[Westlander]

Click on the source to see his image.

[Bon mots]

The original Harper's Magazine article about him is posted here:

The Radioactive Boy Scout

[DB]

I can only guess he’s trying to top his past “glory”...

Apparently a very screwed up person...

[burzum]

A typical smoke detector has about 1 microcurie of Am-241. Am-241 is an alpha emitter and you can use it produce neutrons (about 70 neutrons per million alphas with an Am-Be source). If he had 100 smoke detectors (about 100 microcuries) he could have produced 260 neutrons per second. That is enough to do, well, pretty much nothing. When he was going to join the Navy he should have tried for the nuclear program. Then he would know how futile his experiments really were. Well maybe that is not such a great idea. It wouldn’t be pretty to see what would happen if he got his hands on some radiography sources or ‘real’ neutron sources.

[dinodino]

Whoa! What happened to him?

[mbynack]

Does anyone else see the irony in committing theft to earn a Boy Scout merit badge?