New Uranium Compound Could Lead to Atomic Hard Drives

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I know it was meant to be a joke but I seriously hope no one thinks that this even has the potential to exploded or do any real damage. The Alpha particles and probably Beta will be stopped by the casing on a normal hard drive. I don't even know if it does produce much radiation but I do it is used in shielding also I doubt we will use it due to the temperatures required.

Probably wont ever happen in the near future. Stupid people will think that you will make your Computer a mini nuclear reactor that could explode at any moment. In reality its DEPLETED uranium and such a miniscule amount that there is no way anything could happen to it.

I am just sick of the wrong imagine nuclear power has. Its currently our best power resource aside from fossil fuels. But yet people still think Solar/Wind Energy will save them in the future when the fossil fuels run out. I am pretty sure that Solar/Wind Energy could never meet the demands of energy people need.

Obviously this is not viable due to need to send the energy elsewhere but there are 6 spots around the world. Not too big of an area and if we were to set up a modern solar power station each of those areas together they would produce enough energy to feed the world's energy need at this point in time. Over all we get about 2x10[sup]17[/sup]W per day of energy from the sun hitting Earth. Now I think that makes just solar energy much more viable than you are making it out to be.

Wind while though unpredictable is a great supplement to energy in places where there are relatively high winds like Ireland. So while not a permanent solution it is better not to put all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Ewyx]

ITT: People who don't understand the difference between different type of radiation.

 

[iblis666]

Brings a whole new meaning to rage-quitting.

Sir, you win this thread and deserve a cookie:

On topic, do we really need that much hard drive space? I mean, a 250 gigger should be good for the average user, 500 seems pretty good for anyone that games or listens to a lot of music, downloads a lot of videos, etc. And if you need more, we have multiple terabytes now. I could see NASA or big businesses using this, but I really don't think the general public has any need of such massive amounts of space.

Now, if only they could get the internet to run at about 1GB per second, I would be happy. Hell, I'd be happy with a quarter of that.

well as long as processing of the data is done in a timely fashion i could see a great use for this in games that wish to look as realistic as possible such as city sized space ships fighting each other with massive amounts of drones blasting the shit out of each other and the 2 ships. All the while every detail is being rendered so that each piece from the battle not only is deformed properly but then acts as it should when a drone is blown apart or a chunk of a ship is destroyed not to mention any asteroids that might be in the area.

 

[Jman1236]

With the way my laptop overheats, it would be considered a WMD with one of these hard drives.

 

[PiOfCube]

As long as it isn't one of the fissile isotopes, the compound retards the reaction to air and you don't lick your hard drive, I'm sure it will be pretty safe LOL

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8vVZTvJNGk as our Prof. explains all ;-)

 

[spartan231490]

Yeah, in theese times of terrorist scares just who is going to be comfortable with releasing Uranium to the general public.

And dont think like someone who knows that this cant be purified to pure Uranium, think like someone who believes Fox News.

All Uranium is not created equal. If I had to guess, I would bet this is a more stable isotope, and you would need to add neutrons to it's nucleus to make it weapons-grade. I'm not sure if there is any way to do that, I believe that neutron bombardment leads to rapid break-down of the element into other, lighter elements.
If this isn't true, however, yes it's a horrible idea.

 

[Yopaz]

I am pretty sure depleted uranium is still pretty dangerous to have. From what I've heard a lot of birth defects have occurred in Iraq due to all the depleted uranium from the Gulf War lying around has caused genes to mutate. Seeing how I probably wont need more than 2 TB on HDD i don't think I will need or ever want to be exposed to this just because I am going to get enough space to store everything I don't need on it.
Also, the public isn't ready for this unless they call it something else than Uranium.
That's why NMR (Nuclear magnetic resonance, the kind of body scan that's commonly used) is called simply MR. As soon as you call it something with nuclear the crowd gets frightened.

Edit: missed the part that said how much uranium would be used... Yeah, that's not bad, and as a few other say, it doesn't take much to make it secure. A little metal surrounding it and it will be good to go. I am also shocked with those who don't get that depleted uranium can't explode. Most of the uranium we have can't explode, and the things you need to do to make it explode. I did mention it though. People fear radioactivity without knowing too much about it.

 

[FranckN]

Brings a whole new meaning to rage-quitting.

Sir, you win this thread and deserve a cookie:

On topic, do we really need that much hard drive space? I mean, a 250 gigger should be good for the average user, 500 seems pretty good for anyone that games or listens to a lot of music, downloads a lot of videos, etc. And if you need more, we have multiple terabytes now. I could see NASA or big businesses using this, but I really don't think the general public has any need of such massive amounts of space.

Now, if only they could get the internet to run at about 1GB per second, I would be happy. Hell, I'd be happy with a quarter of that.

What you said it sounds like:
"640kb ought to be enough for anybody" said by Bill Gates some years ago.

 

[headshotcatcher]

the research is using non-radioactive depleted uranium, a by-product of uranium enrichment.

I find this extraordinarily hard to believe, mostly because there's no such thing as non-radioactive uranium, considering the fact that it has no stable isotope.

Still, a depleted version would be markedly less radioactive, so you could probably encase it in a thin sheet of lead and be perfectly safe.

A bag of table salt is probably more radioactive than a bimolecular uranium compound. You wouldn't call table salt radioactive, while it is (in a tiny degree), so in this case the uranium compound is practically non-radioactive as well.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Putting health concerns aside, does the average user even need that much space? The amount of space offered by modern hard drives is already way more than most people actually require. As such, I fail to see much of a benefit from even larger hard drives, at least not at this point in time.

