[HN Gopher] Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades...
___________________________________________________________________
Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades after bomb
tests
Author : ColinWright
Score : 212 points
Date : 2022-01-01 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| lmilcin wrote:
| Actually, nuclear fallout is present in everything.
|
| Following Trinity test and the rest of nuclear testing campaign,
| every single living thing or any matter that has been processed
| in any way has been contaminated and shows high background
| radiation (compared to pre-Trinity test).
|
| That's why some materials like steel from ships comissioned
| before Trinity test or lead ballast from sunken Roman ships is
| highly sought after where low background radiation material is
| required.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/search-d...
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Obligatory XKCD reference on radiation levels:
| https://xkcd.com/radiation/
| goatsi wrote:
| For lead the radioactivity comes from uranium mixed with the
| original ore, not from outside sources. That's why it needs to
| be hundreds or thousands of years old rather than just pre
| 1945.
|
| >All lead mined on Earth naturally contains some amount of the
| radioactive element uranium 235, which decays, over time, into
| another radioactive element, a version of lead called lead 210.
| When lead ore is first processed, it is purified and most of
| the uranium is removed. Whatever lead 210 is already present
| begins to break down, with half of it decaying on average every
| 22 years. In Roman lead almost all of the lead 210 has already
| decayed, whereas in lead mined today, it is just beginning to
| decay.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-roman-lea...
| secondcoming wrote:
| Probably a stupid question, but wouldn't all lead have
| started decaying at the same time? Why would lead only start
| to decay once it has been mined?
| coryrc wrote:
| Only lead 210 is radioactive. Lead 210 is only created by
| uranium.
|
| Lead 210 has a short half-life, uranium 235 has a long one.
| Thus, once uranium is removed, lead 210 levels drop
| "quickly".
| Lanolderen wrote:
| "When lead ore is first processed, it is purified and most
| of the uranium is removed. Whatever lead 210 is already
| present begins to break down, with half of it decaying on
| average every 22 years. In Roman lead almost all of the
| lead 210 has already decayed, whereas in lead mined today,
| it is just beginning to decay."
| jabl wrote:
| > Following Trinity test and the rest of nuclear testing
| campaign, every single living thing or any matter that has been
| processed in any way has been contaminated and shows high
| background radiation (compared to pre-Trinity test).
|
| Well, high and high. On average, humans worldwide receive a
| dose of about 4 mSv/year. Nuclear weapons testing and nuclear
| accidents contribute about 0.01 mSv/year to that.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Well, "high" was meant in context of the title of the article
| as in "detectably higher".
| downrightmike wrote:
| Yup, illegal grave robbing in the south pacific is destroying
| many ships that were lost with hands onboard.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03...
| omgJustTest wrote:
| radwatch.berkeley.edu
|
| (This is an educational site that does food monitoring as public
| outreach. It is underfunded, and full disclosure, I am a former
| leader of the project).
| omgJustTest wrote:
| https://radwatch.berkeley.edu/current-air-activity/
| https://radwatch.berkeley.edu/current-sampling/ Are the two
| links of particular interest / relevance to naturally occurring
| radioactive materials, distinctions between fallout and reactor
| isotopic compositions and etc.
|
| (Broken links are all over the page because as I said,
| underfunded and mostly run by students these days)
| grapescheesee wrote:
| Sweet, thanks for the links and efforts. Do they have much
| for historical data available?
| jetsetgo wrote:
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Nuclear engineer here. In school in Ann Arbor we ran a radiation
| detector overnight in the lab and were able to identify several
| nuclides in the air leftover from weapons tests. Fun times.
|
| Of course the dose rate from these nuclides was many orders of
| magnitude less than natural background so it was more a curiosity
| than a concern. Radiation detectors can detect single atoms
| decaying.
|
| If I could have one media wish this year, it would be that
| whenever someone says something is 'radioactive', everyone else
| asks what the dose rate is compared to natural background before
| talking about hazards.
| roenxi wrote:
| Speaking as a cheerfully untrained armchair observer, we might
| also expect the nuclear fallout to be detectable for at least
| the next 50,000 years [0] on the basis that detection equipment
| is really sensitive. Sensitive to the point where we can detect
| sunny days happening several millennia ago.
