Radioactive decay is the strange and almost mystical ability for one element to naturally and spontaneously transmute into another. In the process, those elements tend to emit deadly forms of ...

In this lesson, students will simulate the randomness of decay in radioactive atoms and visualize the half-life of a sample radioactive element. This lesson can be completed in two (2) 45-minute class ...

Radioactive material gets a bad rap, what with radiation and fallout and nuclear waste and all. But it offers some practical uses. One of the coolest (OK, maybe the coolest) is using radioactive ...

Geologists have calculated the age of Earth at 4.6 billion years. But for humans whose life span rarely reaches more than 100 years, how can we be so sure of that ancient date? It turns out the ...

In this lesson, students will investigate the nature of radioactivity and the effect of both distance and shielding materials on different radioactive sources using a Geiger-Muller tube with a counter ...

What these two processes share is baked into the math of each. In fact, in that respect, they're nearly identical. They both involve some stuff (atoms or money) that is either growing or shrinking.

Alpha recoil: Conceptual drawing of the experiment, which detects the nuclear decay of individual helium nuclei by embedding radioactive atoms in a micron-sized object and measuring the object’s ...

Scientists poke and prod at the fringes of habitability in pursuit of life’s limits. To that end, they have tunneled kilometers below Earth’s surface, drilling outward from the bottom of mine shafts ...

A battery made of diamonds could power devices for thousands of years, scientists have announced. This battery would be powered by a diamond surrounding a radioactive isotope of carbon known as carbon ...