In today’s episode of “weird shit I stumbled onto on the internet”, I bring you: nuclear-powered pacemakers.
Some of the earlier pacemakers made in the US, around the 70’s, were powered by a very small amount of plutonium. If you’ve ever heard of the term radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG in relation to eg. satellites, that’s what the pacemakers used. The upside of using an RTG was that the device could run for decades without needing to get its power source replaced. The downside is that you now have plutonium sown in to your chest cavity – which actually isn’t as bad as it sounds considering the amounts used, but it’s still a highly radioactive element and presents some fun challenges, some of which are discussed in the article.
Here’s an article on the technical details on how they, and thermoelectric kajiggers in general, work https://blog.plover.com/tech/seebeck-effect.html
This video about ex-Soviet RTGs of questionable radioactive source choice is quite a good watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8-b5YEyjo
NASA apparently used RTGs for deep space missions only, while in the same timeframe the Soviets scattered them all across the countryside, then promptly forgot about them.
Ha yeah I’ve read about the stray Soviet RTGs. Great power source for some godsforsaken lighthouse etc. in Siberia, but much to the surprise of exactly nobody, of course they just left them lying around when the Union collapsed. I have a vague memory of there having been some, err… incidents related to those, something along the lines of some poor Siberian schmuck finding one and going “ahh, this metallic doodad is nice and warm, I think I’ll camp next to it”