Radiation Sense

In the anxious atomic age, the normal human array of senses is no longer enough. Radiation from nuclear reactors, radioisotopes. particle accelerators, bomb-test fallout, X-ray machines and countless other sources cannot be seen, felt, heard, smelled or tasted. And radiation from any of these sources can fatally fry a man before he has the faintest notion that anything is amiss.

What atomic workers need is an artificial sixth sense--a cheap, reliable radiation sniffer capable of giving a timely warning of danger. Last week the Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced that it had developed just such a gadget. Unlike earlier devices, which are cumbersome, slow to report or have to be read with close attention, the O.R.N.L. "Personal Radiation Monitor" is no larger than a fountain pen and reacts unmistakably as soon as it scents trouble. Clipped to a lab worker's clothing, the monitor gives off high-pitched chirps and flashes an orange neon light whenever it detects radiation. The stronger the radiation, the faster the chirps and flashes.

A miniature, transistorized Geiger counter with works slightly less complicated than the average pocket radio, the personal monitor has no switch; it is on all the time. Its tiny mercury battery is good for a month of steady operation. Now properly equipped workers will no longer have to take time off to read a meter or check a counter. Their personal monitor will give them the word. "It is intended to tell lab personnel whenever there has been a change of radiation level," says an Oak Ridge scientist. The workers put it more succinctly: "It tells us when to run like hell."

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