Half Lives
The Unlikely History of Radium
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Narrated by:
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Deirdre Whelan
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By:
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Lucy Jane Santos
About this listen
The fascinating, curious, and sometimes macabre history of radium as seen in its uses in everyday life
Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal.
Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item - a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in-the-dark dance costume - to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday 20th-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, and enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes.
Lucy Jane Santos - herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments - delves into the stories of these products and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold, and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance.
Half Lives is a new history of radium as part of a unique examination of the interplay between science and popular culture.
©2020 Lucy Jane Santos (P)2020 W. F. Howes, Ltd.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider's in-depth biography is an encompassing history of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing implant revolution of the 20th century.
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Yup, this is the one you’re looking for...
- By richard clark on 07-19-20
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Drinking Water
- A History
- By: James Salzman
- Narrated by: Lee Hahn
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs running dry and reservoirs emptying, where is your water going to come from in the future? In Drinking Water, Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time.
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Hard not to be affected by this book
- By Neuron on 11-16-13
By: James Salzman
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Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
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Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
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Tesla vs Edison
- A Captivating Guide to the War of the Currents and the Life of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Human history has seen many surprising and profound turning points. The ways that humans learned to use raw materials to create activity and resources set the stage for the most compelling and life-altering phase of the modern era, the Industrial Revolution. Born during this time on different continents but connected by similar interests, two men indelibly marked their generation and those that followed with their genius and foresight. This audiobook covers the war of currents and the individual lives of Tesla and Edison.
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Arduous
- By Hasbro on 10-22-18
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Happy Accidents
- Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century
- By: Morton A. Meyers
- Narrated by: Richard Waterhouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
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Don't waste your money!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-20-16
By: Morton A. Meyers
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Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
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Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
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Poisons
- From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean Calabar
- By: Peter Macinnis
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A wide-ranging and provocative look - teeming with little-known facts and engaging stories - at a subject of the direst interest. Poisons permeate our world. They are in the environment, the workplace, the home. They are in food, our favorite whiskey, medicine, well water. They have been used to cure disease as well as incapacitate and kill. They smooth wrinkles, block pain, stimulate, and enhance athletic ability. In this entertaining and fact-filled audiobook, science writer Peter Macinnis considers poisons in all their aspects. He recounts stories of the celebrated poisoners in history and literature....
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#MyNonFictionAddiction
- By IsleWait on 11-07-19
By: Peter Macinnis
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Between Hope and Fear
- A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity
- By: Michael Kinch
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Michael Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent - and could easily be undone. Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.
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Enjoyed
- By Minsi Zhang on 05-03-20
By: Michael Kinch
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The Radioactive Boy Scout
- The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
- By: Ken Silverstein
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. While he was working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David's obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a model nuclear reactor in his backyard garden shed. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the US government and from industry experts. Following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation.
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Interesting story
- By Kevin Gunter on 07-16-19
By: Ken Silverstein
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The Great Secret
- The Classified World War II Disaster That Launched the War on Cancer
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor’s discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy.
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Brilliantly Written
- By AmmeTyger on 08-18-24
By: Jennet Conant
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Ravenous
- Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection
- By: Sam Apple
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.
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Highly recommended, a must read.
- By Joerg on 06-10-21
By: Sam Apple
What listeners say about Half Lives
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lorri A. Peltz-Lewis
- 02-19-24
Amazing and horrifying
Wow what a story. The discovery and multiple uses of products containing radiation. My grandparents generation was caught up in the craze. Luckily they were not wealthy, but they were likely exposed to the creams, lotions, water, etc. Yet are many still not using these for the supposed healthy benefits? I love the way this book is written, but at each turn of the “page” I was amazed at how little we learn as a species.
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- lisa stevens
- 08-08-22
Great book! Perfect narration.
super interesting all the way through. things you could never imagine and it's a good thing we know about him now. it's incredible how gullible people are and how much they will grab at straws or brass rings to try to find solutions to problems whether they're trivial problems or earth-shaking ones. radiation is such an amazing part of our lives.
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- William
- 08-07-21
Radium, Radiation, and Radioactivity
“Half Lives” tells the story of Radium in our modern world from its discovery in the late 1800s to today.
It was an age of discovery but also of mystery. Electricity was being generated and put to some use though no one understood why rotating a magnet in coils of wire should produce energy. In doing some experiments with a Crookes tube, some scientists discovered photographic paper was exposed even when blocked by various materials. They realized that there must be some other kind of ray besides light being produced, but that this unknown ray, which became called the x-ray because it was still unknown, could not be so easily blocked as light could. But, electricity was required to produce this radiation.
When the element Radium was discovered by Marie Curie, she continued to test it and found that it also had the ability to expose photographic plates, but without electricity. It’s radiation was natural. It is easy to see how all of this could have seemed magical to the average person, but especially radium. Here was a metal that first of all was extremely rare and difficult to isolate, but it also produced invisible radiation and did so naturally.
It had already become known that prolonged exposure to x-rays caused serious skin rashes which could develop into cancers, but that was prolonged exposure. It had already shown its benefit in small doses to allow physicians to see into a human body to find broken bones, bullets, etc. It didn’t take long to find out that radium could also be harmful, but most people assumed that in small quantities it could be beneficial. Then it was found that the water in many natural springs contained traces of radium.
Spas began claiming curative properties and radium treatments. Some realized that the miracle cures of people who visited certain springs in the past possibly had ot been miraculous at all but due to the presence of radium. In most, the amount of radium was so small that it was relatively harmless but, of course, some people abused that. Others added radium to water in larger quantities to be taken for health, to cosmetics, and even to the head of a walking stick to give extra energy to the elderly and infirm. Since radium glowed very slightly in the dark the military added it to watch faces and other dials. And others simply used radium in their product name without actually including any radium in the product. Some of this may sound very silly to us now, but at that time radiation was little understood and radioactivity was even less so. But, eventually the evidence became overwhelming. Today, the only commercial use for radium is in cancer treatment. It is highly radioactive and has a half-life of 1,600 years.
When government began cracking down on the use of radium in patent medications, interestingly the claim was that no “physician” should be required to reveal the secrets behind his formula and also that it was just a case of the medical establishment trying to shut out the little guy and keep cures off the market for their own benefit.
Quite an interesting book, neither too technical nor too simple.
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- Paul Vespanomore
- 03-20-22
A clarifying perspective!
This is a fascinating story rendered with great clarity and with just the right depth of detail. I was entertained and enlightened! Recommended!
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 09-22-21
IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS
Lucy Jane Santos recounts the perilous history of radioactivity in “Half Lives”. Her history is not scintillating but offers a lesson in skepticism. Her focus is the “on again, off again” love affair with radon by scientists, doctors, charlatans, and beauty product entrepreneurs. The lesson is relevant in some ways to the Covid19 controversy of this century.
Santos’s story is a warning to humanity. Be skeptical of cures that purport to be safe and beneficial, and review facts available from reputable sources. Today’s vaccination for Covid19 is a case in point. The facts are that over 650,000 Americans have died from Covid19. Those who have received the “jab” are less likely to die if they are infected by the virus. The virus is transmitted from person to person and can be mitigated by wearing a mask. Consider the source of those who promote or deny those facts. When facts are distorted by politics, we only have ourselves to blame. Humans need to be skeptical but not ignorant.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Brian Pratt
- 01-28-23
Fantastic Book!
This is a history lesson in x-ray and gamma discovery. It’s also a precautionary tale of how overly confident scientists and experts can convince the lay public something is safe when it isn’t even really understood by the scientists and experts.
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