for anyone who like me was worried we will one day run out of shipwreck steel: thankfully the background radiation levels in the atmosphere have been dropping ever since nuclear testing was moved underground, so this will become less and less of an issue with time. and now for another radioactive metal from shipwrecks fan fact:

apparently lead is really good for radiation shielding, which is why it’s important to many physics experiments, especially those concerned with studying dark matter and rare particles. unfortunately, lead is also inherently A Little Bit Radioactive (unrelated to nuclear bombs, it’s just a feature of the metal), but the radioactive element decays over time, so the older the lead, the less radioactive, and hence better for Physics Stuff. which is why ancient Roman lead is Ideal for this. so a lot of ancient bars of lead from Roman shipwrecks - tons of cargo that would’ve ended up as weapons or coins and stuff, if it didn’t sink to the bottom of the sea - are sold to physicists. it’s like a whole “preservation of cultural heritage vs revolutionary scientific research” thing. like a whole fucking feud btwn the archaeologists and physicists

if anyone wants to read more abt this:

here’s an article abt the (not) radioactive steel (it has a Wikipedia page too)

here’s an article abt the ancient Roman lead, and a paper that goes into the dilemma more in depth

@viciousmollymaukery this is cool.