Designing Warning Markers for Nuclear Waste Site

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The chapter explores the challenges of designing markers for a nuclear waste site that must last for ten thousand years to warn future generations about the hazards. It discusses the radiological aspects of contamination and storage at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, including the color-coded safety measures and the unique pink salt caverns. The focus is on the design problem of communicating the danger of the site to people in the distant future, delving into the evolution of language and the potential for using symbols as universal forms of communication.

Mr. Yuk is a neon green circular sticker with a cartoon face on it. His face is scrunched up with his eyes squeezed tight and his tongue is sticking out of its mouth. It's the face you make when you taste something disgusting. He's the pictorial embodiment of the sentiment of yuck. Aptly enough: he was designed to be the symbol for hazardous substances, aimed at deterring children from ingesting them. The idea what that if you saw a Mr. Yuk sticker on something around the house, it meant that that something was poison.

Friend of the show, Gillian Jacobs, is a BIG FAN of Mr Yuk, who turns out to be a hometown hero of her beloved Pittsburgh, and talked Roman through the origins of the mean, green face that was meant to save children from their worst impulses.

Plus, we revisit another story about warning symbols from our archive: the quest to find a symbol that would warn future humans of dangerous radiation 10,000 years in the future.

Mr. Yuk

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