in cigarettes with lung cancer in smokers. While external scientists worked to determine whether polonium could be a cause of lung cancer, industry scientists silently pursued similar work with the goal of protecting business interests should the polonium problem ever become public. Despite forty years of research suggesting that polonium is a leading carcinogen in tobacco, the manufacturers have not made a definitive move to reduce the concentration of radioactive isotopes in cigarettes. The polonium story therefore presents yet another chapter in the long tradition of industry use of science and scientific authority in an effort to thwart disease prevention. The impressive extent to which tobacco manufacturers understood the hazards of polonium and the high executive level at which the problem and potential solutions were discussed within the industry are exposed here by means of internal documents made available through litigation.

Marie Curie, una gran científica, una gran mujer / Marie Curie, a great scientist, a great women

Marie Curie y su esposo Pierre, fueron los descubridores de la radioactividad, junto a los elementos polonio y radio. Marie dedicó más de treinta y cinco años de su carrera científica al estudio de esta entidad. Con tenacidad y esfuerzo logró destacarse en una época donde el machismo y la xenofobia estaban presentes en todas partes. Por sus méritos, fue la primera persona en recibir dos premios Nobel: el de Física en 1903 y el de Química en 1911. Para los autores de esta publicación es un orgullo traer nuevamente a la luz la vida y obra de esta extraordinaria mujer.

[The centenary of the discovery of radium]. / Le centenaire de la découverte du radium.

Henri Becquerel presented the discovery of radium by Pierre and Marie Curie at the Paris Académie des Sciences on 26th December 1898. One century later, radium has been abandoned, mainly for the reason of radiation safety concerns. It is, however, likely that modern techniques of brachytherapy are the successors of those designed for radium sources, and that radium has cured thousands and thousands patients all over the word for about 80 years. The history of discovery and medical use of radium is summarised.

Radium, Marie Curie and modern science.

In 1898, the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium, reawakened interest in the topic of uranic rays discovered 2 years before by H. Becquerel. Radioactivity, a name coined by Marie Curie, became a major research field for decades. The contrasting personalities of Pierre Curie, already a first-rank physicist, and of the young Marie Curie-Sklodowska as they undertook their common work are described. It is shown how a well-chosen quantitative method and a systematic approach combining physics and chemistry led to the discovery within less than 1 year. The special role of radium and the determination of its atomic weight by Marie Curie followed by her long-term program for accumulating pure radium salts are emphasized. The first woman with a full professorship at a French University, Marie Curie created and managed the Radium Institute.

[Pages from history]. / Quelques pages d'histoire.

In March 1896, not long after the discovery of X rays by W. Röntgen, H. Becquerel discovers the "uranic rays" emitted by the element uranium. In 1898, M. Curie observes that minerals containing uranium are more radioactive than the uranium they contain; she infers that yet unknown radioactive elements are present in minute quantities in these minerals. A few months later, P. and M. Curie, after an exhausting labour, discover polonium and radium. The "physiological action" of the rays emitted by radium are observed for the first time in 1900-1901. E. Rutherford and F. Soddy show, in Montreal, in 1902, that radioactivity is a spontaneous transmutation of one chemical element in another. The discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear reactions will lead F. and I. Joliot-Curie to discover artificial radioactivity in 1934.