Marie Curie's Belongings Are Still Radioactive and Will Be for 1,500 Years
Marie Curie's laboratory notebooks, clothing, and furniture are still radioactive 90 years after her death and will remain dangerous for another 1,500 years.
About this fact
Marie Curie's personal belongings, including her laboratory notebooks, clothes, and even her cookbook, are stored in lead-lined boxes at the Bibliothรจque Nationale in Paris due to their radioactivity. The items are contaminated with radium-226, which has a half-life of 1,600 years. Visitors who want to see her notebooks must sign a waiver and wear protective equipment. Curie died in 1934 from aplastic anemia, likely caused by prolonged exposure to radiation - she often carried test tubes of radium in her pockets and stored them in her desk drawer. Even her Nobel Prize medals are radioactive. The radioactivity won't diminish to safe levels for approximately 1,500 more years.