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Scary Gary by Mark Buford for January 17, 2025
January 16, 2025
January 18, 2025
The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab is a toy lab set designed to allow children to create and watch nuclear and chemical reactions using radioactive material. The Atomic Energy Lab was released by the A. C. Gilbert Company in 1950.
The lab contained a cloud chamber allowing the viewer to watch alpha particles traveling at 12,000 miles per second (19,000,000 m/s), a spinthariscope showing the results of radioactive disintegration on a fluorescent screen, and an electroscope measuring the radioactivity of different substances in the set.
The set originally sold for $49.50 (equivalent to $630 in 2023)
In 2006, the pop culture publication Radar Magazine called the lab set one of “the 10 most dangerous toys of all time, … excluding BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm”, because of the radioactive material it included (it was number 2 on the list; number 1 was lawn darts).