Radiation and radio waves

New Mexico is known for...nothing, which is kind of good for military and scientific researches. It has a national laboratory studying nuclear power (in Los Almos), a radio astronomy observatory (Very Large Array, very descriptive) and a missile range (in white sands).

Radithor
We went to a nuclear science museum in Albuquerque. One of the most interesting thing I learned is how people were obsessed with radioactive substance when it was first discovered.

The last photo was about Radithor, which was once a famous patent medicine used to energize human body. There was an interesting article (The radium water worked fine until his jaw came off) from WSJ about a wealthy man named Eben Byers died due to over consumption of it. In summary, Eben Byers was good at everything and was enthusiastic about being a ladies man. However, he had some health problem after he injured himself when he was 47, so he started to take radithor, which was just distilled water that contains small trace of radium. At first, he felt so satisfied with the result that he took it two or three times a day until four years later, he died because of radium exposure. Even 20 years after Byers's death, researchers were surprised by the radiation on his body, "they were still 'hot' when pulled from ground". The sad thing is that we are probably experiencing the same thing: eating/using something we think is good for us that may get us killed (generic modified food, painkillers, some patent medicines, etc). 

VLA

Very Large Array contains 27 antennae placed in Y shape. Radio waves from cosmos collected by each antenna is analyzed and combined to images of constellations, nebulae and stars. 

I probably don't remember everything I see in the museum, but there is one thing, the Bracewell radio sundial, that is quite interesting. 

There are 9 piers in the back to represent each hour from 8 am to 4 pm. The middle one in the front uses its shadow to represent the time (as a usual sundial does). The signatures on the back piers include two Nobel winners  in the field of astronomy.