Eli5: How and why is uranium bad / deadly for the human body?
In: 40
Uranium is dangerous mostly because it’s very toxic if inhaled or eaten, similar to toxicity from other heavy metals. Uranium is often in powder form which can end up in your lungs, which is why workers wear protective equipment when working with uranium.
Refined uranium (uranium-235) is slightly radioactive, but U-235 atoms decay very slowly which means they emit very little radiation and hence toxicity generally still remains the most dangerous part of it.
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