this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 104 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

if it looks that hot, fission is pretty active and a lot of particles are coming your way. better put it under water and attach a turbine to the vessel, and a generator to the shaft

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 56 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

My shaft is where all my generation comes from. /s

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago

more like the future generation

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I typically get My Generation from The Who

[–] dellish@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Ahhh water. Blocks alpha particles. Disables magnets. Is there anything this wondrous liquid can't do?

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Amazing work.

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[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It can dissolve a lot of things too

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[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

this is how 238Pu ceramic pellets for space probe generators look like, no fission required just alpha decay. If it was fission, it wouldn't need to glow like this entire time because you can just turn it off

[–] gnutrino@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

Well, either you can turn it off or you're about a microsecond away from being vaporized.

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[–] SolSerkonos@piefed.social 61 points 1 month ago (1 children)

People always talking about how extremely hot metal looks tasty.

I'm an amateur blacksmith. Glowing metal looks like pain.

[–] Faydaikin@beehaw.org 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But it could be tasty pain.

[–] SolSerkonos@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, shit. You've got me there ngl.

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[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 59 points 1 month ago (3 children)

People have tasted it, they all seem to claim accidentally, the key report is that it tastes 'metallic'.

[–] dellish@lemmy.world 74 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Fun fact: hang around a strong enough radioactive source and you get the metallic taste WITHOUT even having to touch it. You just get the taste for free!

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 29 points 1 month ago

Scientists don’t want you knowing this one trick!

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 month ago

Don't tell CrossFit people about radiogenic hemorrhage or they'll start fetishizing it.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Eat your heart out, Jimmy John's.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And jet fuel melts steel beams.

Y'all, it's fucking delicious. Like Simply Orange hate-fucked Tang and the baby was adopted by a loving lesbian couple, Starburst and Skittles. Smith.

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[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] Plurrbear@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Tell TRUMP and the administration to lick it and it will taste like a dreamsickles!!!! :)

[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago

Tell him it tastes like Bill Clinton, if you know what I mean.

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[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Lol it looks like that because it's glowing from heat (probably heat it is producing through radioactivity) it looks like pretty much any metal, just like uranium. Uranium compounds are super pretty though, plutonium probably too if anyone was nuts enough to make dyes with it.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pu 239 which is the kind that we use the most since it’s the most fissile has a half-life of around 25k years and alpha decays so its very unlikely that it is heat from radioactivity. It may be heat from forging.

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[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Fun fact: there's enough calories in a single gram of plutonium to sustain a person for 10,000,000 years.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

as does the same amount of any other substance, including for example yoghurt.

That number is just the E in E=mc²

If we are actually talking dietary calories, the number you see on foodstuff packaging, plutonium has 0.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

you're saying it's perfect for my diet ?

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 13 points 1 month ago

The problem with only counting calories for health has never been more aptly highlighted!

[–] ptu@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 month ago

You would gain weight, but only temporarily

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 23 points 1 month ago

It would certainly feed you for the rest of your life.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately, if one were to invest a single gram of plutonium, not only are you ill equipped to actually properly harness even a small percentage of the heat energy it will produce, it also qualifies as a heavy metal, so there is every probability that whatever you do actually ingest before the chunk of plutonium exits your rear end will end up in your bones, thereby irradiating you further than the original gram of plutonium irradiated you as it passed through your digestive tract, mostly unobstructed, provided one doesn't have a previous bowel obstruction.

All of that is to say that it probably tastes spicy metallic. Especially if you have fillings in your mouth. It's energetic enough to give a similar sensation in your teeth that a piece of aluminum foil does when it touches your fillings.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh; it will kill the fuck out of you. It's mainly emits alpha particles, but also beta and gamma.

Also, thanks to your typo, I'm thinking of investing in radiation.

[–] bhamlin@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

It is orange flavored. It's "orange you glad you didn't put that in your mouth"

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Dammit this is giving me weird memories of that week I was radioactive

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] Devjavu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I thought plutonium is just a metallic silver?

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 month ago

The fillet on the top makes it look delectable.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

I want to know what lifting it is like. Say just a beer can of volume. Depleted uranium is freaky dense!

Math may be off:

7kg

15.4lbs.

Freaky!

[–] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 7 points 1 month ago

Why would we never know? What’s a little sacrifice for science?

[–] regedit@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago

At first I though it was a pic of two urinal cakes on a cast iron skillet.

[–] Septimaeus 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Oh look, ti proseccos

Edit: leaving because funny, but what I intended to comment as I fell asleep was “oh look, tiny elephant feet!” in reference to the nickname given the big melty version

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[–] Thief@lemmy.myserv.one 3 points 1 month ago

This could be a cool song title: ‘And the post said plutonium pucks, could taste like orange crush’.

That's not what Back to the Future taught me

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