Template:Did you know nominations/Polonium-210

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:14, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Polonium-210

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... that polonium-210 concentrates in tobacco, thus exposing cigarette smokers to large doses of ionizing radiation? (Source: Polonium-210 and Lead-210 in the Terrestrial environment: A historical review)
- ALT1:... that some heavy cigarette smokers receive the same dose of radiation from polonium-210 as those exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl disaster? (Source: Radionuclides of iron (⁵⁵Fe), nickel (⁶³Ni), polonium (²¹⁰Po), uranium (²³⁴U, ²³⁵U, ²³⁸U), and plutonium (²³⁸Pu, ^239+240Pu, ²⁴¹Pu) in Poland and Baltic Sea environment)
- ALT2:... that polonium-210 is 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide? (Source: Health risk of polonium-210 ingestion via drinking water: An experience of Malaysia)

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Moston Brook

Converted from a redirect by ComplexRational (talk). Self-nominated at 22:17, 19 June 2019 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: ALT1 is misleading to the point of being incorrect, as the source and the article makes it clear that exposure is the same at that to Chernobyl in Poland, not in Ukraine. So I've struck it. Main and ALT2 are fine. As an aside, the article could say a bit about how Polonium-210 is manufactured, which I think is a notable omission. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: Thank you for the review. I wrote a short section (that I will probably expand more later) on the production of ²¹⁰Po. ComplexRational (talk) 21:34, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Is it accurate to say, "large" doses of radiation? Sandbh (talk) 04:35, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Sandbh: I feel that "large" is reflective of the source, which says that ²¹⁰Po radiation is "appreciable" and in "high-activity concentration". Perhaps "considerable" is slightly better? (Feel free to change it if you agree, otherwise I'm open to alternatives.) ComplexRational (talk) 12:43, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@ComplexRational: I would much rather have ALT2 here in all honesty. Cyanide is a chemical most of the population is familiar with, and is something that would be both insightful and interesting (and nobody can take offense to it). Sure, smoking is terrible and can do serious damage to your lungs. But I don't think we need a DYK clip to double down on "wow, smokers are exposed to heavy ionizing radiation, that sounds really bad". My point is that the first comment seems like it's beating a dead horse; people already understand the dangers of smoking. The ALT2, though, is a fact that not many people would know, and is interesting at that. Anybody else can comment on my take as well.Utopes (talk) 17:11, 12 July 2019 (UTC)