"RADIUM HEN"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 13

"RADIUM HEN"

WONDERS OF SCIENCE

Few problems would seem to be too hard for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to solve, and evidence of what it can do is to be found at the Public Health Exhibition at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, states the London "Daily Telegraph." Among the many interesting exhibits on view is the "radium hen," whose duty it is to find lost radium. The apparatus consists of a rod at the end of which is a small "ionisation chamber" attached to an amplifier and loud-speaker. When the search is getting "warm" the radiation from the, lost radium causes louder and louder clucks in the speaker, hence the name "radium hen." One of the duties of the National Physical' Laboratory is to take care of the 25 grammes of radium, valued at £200,000 and purchased by the National Radium Trust. The radium is contained in 7000 containers distributed to various centres for the treatment of disease. Occasionally a container is lost at a hospital and the "radium hen" is then called upon to find it. A large section of the exhibit of the Paint Research Association shows new water softening materials made by treating British clays. Two remarkable series of synthetic resins made from coal tar and tannin are shown. One of them can remove all metals from water and the other remove the acids. Altogether about twenty research associations have co-operated to provide one of the most interesting exhibitions the department has'yet staged.