|
| This looks like silly news. They may as well just have run with
| "US did nuclear tests in the 1960s" or "radioactive cesium has
| a half life" and left it at that unless there is something to
| report on.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating
| theptip wrote:
| This is the general point that most of the press and general
| public fail to appreciate when thinking about radiation risk.
|
| Similarly after Fukushima, there were terrified articles about
| how radiation could be detected in fish across the Pacific. But
| as you say, at what level? Certainly orders of magnitude lower
| than your baseline exposure. We just have very accurate
| detectors!
| mwattsun wrote:
| I wore a dosimeter in my 20's on a nuclear submarine and received
| some radiation exposure working on the reactor, but the Navy
| explained to me that it was balanced out because I was underwater
| and not receiving radiation exposure from the sun. 40 years
| later, and still cancer free, knock on wood.
|
| In a related note, I know someone who keeps bees and harvests
| honey. I recently visited the spot way out in the mountains where
| he does this and I asked why he chose a spot so far out. He
| explained that to get the organic label, the honey must contain
| no pesticides and if you keep bees around the property of other
| people they will ingest pesticides from flowers on those
| property, since pesticides are so commonly used.
| Tade0 wrote:
| It might have been because of the insecticides really. I have a
| donation subscription to an organisation which keeps bees in
| the dead center of a 1.7mln city.
|
| Turns out the bees thrive in this environment, because they're
| still better off there than in the countryside.
| Luc wrote:
| > the honey must contain no pesticides and if you keep bees
| around the property of other people they will ingest pesticides
| from flowers on those property, since pesticides are so
| commonly used.
|
| I think this is a very common misunderstanding. The bees are
| allowed to forage on organically-cultivated crops, and farmers
| can use a whole range of 'natural' but also 'certified'
| synthetic pesticides on them.
|
| Producers of organic food don't seem to mind too much that
| people assume organic food growing doesn't involve the use of
| pesticides.
| mwattsun wrote:
| Is there a word for "strictly" organic, because that's what
| my friend is by choice
| Arnt wrote:
| Biodynamic, more or less.
|
| Which is a funny group of people. Their rules sound kooky,
| but their results aren't at all what I would expect from
| kooks. The best strawberry jam I can get here comes from
| from a farm where they (I learned when I asked about why
| it's so good) turns their compost according to the phases
| of the moon. Weird. The same farm was also raided by the
| police. 130 police officers searched the place at dawn one
| morning, and apparently the only reason for suspicion was
| that those weirdos had money to spare for a succession of
| new greenhouses even in years when all their conventional
| neighbours had no money to spare for anything.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I first heard about biodynamics on a winery tour in
| Sonoma Valley. I couldn't believe my ears. It was like
| Scientology for grapes.
| Arnt wrote:
| The _Oxford Companion to Wine_ has a long article about
| it. It "remained little known in the wine world until an
| increasing number of top-quality producers" adopted it,
| many of whom learned about it from someone who "makes no
| claim to understanding how biodynamics works". I, uh,
| find it difficult to believe ... but these actually are
| top-quality producers.
|
| The _Companion_ also notes that many of them do it but
| prefer discretion. I can see why.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Regenerative Organic Certified
| https://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-
| certificati...
| hammock wrote:
| The synthetics that are allowed in certified organic farming
| are pretty limited (when it comes to pesticide use) and
| pretty innocuous. Anyone can read about them specifically
| here: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/part-205/subpart-g
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > the Navy explained to me that it was balanced out because I
| was underwater and not receiving radiation exposure from the
| sun
|
| With the greatest respect to the Navy, I smell more fish than
| in the seas that submarine travelled through.
|
| My non-scientific understanding is that sun exposure is UV
| radiation exposure which causes skin melanoma. Meanwhile with
| nuclear reactors, UV is not the problem and the problem with
| exposure goes deeper than skin melanoma.
|
| My feeling is you received a standardised "policy explanation"
| rather than an entirely scientific one. Happy to be proven
| wrong with links to scientific fact though !
