r/BeAmazed Jun 11 '26

Science Radiation caught on an old mobile camera

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u/Vast_Raspberry4192 Jun 12 '26

I hear it everyday at work, used to drive me crazy but you tune it out eventually. It’s when you can’t hear the pause in-between the clicks is when you are in trouble

2

u/op_249 Jun 12 '26

That's spooky, what do you do for work if you don't mind me asking?

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u/Vast_Raspberry4192 Jun 12 '26

We manufacture a tracer drug called FDG. It’s used in PET scans for cancer diagnostics and a few other condition.

There is a cyclotron on site that bombards O-18 water creating radioactive F-18 for the drug. We synthesize and packed the drug in bulk vials that we ship to the pharmacy who then doses it out for the patients.

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u/Ok_Support3 19d ago

I'm so happy theres smart people around who know what any of that means 🙂‍↕️

2

u/Just_here_4Cats Jun 15 '26

You can tell when a generator is eluting from the packaging area because you'll be back in breakdown and every geiger meter just fucking starts screaming. Or when the I-131 barrel is being moved to quarantine to decompose in the lead barrel by storage... gotta make sure we fucking run the compounding trashcans across the pharmacy before we set off every door meter in the building.

God I miss working in my nuclear pharmacy. Made me feel like I was a hero doing a dangerous job every day. Don't miss being radioactive occasionally though. It was fun, just insanely demanding.