I'm pretty sure people in the late eighties had that SAME argument, but for megabytes and gigabytes.

I'm really glad we didn't listen to them then, either.

No, I'm preety sure they didn't. Back then, software was developing at an incredible rate, so increasing hardware advances were required. Today, however, the software is lagging far behind the hardware.

 

[martin's a madman]

No need to worry, chemical compounds won't ever give you a nuclear explosion because they are exclusively electron exchanges, sharing, etc. (electrons being outside the nucleus)

Yeah. Plus, U-238 (Depleted Uranium) isn't fissile. It's U-235 that splits when it captures a neutron. To fission U-238 you need really REALLY fast moving neutrons, the kind usually only found in hydrogen bombs and the sun. And even then, the neutrons it gives off when it reacts are too slow to fission more U-238 atoms, so it can't sustain a reaction on its own.

Though I'm sure that won't stop all the concerned mothers from hearing "Uranium" and start mouthing off at Fox News about the 'danger'.

EDIT:
I wonder if there is a way you could use this tech for SRAM chips for ultra-dense storage on pen drives, memory cards, and solid state devices.

You seem to know more or less what you're talking about, can you tell me who I should hate?

 

[true story]

yea this research is for the better part pointless because sdd are getting cheaper and cheaper and sdd are overall the best hard drives until crystal hard drives become feasible

 

[Ironman126]

its not weapons grade uranium so its impossible to detonate but the radition would be an issue. (most people don't realize that lead shielding only stops some forms of radiation.)

And what even more people don't realize is that DEPLETED Uranium (DU) is the least radioactive kind. It emits Alpha particles (I. E. protons) that cannot even penetrate aluminum foil. You can literally sleep on a bed of DU and be completely unharmed. Of course, i wouldn't swallow any, but it's use in things like hard-drives would be safe. However, if you actually read the article, it says that the research is to see if it can be done, not to necessarily make drives using DU.

 

[PiOfCube]

"I am pretty sure depleted uranium is still pretty dangerous to have. From what I've heard a lot of birth defects have occurred in Iraq due to all the depleted uranium from the Gulf War lying around has caused genes to mutate."

Yep, uranium in most forms is highly toxic and can cause serious problems. From what I have read, these birth defects were not caused by radiation but the toxicity of the material (though some argue the birth defects were caused by the very toxic propellants used to fuel the missiles).

Although just because an element is poisonous or dangerous on its own doesn't mean that it is still dangerous when combined with other elements... Look at NaCl, Sodium Chloride... What sort of life would we have if table salt had the combined properties of both elements instead of something very different when they form a compound.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Yeah, that is shady. Even when it is depleted it is still very radioactive.
So i would not want one of those in my house.
If they wanna use them in server-farms to store data be my guest.
But there is already way too much chemical stuff that is bad for your health
in any household and adding depleted uranium would not help it at all.

you need a TINFOIL HAT! My friend. Also a physics lesson.

That said, this product will never reach market, because for everyone willing to ride the edge of SCIENCE! we're gunna have millions of detractors worrying that our Depleted Uranium hardrives are going to nuke baby jesus. And FauxNews.

Maybe they'd do better if they said it was made from 'UnUranium!', no lemon scented kneejerking with UnUranium!

Now THAT sounds like a Cave Johnson quote.
That's what you were going for right?

Do the Japanese know about this?

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Brings a whole new meaning to rage-quitting.

lol well done sir, well done.

Just remember keeping your pc cool prevents meltdowns

On topic

Only works at a few degrees above absolute zero, hm I'm going to need a few more fans and a few gallons of liquid nitrogen. Hope they work out a way to get something similar to work at normal room temperatures. Go Science!

 

[FarleShadow]

Now THAT sounds like a Cave Johnson quote.
That's what you were going for right?

Actually no. I was thinking more in the tone of that ZP episode about people who kneejerk any percieved racism. But I've played Portal 2 alot, so maybe it was abit of both. Unintentionally. Cuz I hate people who quote computer games 'to be funni! lol!'

 

[8bitlove2a03]

Why didn't you put the link to Uni of Nottingham's Periodic Table of Videos? Liddle talked about it himself on a recent video.

http://youtu.be/2qZycn7o7Po

 

[McMullen]

Yeah, that is shady. Even when it is depleted it is still very radioactive.
So i would not want one of those in my house.
If they wanna use them in server-farms to store data be my guest.
But there is already way too much chemical stuff that is bad for your health
in any household and adding depleted uranium would not help it at all.

Chances are you already have many things in your house that are more radioactive than these drives would be.

But it's ok, you can go on thinking that anything with uranium, or some other slight amount of radioactivity has some sort of instant death magic woven into it. I've handled uranium ore and eaten a sandwich immediately afterward without washing my hands. That was nearly 11 years ago. I'm still here and cancer-free.

 

[McMullen]

New Uranium Compound Could Lead to Atomic Hard Drives

There are no nuclear reactions involved in the function of these hard drives, so they have nothing to do with atomic technology. This is like saying there was a chemical weapons spill on the dinner table when the salt shaker tipped over, on account of the presence of chlorine in the salt molecules.

The bullshit that consistently appears in your headlines is of such a grade that I think it would be best if its production were criminalized.