| lorenzhs wrote:
| Cosmic background radiation is a thing and water is really
| good at blocking it, so it's not complete bullshit. Of
| course, without knowing what dose the GP received, it's
| impossible to say whether it's a comparable dose to what they
| would have received on the surface - but it's plausible.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| (https://spaceweather.com/)
|
| There is some good information about the relative exposure
| levels to cosmic radiation that one can expect to encounter
| on this site. They have been doing balloon launches and
| measuring in-flight levels for quite a while now.
| spfzero wrote:
| Not to mention radiation from the ground, which can be
| significant in some locations.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Cosmic background radiation is a thing
|
| Indeed. But isn't it really only "a thing" for airline
| pilots, cabin crew and a few unfortunate people at ground
| level who happen to live/work high-altitude on mountains or
| somewhere lower down with the wrong kind of rocks ?
| mlyle wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595
| traceroute66 wrote:
| Cool, thanks for that. I didn't realise XKCD actually
| posted serious stuff. ;-)
| trenchgun wrote:
| Also: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
| _ph_ wrote:
| Depends how you look at it. Cosmic radiation might not be
| extremely high level on the sea level, but it is a thing.
| So the total radiation dosis in a nuclear submarine might
| equal or even be less than on the surface.
|
| Fun story: as part of my physics education we did an
| experiment on the cosmic radiation with a "radiation"
| telescope. That were 2 Geiger counters with a logic that
| only registered events which basically occured in both
| counters at the same time. That made the observation
| reasonably detectable and you could "see" the sun with
| this. This experiment was conducted indoors, just on the
| top floor of the building. We had about 1 event/second,
| our bodies would be getting a similar dosis all the time.
| goodpoint wrote:
| The idea that radiation exposure can be "balanced out" is
| very sketchy. Reminds me of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I think they just poorly explained that his exposure in
| the sub was lower than background radiation levels on the
| sea surface. You get more rads living in Colorado for a
| year than anyone would get working in a nuclear power
| plant for a year at sea level.
| mlyle wrote:
| XKCD has a really good chart:
|
| https://xkcd.com/radiation/
|
| Humans receive about 3-4 mSv per year of background radiation
| on average. Some of this is from radioactive decay, and some
| from cosmic radiation. Being underwater much of the year
| might shave 1-2 mSv off this.
|
| Civilian radiation workers can receive, by regulation, doses
| up to 50 mSv per year. Typical reactor workers in the
| civilian energy sector get a couple mSv per year of dose. It
| is plausible that he was close to breakeven.
|
| 100mSv/year is the lowest dose that has shown a clear link to
| increased cancer risk.
| amelius wrote:
| Seems strange that there is only a factor of 2 between
| maximum allowed dose and lowest dose linked to cancer.
| mlyle wrote:
| We accept occupational risks all the time. Here, the
| threshold for radiation workers allows a dose half of
| what has been ever linked to any amount of cancer.
|
| The overall average, across all industries, fatal work
| injury risk is something like 35 per 1,000,000 worker-
| years. Compare to this, where the risk to radiation
| workers from radiation, _if_ they receive the highest
| allowed dose (and basically no one does) can be
| confidently bounded to be _well_ under 1 per 1,000,000
| worker-years. (And, if it should ever happen, is likely
| to be far in the future and cost less life expectancy as
| a result).
| gkop wrote:
| Would you say more? What that suggests to me is the
| authority responsible for setting the max allowed said
| "Well let's keep it below the threshold linked to cancer,
| reduce it by half for safety factor, and call it a day".
| IE they chose one of the simplest possible approaches-
| doesn't seem surprising, but I am probably missing your
| point.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| There are any number of substances where there's little
| doubt that they can cause cancer even at minuscule doses,
| just at similarly low rates. Get enough data and you will
| find that a single whiff of tobacco smoke (or any other
| smoke) can cause cancer. The "lowest dose linked to
| cancer" is the result of our ability to measure such
| effects, not anything intrinsic to the harm these
| substances do.
|
| That's specific for cancer. For other forms of toxicity,
| the concept of "maximum safe dosage" does make sense when
| the dose/effect relationship is not linear.
| Pharmaceuticals, for example, can be entirely benign at
| small dosages yet lethal if you overdose.
