{"id":831,"date":"2017-11-12T09:58:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T13:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/?p=831"},"modified":"2017-11-12T09:58:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T13:58:17","slug":"fugitive-radioactivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/2017\/11\/12\/fugitive-radioactivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Fugitive radioactivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from Immanence<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post reports<\/a> that “Ruthenium-106, named after Russia” has been wafting all across Europe.<\/p>\n

Two quick observations here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(1) “Ruthenia<\/a>” is the Latin rendering of Rus’<\/a>, which predates Russia (as we know it) by several centuries. The chemical element Ruthenium<\/a> was named by its discoverer, Karl Ernst Claus, after the 11th century invaders of his Estonian home town of Tartu\/Dorpat\/Yur’yev, who made it part of ancient Rus’. Ruthenians today<\/a> are a stateless people who live mostly in the Trans\/Sub\/Carpathian parts of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, and western Ukraine. Ruthenians of yesterday<\/a> (the early 19th century, to be specific) changed their name to “Ukrainians” to prevent confusion with Russia\/Rossiya (which took the Greek version of the Rus’ name, Rossiya, for themselves when they — that being the Grand Duchy of Moscow — were seeking the credibility of an ancient and royal pedigree). <\/span><\/p>\n

(2) There’s something poetic about a fugitive radioactive element which may or may not be produced somewhere in southern Russia and may or may not be masquerading as one of Andy Warhol’s people (the Carpatho-Ruthenians, from the center of Europe<\/a>; as shown delightfully in Stanislaw Mucha’s films Die Mitte\/The Center<\/a> and Absolut Warhola<\/a>, see below) making its way stealthily through the former imperial Austria, Germany, and the rest of Europe to the puzzlement of Europeans and the denials of Russians. <\/span><\/p>\n

Something about it all reminds me of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu… (Forgive me for playing on stereotypes of old Central\/Eastern Europe… Having written about<\/a> them a little, I should know better.)<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/tubcVylNOa0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/3_L2654ai4o<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from Immanence… The Washington Post reports that “Ruthenium-106, named after Russia” has been wafting all across Europe. Two quick observations here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdPO21-dp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-ukrtaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}