The case of the Pu-powered pacemaker
www.ans.org

In today’s episode of “weird shit I stumbled onto on the internet”, I bring you: nuclear-powered pacemakers.

Some of the earlier pacemakers made in the US, around the 70’s, were powered by a very small amount of plutonium. If you’ve ever heard of the term radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG in relation to eg. satellites, that’s what the pacemakers used. The upside of using an RTG was that the device could run for decades without needing to get its power source replaced. The downside is that you now have plutonium sown in to your chest cavity – which actually isn’t as bad as it sounds considering the amounts used, but it’s still a highly radioactive element and presents some fun challenges, some of which are discussed in the article.

Here’s an article on the technical details on how they, and thermoelectric kajiggers in general, work https://blog.plover.com/tech/seebeck-effect.html

  • interolivary@beehaw.orgOP
    7·
    1 year ago

    Yeah that makes sense, and I guess it figures that they didn’t originally pick plutonium just for shits and giggles

    • Plibbert@lemmy.ml
      6·
      1 year ago

      Lol, let’s just be glad this didn’t become wide spread enough to tempt a certain boy scout to turn serial killer.

      • interolivary@beehaw.orgOP
        6·
        1 year ago

        Would have made for a pretty crazy story though 😅

        I got to wondering what happened to David Hahn, and it turns out he died of an OD in 2016. He was apparently doing a lot of coke and was ‘paranoid about people who he claimed “had the ability to ‘shock’ his genitals with their minds”’, and around 2007 he decided it’d be a great idea to steal a bunch of smoke detectors for, well, something.

        So his real story didn’t end nearly as happily as I’d hoped

        • Thisfox@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          1 year ago

          and was ‘paranoid about people who he claimed “had the ability to ‘shock’ his genitals with their minds”’

          Some people really need to gjve their kids more sex education instead of leaving them in the dark to work it all out for themselves.

          • interolivary@beehaw.orgOP
            1·
            1 year ago

            But he likely had paranoia or something like that, education won’t much help you there 😁 even the smartest person can suddenly start believing pretty weird things

        • interolivary@beehaw.orgOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure Hahn would have cared about that, considering he was paranoid about people being able to shock his dick with their minds, and he stole a bunch of smoke detectors to get at the americium because reasons 😅