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Originally posted by Adalbertus
German Wikipedia has 50 micrograms for a lethal dose within 6 hours, English Wikipedia 10 nanograms for a lethal dose altogether. This isn't contradictory: Within 6 hours, roughly 1/1000 of the total amount of Polonium decays, therefore you'll have to give thousand times more if you want to achieve a lethal radiation dose within 6 hours instead of waiting several half-lifes of 138 days.
The "problem" is that the body can repair a lot of the damage over this time, so a constant irradiation over two years summing up to 4 Sv is much more likely to be survived than the same dose taken within a day - and the body will lose a lot of undecayed Polonium over this time. Therefore, an effective poisoning will include micrograms.
German Wikipedia has 50 micrograms for a lethal dose within 6 hours, English Wikipedia 10 nanograms for a lethal dose altogether. This isn't contradictory: Within 6 hours, roughly 1/1000 of the total amount of Polonium decays, therefore you'll have to give thousand times more if you want to achieve a lethal radiation dose within 6 hours instead of waiting several half-lifes of 138 days.
The "problem" is that the body can repair a lot of the damage over this time, so a constant irradiation over two years summing up to 4 Sv is much more likely to be survived than the same dose taken within a day - and the body will lose a lot of undecayed Polonium over this time. Therefore, an effective poisoning will include micrograms.
Anybody who eats fish raw doesn't value life anyway.
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