pretty awesome, but 40 minutes of it felt like watching Nyan Cat. (I skipped forward though). It does slow down and eventually stop (I guess when the alcohol vapor is gone, but couldn't translate).

Moving this video to lv_hunter's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

hypnotic! I am upgrading Elite:Dangerous 1.2 and couldnt understand where the music came from^^ *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by makach.

So pretty!

Yeah watching it long enough, especially due to the lingering affect of the "smoke" left behind, you can tell that little gem definitely has some very concrete numbers. Since it looks like a slowly revolving sphere of undulating waves (with the smoke). All thanks to the frequency of the radiation and what it emits.

If you look at the beginning you'll notice that the Uranium is clear and has a blue crystal look to it (though it is a metal). As the video slowly moves forward, it gets darker and darker, eventually it turns into Uranium Oxide. Or it looks like that to me, if so then they probably used water to create the reaction.

Is it safe to handle with bare hands like that?

Uranium 238 should be pretty safe to touch and carry, in small amounts (I don't know at what size it becomes truly dangerous to the site exposed, especially if left there for any long length of time; I'd guess anything below one pound should be perfectly fine, but for all I know it could be 30 pounds).

You just cannot do this: do not swallow or inhale any of it. Also, if it has very sharp and jagged edges and it cuts you--then a tiny piece gets into your body (then the bloodstream), same problem.

But, at least this version of Uranium isn't too hazardous, but you certainly could poison someone with it. The heavier Isotopes created from Uranium are much more dangerous (I'm sure many are aware of this); like Plutonium (made in the natural environment if nuclear reactions are going on nearby, like a Star).

We created quite a bit of Plutonium back in the day using Uranium (more specifically we used Uranium and Deuterons; Deuterons are gathered from Deuterium, which is "Heavy Hydrogen"; the Deuteron is the nucleus of a Deuterium atom).

I would never handle an alpha particle emitter without gloves. Imagine if a small piece came off on your skin and you scratched yourself or rubbed your eye or something.

What would happen ? I have no knowledge of this.

Remember that Russian dissident who was killed with polonium? He died from internal alpha particle toxicity because his killers put it in his food. It's actually a good way to poison someone since alpha radiation is easily stopped by small amounts of tissue, thus collateral damage (such as to close personal contacts) is minimal. However internalization of an alpha source can result in severe local tissue damage.

What are the streaks that don't appear to originate at the piece of uranium? Other radiation sources?