With all of the common warning signage people come across finding a new warning symbol in an unexpected place can be a bit of a surprise. From the fairly benign admonition that coffee is served hot to the more pressing matter of bringing to your attention via a blinking light that your breaks might not be in suitable condition to reliably stop your car. Then there’s the generic caution tape. Well below is the most effective sign I believe I have encountered.


IAEA Screen Capture

[link to announcement]

This new red triangle in the left corner of this screenshot has apparently been out in the world for a while hiding in places where the clearly unambiguous threat it represents resides. The message that you are near something so dangerously endowed with ionizing radiation that if you run away fast enough to escape death you will still glow noticeably in the dark. According to the International atomic energy agency this harbinger of doom has been out in circulation for a little more than two years now. As unambiguous as this sign is why is this sign not worked its way into popular culture yet? The biohazard sign and the old ambiguous radiation sign (which could alert you to an elevated risk of cancer should you not die from any other causes in the next three hundred years to a risk of immediate death with no option of merely glowing as depicted clearly in the new radiation sign) clearly mark the entrances to bedrooms of rebellious youth in many Hollywood films.

Well this symbol completely unabashed in its clarity is a copyrighted by the ISO and only available from the ISO or one of its member organizations. Or with the purchase of any device certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a category 1, 2, or 3 sealed source in the form of a sticker preaching its message to those thinking of unsealing said source of radiation. I imagine it would be completely fruitless to attempt swiping one of these off of the sealed source of radiation from radiology equipment on your next visit to the hospital, because someone’s kid probably already has the coolest and most elusive sticker in the whole world on their trapper keeper.* Still nearly 30 months after being unveiled to the world it has yet be gain any cool factor or even graze at the cultural mainstream like its ambiguous predecessor did so many years before when it became the most memorable thing to come out of Berkeley.

This symbol is so elusive that the firm which supplies radiation warning stickers to your neighborhood school and the leading site for hobbyist nuclear products do not carry this symbol in sticker or signage form. When third graders or a serial nuclear arsonist without the ability to learn from past mistakes creates a hazard requiring this signage and they couldn’t get it through their usual procurement channels** how will the International Standards Organization cope when an innocent bystander can not run away an glow to avoid death?

* I am neither condoning this behavior nor suggesting that this happened or actually will happen at any time, such an irresponsible breach of public safety would undoubtedly create a hazard as the next person to stumble upon the sealed source of radiation might open it up and fiddle around leading to their unavoidable death as they are deprived of the knowledge they can run away and glow brightly and escape their demise.

** In all fairness to legitimate nuclear hobbyists the Radioactive Boy Scout legitimate amateur nuclear supply firms.