from Hacker News

Tiny radioactive capsule lost in Australian outback found

by bloat on 2/1/23, 8:40 AM with 25 comments

  • by rob74 on 2/1/23, 12:36 PM

    > The Australian defence force is now verifying the small radioactive device by its serial number.

    Would be funny (depending on how weird your sense of humor is) if they found out it wasn't the device they're looking for, but another one that was lost years ago and never reported...

  • by bloat on 2/1/23, 8:43 AM

  • by dieselgate on 2/1/23, 9:44 AM

    nice, of all the possibly outcomes it's cool it was just found on the side of the road. kind of the most likely outcome but glad it actually happened

  • by verytrivial on 2/1/23, 11:57 AM

    Edit: user defrost provided some good looking context comment exactly of the form I was looking for, thanks. The specifics of the available technology matters when assessing these claims.

    For some reason I'm actually skeptical it has actually been found. A cynical reading is they scanned all the places people were ever likely to intentionally stop on that road and found nothing. So harm is just very unlikely, but leaving the item unaccounted for was just really, really bad press. I want to hear more about the sensitivity of this scanning device, particularly when used at this speed, and from someone knowledgeable in the field.

  • by SanjayMehta on 2/1/23, 10:37 AM

    Impressive:

    "It was initially detected by staff inside a car that was travelling at 70km/h past the capsule."

  • by jrs235 on 2/1/23, 12:46 PM

  • by deafpolygon on 2/1/23, 12:26 PM

    Whew. Marvel Phase 5 averted.

  • by eisvogel on 2/1/23, 9:33 AM

    yay