Oak Ridge National Laboratory has just released in high resolution this amazing historical photo. According to ORNL, in this photograph you can see two scientists as they remove the world’s first radioactive isotope produced for medical use from Oak Ridge’s Graphite Reactor, on August 2, 1946. In compulsory collar and tie.
The man on the right is targeting a Cutie Pie handheld radiation detector toward the radioactive material. The Carbon 14 sample produced in the reactor was then shipped later to Brand Free Skin and Cancer Hospital in St Louis. [DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory]