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View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
All materials have some chance to interact with radiation and stop it - if that radiation hits the material. Which material does that how well depends on the specific type of radiation. For radiation protection purposes, it's often best to simply use more material than looking for the best possible one. A block of concrete is cheaper than a wall of lead.
Neutron absorption is a weird case where some nuclei are *really* good at it (100,000+ times better than others).
Note that this only stops the radiation from hitting things you want to protect, it doesn't stop the radioactive material from being radioactive. The best option for that is generally to just wait. It's possible to convert some radioactive materials to non-radioactive ones (e.g. by hitting them with neutrons) but that is very expensive.
There's nothing here!