Whoops!

A Teaneck, New Jersey lab apparently misplaced a shipment of enriched uranium.

The 3.3 grams of powdered uranium - about one-tenth the weight of a paper clip - was reported missing Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

Investigators think the powder might have been accidentally thrown in the trash and trucked to a landfill in Pennsylvania or New York State.

The material isn't radioactive enough to harm anyone and the amount in question is too small to create a so-called dirty bomb, an NRC spokesman said. But the agency, along with state regulators, said it was taking the disappearance seriously.

"The safety consequences aren't that great," said the spokesman, Neil Sheehan. "On the other hand, we don't want this material floating around in the public domain. We're moving aggressively to track it."

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but prosecutors did not think a crime had been committed, said Paul Tiernan, Teaneck police chief.