General Mills Atomic Bomb Ring

 

Fifteen cents and a box top and you too can glow radioactively.

 

 

Given away free with Kix cereal, the Atomic Bomb Ring contained actual degrading radioactive material. The instructions stated that "you'll see brilliant flashes of light in the inky darkness inside the atom chamber." Suggesting that to see the miracle of the atoms of polonium-alpha particles on a zinc sulphide screen, you took yourself off to a darkened room and put the atomic bomb ring to your eye. So that you could see the "frenzied flashes." inside the chamber.

 

Claiming that the Atomic Bomb Ring was PEEFECTLY SAFE, and that kids could wear the ring with "complete safety" may have been a bit of a naieve statement from the manufacturers. Polonium-210, is a deadly element and its alpha particle emissions have a short have life of 138 days. However the silvery metal, found in uranium ore, and originally discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1897 is deadly. It was used to assassinate the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, in 2006. A microgram of Po-210, which is no larger than a speck of dust, would certainly deliver a fatal dose of radiation. So for kids, who like to put things in their mouths, maybe this ring wasn't such a great idea.