SEMI OT: Radioactive Wood?

Apr 24, 2006 15 Replies

Just finished stacking firewood in the backyard. Spent the better part of the day splitting wood, mostly ash and box elder. I go to grab a piece and notice a few green "glowing" dots near the middle of the piece. Its on the split side, not the bark side, so it would have been in the middle of the tree earlier in the day. At first I thought it was just some paint scraped off one of the wedges which might be reflecting the light from my house 150 feet away. So I close my hand around it to block off any remaining light (it was pretty dark to begin with along the back tree-line) and the green dots are still glowing. One last test, I cup both my hands completely around the three dots and put it up to my eye. Definitely glowing. Very strange. Only thing I can think of is maybe fireflies were boring into the wood and nesting in the middle of the tree and one met its end when I split the log. However, I always thought they nested in the ground.



Just curious if anyone has seen this before. The largest dot was probably the size of a grain of rice or smaller, and the other two dots were smaller yet. They were all within an inch of each other.



Joe


There are lots of luminous fungi. That would be my guess.

Now you've done it. I hope you aren't to fond of that eye. :)

That new third one will make up for the lost one. ;-)

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I've seen them too, Joe, those green glowing dots in the wood. Just like you describe. It was back in 1619, while I was splitting firewood at the homestead in Salem. Wierd, those green dots. But I just kept splitting, holding the log in one hand, the wedge in one hand, and swinging the hammer with the other. .....

(I agree with Dave)

-Zz

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must be it. The website above has some interesting information on this phenomenom.

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I've seen this stuff too. Glow in the dark punky looking stuff. Even saved it in jar. Next day it wasn't glowing anymore. Dave is most likely right about it being fungus. On the other hand....... that's growing out of my elbow......

P

You owe me a new keyboard.

Speaking about real radioactive wood, does anyone remember back in the

60's all the hoopla about irradiated wood? It was the golden age of atomic energy. Science was king, and I guess exposing wood to neutron radiation was considered kewl. Every time you opened a Popular Science or Popular Mechanix magazine in those days there was another article about some strange atomic powered doodad and irradiated wood. Advertisements selling irradiated turning blanks were all over. It was supposed to cut just like butter. Of course, I was just a kid back then but that's what I remember.

Whatever happened to it? Can you still buy it?

dickm

No, the woodworkers that worked with it glowed too brightly and their wives couldn't get any sleep. :~))

Well, they don't say how they "ionize" those bracelets, do they?

Try these guys

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Chernobyl)

Rather interesting web site at This is a Ukranian lady who like riding motorcycles; her father is a nuclear scientist in Russia and she has taken rides through Chernobyl.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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