Q 01/05

What were the Radium Girls taught to do to keep their brushes fine-tipped?

A) Trim them with fine scissors

B) Roll them on a damp cloth

C) Point them with their lips

D) Dip them in linseed oil

Answer · why

C) Point them with their lips

Point them with their lips was the instruction, so each painter swallowed a little radium with every dial. Rags and rinsing were discouraged because t...

Q 02/05

Radium was first found in ore from Jáchymov, a town whose silver coins gave which currency its name?

A) The franc

B) The dollar

C) The guilder

D) The crown

Answer · why

B) The dollar

The dollar takes its name from the Joachimsthaler, a silver coin struck in the town from the 1500s and shortened to thaler. The same mines later suppl...

Q 03/05

Marie Curie's research papers, still contaminated with radium, are kept in boxes lined with which metal?

A) Lead

B) Tin

C) Copper

D) Steel

Answer · why

A) Lead

Lead blocks enough of the radiation to make the papers safe to store, but anyone who consults them must still wear protective clothing. Even her cookb...

Q 04/05

The human body stores swallowed radium in the bones because it mistakes radium for which essential mineral?

A) Phosphorus

B) Magnesium

C) Fluoride

D) Calcium

Answer · why

D) Calcium

Calcium shares a column of the periodic table with radium, so the body handles the two alike. Once locked into bone, radium irradiates the marrow from...

Q 05/05

Radium decays directly into which radioactive gas, a leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers?

A) Xenon

B) Radon

C) Argon

D) Krypton

Answer · why

B) Radon

Radon is what radium turns into when it decays, and it was first known as radium emanation. Being a gas, it enters the body far more easily than its s...