It glows in the dark with an eerie bluish light. The handwritten laboratory notes of the discovers are still too radioactive today for safe handling. In the late 1950s, radium was mixed with a second phosphoresent material such as zinc sulfide to make luminous paint for wristwatches, clocks, and aircraft instrument dials. Shown above is the lumininous mixture of radium bromide and zinc sulfide lused in luminous watch dials. The radium gives off dangerous radiation which causes the zinc sulfide to glow.
Radium is used as a portable source of neutron radiation in medicine and industry.
Radium is formerly used in cancer therapy.