Designing for Long-Term Safety Challenges

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Storing dangerous materials securely for an indefinite period is a significant design challenge, with doubts persisting about whether current storage solutions adequately address the issue. An incident in February 2014 caused a radiation leak, leading to the closure of a facility with a potential three-year downtime for reactivation. The key challenge is not informing present individuals about the dangers, but effectively communicating the hazards of a site to future generations. Addressing this long-term safety concern requires collaboration across disciplines, including geologists, linguists, astrophysicists, and even a science fiction writer serving as an archaeologist.

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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