6-16-07 Glowing In The Dark

The usefulness of "Depleted Uranium" is that it's a very dense, heavy metal. This means that if you make it into bullets or larger shells and fire them at something, they will penetrate better than softer metals because of the high density. Metal fashioned from depleted uranium also makes good armor, such as the armor plating on military vehicles used in Afghanistan and Iraq by the US military.

Meanwhile, the other side of the coin is that this term, "depleted uranium," simply means that it's usefulness as a radioactive material has dropped to the point where it really isn't cost effective to recycle it for that purpose. It's the uranium left over after all the U-235 that our current technology is capable of extracting has been... extracted. It does NOT mean, however, that it's no longer radioactive, nor that it isn't capable of inducing the various symptoms of long term radiation poisoning, especially when it's vaporized on impact and people breathe in the radioactive particles.

If you want to learn more about what depleted uranium is, this Wikipedia article on DU is very informative.

Many people are very concerned about the use of DU in weaponry, and provide evidence that it's cause for concern. Leuren Moret's website, for instance, has some eye opening videos that might shock you out of your seat. Another website called The Depleted Uranium Education Project, contains a lot of material that might convince you that this is a serious problem.

But this online tidbit from a TV station in Hawaii might do a better job of reporting just the right amount of information from America's island paradise to make you realize that this really IS a cause for concern.