Radium seventh of a gram of radium. One kilogram of the Earth's crust contains about 900 picograms of radium, and one liter of sea water contains about 89 femtograms of radium. Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite (pitchblende) sample. While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two
Uranium poisoning in Punjab early as 1995, Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) released a report, showing the presence of uranium and other heavy metals beyond permissible limits in water samples collected from Bathinda and Amritsar district, however there was no response from the government at that time. The hotspot for this increased toxicity, however was the Malwa region of Punjab, which showed extremely high levels of chemical, biological and radioactive toxicity, including uranium contamination. As the region's groundwater and food chain was gradually contaminated by industrial effluents flowing into fresh water sources used both for irrigation and drinking purposes, the region showed a rise