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?
In: 204
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.
Latest Answers