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1. Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 16:48:05 UTC Robert McNees

   Physicist Marguerite Perey discovered Francium #OTD in 1939. It was the last element to be found in a naturally occurring state, rather than synthesized.

   Image: Musée Curie/ACJC Collection

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 16:54:54 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     Perey hoped that Francium would prove useful in the early diagnosis of cancer, because of a tendency to accumulate in cancerous tissue more rapidly than healthy tissue.

     But it was too dangerous, and Perey herself developed cancer as a result of her work.

     https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/magazine/my-great-great-aunt-discovered-francium-and-it-killed-her.html

   • The Geoff (_thegeoff@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 20:44:17 UTC The Geoff

     in reply to

     @mcnees And given that there's a grand total of about 30 grams of the stuff on/in the entire planet at any given time, mostly just a few atoms here and there with a 22 minute half life, that's a hell of a discovery for the era.