It's all over the place
Re: Truly "Radioactive" Beads? -- buriedinbeads Post Reply Edit Forum Where am I?
Posted by: beadiste Mail author
02/11/2013, 13:39:09

Uranium used to color glass will cause it to glow green under a UV light, and will also set off a geiger counter and (according to the info from Virginia Blakelock at Beadcats in the link) fog the film on a radiation detection badge. The radiation level is supposedly low-energy alpha particles, lacking the poop to pass through paper or the layer of dead cells covering our skin.

It's been in use for at least a hundred years, especially in Czech pressed glass beads - some of the old Kiffa beads have uranium glass for their cores.

The term "vaseline glass" is often used for the greenish yellow variety, after the old petroleum jelly color. You can see in the photo attached how the yellow beads appear to glow, even in the low light in which I photographed them. That's because they actually are fluorescing, i.e., emitting light in response to incoming light energy.

GreenMelons002A.jpg (43.0 KB)  Vaseline_001small.jpg (43.9 KB)  

Related link: http://www.beadcats.com/radhaz.htm

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