how does tabacco contain radioactive polonium? Where does it come from? Does the plant make it radioactive, does it collect it? Do other plants do this too?
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Tabacco plants absorb the radioactive element polonium from the soil. Other plants do not do this.
Tobacco plants are very good at absorbing radiation, notably in the form of Radon/Radium. Radium (which decays into Radon gas) is present in fertilizers and can further decay into polonium-210 which is particularly dangerous. While the amount of Radon is not high enough the get tobacco banned it is believed to have a synergistic effect with the other carcinogenic effects of smoking boosting the likelihood of lung cancer forming.
Tobacco absorbs radium from the soil it’s grown in. You can find radium all over (particularly where there are granite deposits), but it’s especially rich in soils treated with phosphate fertilizers (because it’s common in the rock that they mine the phosphate from). It radioactively decays into polonium.
It does make the plant radioactive (and toxic as a heavy metal), more than other plants, but not strongly so. It’s enough to be a concern if you are, say, smoking it, but if you stood next to a tobacco plant you’d be at no risk.
All plants absorb some radioisotopes that decay. Some are absorbed from the soil, and some from the air. The absorption of carbon-14 from the air is the basis for radio-carbon dating, for example. Everything (including you) has some level of radioactivity.
It comes from the fertilizer, which they use in much higher quantities for tobacco than other crops do (because it affects the flavor of the tobacco). Tobacco growers have actually put considerable effort into trying to decrease the amount of polonium that gets into the plant. They’ve tried everything from improved cleaning of the crops to finding and weeding out higher-polonium batches to tenetically engineering their tobacco cultivars.
Everything except, you know, just not utilizing so much of that fertilizer.
Because then the tobacco would *taste* different.
Can’t have that.
Can you get it out of your body after you quit smoking?
Tobacco contains radioactive polonium because the plant absorbs it from the environment. Other plants do not absorb polonium as readily as tobacco plants do. The radioactivity in polonium is what makes it dangerous to humans.
Tobacco is an excellent indicator plant for the existence of radioactivity in an area. As a rule you will hard pressed to find the plant in fields around nuclear reactors. The operators like to keep the locals as unaware as humanly possible because tobacco changes its color depending on the level of radiation. I live in Germany close to the experimental reactor in Karlsruhe. I remember judgements of court cases initiated by conservative politicians which ordered farmers to plow under the tobacco fields close to the reactor – before Chernobyl – me thinks 1980 or so.
And yes, there are oodles of indicator plants. A botanist is able to figure out soil composition based on the plants which grow at the location . Some plants, for example, absorb precious metals like gold and silver from the soil. There is ongoing research on cost effectiveness on this kind of “mining”.
When I served in the Army our NBC guy “nuclear,biological,chemical” tested the Copenhagen wintergreen and it would show some levels on the geiger counter. Thats why I switched to Kodiak lol
Hemp is really good for taking radiation out of the soil. Yes, the plants become radioactive after that.
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