Caesium-137 Updated +Created
Highly radioactive isotope of caesium with half-life of 30.17 y. Produced from the nuclear fission of uranium, TODO exact reaction, not found in nature.
The fucked thing about this byproduct is that it is in the same chemical family as sodium, and therefore forms a salt that looks like regular table salt, and dissolves in water and therefore easily enters your body and sticks to things.
Another problem is that its half-life is long enough that it doesn't lose radioactivity very quickly compared to the life of a human person, although it is short enough to make it highly toxic, making it a terrible pollutant when released.
This is why for example in the goiânia accident a girl ended up ingesting Caesium-137 after eating an egg after touching the Caesium with her hands.
Uraninite Updated +Created
This is the mineral that Pierre and Marie Curie used to discover polonium and radium.
Video 1.
The Most Dangerous Rock in the World by Welch Labs
. Source. OK, the title is quite minimalistic, he goes on to talk about the full early history of nuclear fission!