Sometimes it doesn’t pay to jump on the latest scientific fad and order your life around it. In the early twentieth century, people had some nutty ideas about the benefits of radiation, partly because they thought every scientific discovery was an unqualified good:
Nuclear power has long been touted as a utopian technology, ushering in an era of work-free, unlimited energy supply and correspondingly longer and healthier lives. Today it is more well-known for its dangers, which include the atom bomb and radiation poisoning . Yet for 40 years, Radium was a popular tonic added to everything from tea to lipstick.
