In 1991 (pre-collapse-USSR) I was on a work trip with a Georgian firefighter who had done a stint at Chernobyl in the first weeks. He had been advised to avoid sun exposure for more than 15 minutes a day by Soviet doctors. Of course he didn't. He'd already buried several coworkers. But they were definitely the extremes. I do assume he's dead now.
OTOH, the sun-exposure cautiousness that Aussies exhibit compared to where I grew up (where low lat and 4000 ft) was remarkable. But they might have a hole?
Fukushima is so hideously dangerous
Do I need to worry about the cousins (kinda cousins anyway, by marriage--step-cousins?) who are in Japan because the husband is a nuclear engineer in the US Navy working at Fukushima?
OK, possibly having my daily cup of coffee and my daily cup of tea after sunset was not a smart decision. I'm using this extra awake time to finally try making that unsweetened cheesecake I've been thinking about for the past month or two, so that's something.
Beating cream cheese with a hand crank egg beater is not easy, but once I added egg and cream and sour cream it worked out okay. About to go in the oven.
Ginger, the Academy of Sciences does not agree with you on this one. Low level radiation is now pretty much agreed by scientific consensus to work just the way you say it does not being hit by one hammer over 30 months is about the same as being hit 30 hammers in one month. There maybe a little difference - maybe being hit by one hammer once a month for 30 months is like being hit by 20 hammers. But not a lot of difference from linear [link]
Calculations in this report suggest that approximately one cancer (star) per 100 people could result from a single exposure to 0.1 Sv of low-LET radiation above background average, assuming a sex and age distribution similar to that
of the entire U.S. population, the BEIR VII lifetime risk
model predicts that approximately 1 person in 100 would be
expected to develop cancer (solid cancer or leukemia) from
a dose of 0.1 Sv above background, while approximately 42
of the 100 individuals would be expected to develop solid
cancer or leukemia from other causes. Lower doses would
produce proportionally lower risks.
So standard assumption as of 2006 was the Linear Threshold Model, the one you are rejecting. Since Academy links are trick, if it does not work you can google "
Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation:BEIR VII Phase 2 (2006)" Now there are dissenter - quite a number of them arguing that there is indeed a threshold that below it the body is self healing and radiation may even have a homeopathic effect. Similarly there are dissenters who say that below a certain level the bodies defenses fail and that effects are even greater per fraction of a Sievert at very low doses. The linear No Threshold appears to be the conservative estimate at the moment. I know the French Academy of Sciences disagree, but at any rate that the LNT is false if far from settled science.
More recent EPA 2009 [link] That is the "One hammer per month for 30 months is like 20 hammers" version - That is at low doses the effect is 1.5 less than at high doses. Still pretty close to linear.
Plutonium is not water soluble. It also mainly emits alpha particles, which means it has to be ingested to do any harm.
Isn't the chemical toxicity of plutonium much greater than the radiation danger from such close contact? I remember it being listed as the most poisonous substance back when I read Guiness records for entertainment.
Note to self: don't drink plutonium.
Timelies all!
Quiet Sunday here. After groceries, I'm getting a trim.(one or two inches off my hair, just to even things out.)
I am quite pleased with my cheesecake so far, now to see how it handles freezing. Quite a lot to do today, but I feel pretty energetic and it's not supposed to be hot, so maybe I won't leave too much undone...
Egad. HPF has asked for an astronomy party for her ninth birthday. I guess we're doing something right? Now what do we do?
Her birthday is the night of the Leonids, which will start after the 5 or 6 nine and ten year olds go to bed. And it will be cold with a full moon. We have one decent telescope. And a bunch of star cookie cutters.
