TickTickTickTick........

A retired professor still comes to teach a class now and then. This semester he comes on Tuesdays and teaches an Elderhostel group. He usually stops by my office to pick up visuals, samples, and other teaching materials. Today, after picking up the materials he needed, he asked me to accompany him to the teacher resource room. He told me there was a sample in there that he had some concerns about. He said that he thought he’d better say something because none of the “new” faculty knew where this sample came from. (New to him would be the ones hired in the last 12 years.)
He took me over to a tray containing sedimentary teaching samples.
He said, “See this sandstone here?”
I touch the rock. “This one?”
“Yes. That yellow on it is probably carnetite”. (Not sure if I spelled that right. I’ve never heard of it.)
I rub my finger down the yellow part of the rock. “This stuff?”
“Yea. It’s probably uranium oxide. It’s pretty radioactive. You wouldn’t want to have your teachers pass this around the classroom and then eat a sandwich.”
My hand jerks back like it had been bitten by a rattlesnake. He has me go get our sedimentary guy who takes a look at the sample and says, “that looks like carnetite”. He then picks it up and we go off to find a geiger counter. Sure enough, it starts beating out a heavy staccato beat. I’m told that it probably emits beta waves. Beta radiation can penetrate into the body but can be blocked out by a sheet of aluminium foil.
That’s great! I’m suddenly feeling like I need a shower. After we return the rock, and I tell our Sed. Professor that I’d feel better if he went and washed his hands, I go into the bathroom.
I wash my hands extra well.
Twice.