Hackaday Podcast Ep 334: Radioactive Shrimp Clocks, Funky Filaments, Owning the Hardware
Aug 22, 2025
Dive into the bizarre world of potentially radioactive shrimp hitting grocery stores! Explore the quirky results of the One Hertz Challenge featuring atomic clocks and timekeeping secrets. Discover tips for creating clear digital schematics, while also delving into innovative 3D printing materials. Learn how old smartphones can double as low-power servers and the sustainable future of circuitry. Plus, uncover the power of open-source firmware, allowing you to tweak your hardware and make it truly yours!
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The Radioactive Shrimp Incident
- Walmart received shrimp shipments in contaminated containers that tested for cesium-137, but measured activity stayed below the FDA intervention level.
- Elliot and Tom treat it as an unsettling example contrasting food irradiation (safe when source is external) with accidental contamination.
Random Decays Make Usable Clocks
- Radioactive decay events are random but average out, so aggregating counts can form a usable clock.
- Alan Wil's Geiger-based clock ticks irregularly but stays accurate in aggregate over long runs.
The One Becquerel Clock
- Mihaly Kujic tuned a scintillation detector and americium source to about one becquerel and built a clock that ticks randomly at ~1 Hz.
- The device lost less than half a second per day and the rate tracked the source's decay over time.