In a part of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that some call the Mesa, a beam of protons shoots down a mile-long tunnel through the New Mexico landscape. The particles are moving so fast that if they weren’t confined within the structure, they could circle the Earth 2.5 times in a second.
Five different facilities at the laboratory “sip” from this beam, pulling the protons they need for various experiments. One of these, called the Isotope Production Facility, smashes the protons into a stationary target. The protons embed themselves in the target’s atoms, transmuting them into new elements.
The Isotope Production Facility is currently involved in a positive (pun intended) effort for the medical industry: producing a substance called actinium 225, an isotope with 89 protons and 136 neutrons. Isotopes are different forms of the same element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons; the most common actinium isotope is 227, with two more neutrons than 225. Isotopes are radioactive when their nuclei are unstable, with a twitchy combination of protons and neutrons, and they rid themselves of excess energy by emitting alpha, beta or gamma rays. Actinium 225’s particular radioactivity is potentially potent in the fight against prostate cancer, and studies on its effectiveness against other malignancies are in the works. Although many radioactive isotopes exist, actinium 225’s emissions are strong enough to damage cancer cells without doing as much harm to healthy ones. And this isotope dissipates in a just-right amount of time, doing its job and then decaying away.
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For years, scientists have produced this species of actinium by waiting for thorium (element…
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