Uranium metal, even in finely-divided oxide form is not particularly toxic when inhaled or ingested. It's not very soluble so its biological effects are minimal, ingested dust and particles are excreted within a few days of ingestion, inhaled dust in functional lungs gets moved up into the trachea by alveoli and then swallowed and excreted. The effects of uranium "poisoning" are usually limited to renal damage as the body deals with getting the foreign ions out of the bloodstream but it has to be significant amounts and usually not present in a simple oxide form as the result of DU penetrator use.
Another thing -- beware of the term "heavy metal" when talking about poisoning -- gold is a heavy metal (dense and also high atomic number, ditto for platinum and many other metals. Most of the really nasty poisons and biologically active metals are light and low atomic number -- beryllium, lithium, arsenic, cadmium. I don't know about bromine and its supposed anti-aphrodisiac effects but who knows? The poster children for heavy metal poisoning are lead and mercury but they are not the norm.
]]>Some bromine compounds are definitely sedative; I remember when it was used as such.
]]>Just because uranium is dense and has a high atomic number does not necessitate that it is particularly harmful when ingested or inhaled but it is a commonly-believed myth in part due to the "heavy metal poisons" concept as well as its connections with scary nuclear energy plus the fact few people come into regular contact with it in their day to day lives. There are uranium compounds which are biologically active but they require complex controlled synthesis whereas the metallic and common oxide forms are mostly harmless.
]]>You mean the "think about it and do it anyway" ones? I'm guessing those are the more involved gods, the ones who come down and poke their noses (and other things) in.
The subtle difference is that creatures like vampires actually have to kill people to live (at least in this metaphor), whereas eating meat is a choice to kill both the animals eaten and the people who die both directly producing the meat and indirectly through the climate change and other problems that stem from the way meat is produced.
In that sense vampires are more ethical, and perhaps the closes analogy is someone who needs an organ transplant, one of the ones that the donor can't survive giving. I think there's fairly broad consensus that those transplant recipients just have to wait and hope. Even going round gifting motorbikes to young men would probably be considered iffy, but outright killing one crosses the line (for most people, in most situations, even most recipients).
]]>"The problem with DU munitions is that they're pyrophoric."
You say "problem"... what the hell, here's too much detail on an AFAIK basis.
A "fin" round (UK nickname, it's fin stabilised, US tankers will typically say "sabot") is a long, thin chunk of heavy metal, arriving with several megajoules of energy, able to punch through a couple of feet of armour.
While the US military uses the term "sabot", technically the sabot is only the "shoe" that holds the APFSDS penetrator centered in the gun when it's fired. The sabot falls away once the penetrator leaves the barrel.
APFSDS stands for Armor Piercing Fin Stabalized Discarding Sabot.
APFSDS tank rounds are MAXIMALLY INEFFICIENT against insurgents who shoot & scoot from UN-fortified structures (i.e. popping up long enough to fire an RPG out a second story window and then running away). You could fire a lot of AP tank rounds at a "soft" building without actually hitting any bad guys.
Since we were going on about the battle of Fallujah, I was actually referring to the DU ammunition for the A-10's GAU-8 30mm gun and the M242 Bushmaster 25mm gun mounted on the USMC's LAV-25 and the US Army's M-2 Bradley.
The problem with DU ammunition is the toxic (heavy metal) residue left whenever the DU core is ignited. Against UN-armored targets, there's not enough resistance to penetration to convert the round's kinetic energy into heat energy sufficient to ignite the core.
]]>Coincidentally it also looks a great deal like a Hugo Award without the nifty base. (Legend has it this has gotten at least one author funny looks at an airport but I've not heard the tale directly from an eyewitness.) I've had the privilege of getting to lovingly fondle, but not take home, both...
]]>DU rounds for both guns are an option, not the only form of ammunition available. The loadouts for a given mission will vary -- going up against medium-skinned armour in open-field operations one might load DU rounds or a mix. In an urban situation where the opposition is unlikely to be using armour then the wise armourer will select from a range of explosive cannon-shells, anti-personnel beehive rounds and tracer/WP "marker" rounds when filling up the ammo containers. Horses for courses, always.
It's part of the DU mythmaking storyline that DU is always used in weapons capable of firing DU ammo no matter the situation. It's puzzling but I can't answer for other people's delusions.
]]>But I am wondering if there's anything to reconcile how Jonquil survived? If memory serves, she was killed by the Spetsnaz near the end of The Fuller Memorandum.
Just "YES" or "NO" will suffice for now. I expect to find out for myself in the next couple of days, but that's the one thing nagging me so far in the first third of the book.
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