Don't touch the glowing object!

 During the Goiania incident, a number of uneducated scrappers found a radiation therapy machine inside of an abandoned hospital. They took it apart and extracted the radiation source--which, like many radioactive substances, gave out a mysterious glow. They spread the source around as a kind of religious element and a quarter of an entire city was contaminated, with a cleanup costing millions of dollars and dozens of lives. All because of a strange glowing powder. 

Another story: radium was used during the first quarter of the twentieth century as a glow in the dark paint. The women who worked in the factories applying that paint were encouraged to use their lips to shape the brushes. Most of them died horrible deaths decades later from radiation-induced cancers and sickness. All because of the element's strange glowing properties. 

Now let me make this clear: if the object glows with a strange radiance, stay far, far away from it unless you know it to be totally safe. There are safe glowing objects out there. But, if you don't know the source of the glow, don't touch it!

Here is the point of my rant: whenever, in fiction, a character holds a strange glowing object in their hands, they are being idiots. As an author I understand the creation of things such as this. But recently, whenever I see a character approach a strange glowing object and touch it, I feel the need to yell at the screen/page and tell them to stay far, far away from it.

If you are an author, please, do not have your characters pick up and examine strange glowing objects. Unless you want them to suffer horrible radiation damage to their bodies. Thank you.