| fallingknife wrote:
| But we can still set a significance threshold. Your point
| applies equally to radiation exposure flying on an
| airplane but we don't worry about the cancer odds from a
| single flight since it's lower than the (already
| miniscule) odds of crashing.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| The dose-dependent risk of cancer is in textbooks as an
| example of linearity. While it is hard to shown for low
| values of exposure because any measurements/estimates would
| drown in noise and errors, there is little doubt that the
| relation shown for higher values is just as valid at the
| lower end. That also conforms with the stochastic model of
| how radiation causes cancers and the mutagenic effects of
| low-dose radiation seen in vitro.
| mlyle wrote:
| We're not absolutely confident that there's not some
| threshold dose. LNT is a decent conservative assumption
| for calculating the harms from low doses and reasonable
| to use for regulatory purposes.
|
| Even so, radiation hormesis has been noted in lab models,
| etc (slight benefits from low doses).
| tapland wrote:
| It's true for nuclear reactor buildings where the walls block
| more background radiation as well.
|
| I'd you are worried, avoid plane flights.
|
| Handy simplified chart: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Apparently you should also avoid Finland which averages
| 0.11uSv.
| jabl wrote:
| Per the Finnish radiation protection agency the average
| dose is 5.9 mSv/y:
| https://www.stuk.fi/en/web/en/topics/what-is-
| radiation/the-a...
|
| A large chunk of that average dose, 4 mSv, is from radon,
| where the dose varies a lot depending on where you live,
| and if you live in such a radon-prone location, whether
| you have sufficient ventilation in your house.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Radon should not be that bad, unless combined with
| smoking.
|
| Source: live in Finland and have read the health
| authority info on subject.
| jabl wrote:
| Yes, you're correct. The page I linked to has this to
| say:
|
| "For example, the health risk caused by radon is
| estimated on the basis of epidemiologic examinations, not
| the effective dose. Every year, an average of 280 Finns
| die from lung cancer caused by radon. Of these cases, 240
| deaths are induced by smoking in addition to radon."
|
| So they're not actually measuring an average 4 mSv/y dose
| from radon, but rather going the other way, that is that
| 280 yearly deaths from radon would be consistent with an
| average dose of 4 mSv/y (assuming LNT, presumably).
| mwattsun wrote:
| You're probably right. I thought the same thing, but since I
| didn't care I didn't pursue it. I would have cared if the
| scuttlebutt was that people were getting sick and dying, but
| that was not the case. Sub sailors were not dying in an
| detectable numbers.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| The math sounds nonsensical. The risk adjusted exposure from a
| reactor should definitely be higher as you would be closer to
| the threshold of DNA bond breaking. Being stabbed once a year
| isn't necessary better than getting hundred paper cuts. Any
| actuaries here care to comment?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Depends on what the actual numbers are. Can't really do the
| math without them.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > The risk adjusted exposure from a reactor should definitely
| be higher as you would be closer to the threshold of DNA bond
| breaking.
|
| How are you so certain? You don't know the specifics of the
| situation. If he worked underwater for a year and spent half
| a day working on a reactor in protective gear it could easily
| even out.
| manquer wrote:
| He is not saying the overall exposure may not be same (it
| could be) he is saying risk of cancer or other bad side
| effects may not be equal in both scenarios.
| trenchgun wrote:
| He said:
|
| > The risk adjusted exposure from a reactor should
| definitely be higher as you would be closer to the
| threshold of DNA bond breaking.
|
| That does sound like bullshit to me. Using the word
| "definitely" without giving any numbers.
| jcims wrote:
| There are mountains of literature and regulations on this and
| the math just kind of works that way (up to some limit,
| beyond which acute radiation effects will begin to dominate)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
|
| There is now some thought that very low doses of ionizing
| radiation are better than no radiation at all (so called
| 'radiation hormesis'), but I don't believe that has been
| adopted as part of any specific standard.
|
| FWIW an individual person may be experiencing up to a
| trillion DNA mutations per day from both external and
| internal mechanisms of action. We just have a bunch of
| systems built in to prevent them from getting out of control
| (most of the time).
| hasmanean wrote:
| You're breathing the same recycled air for weeks at a time. The
| radiation is continuously creating isotopes in the gases in
| that air. That means a continuously increasing radiation
| exposure the longer you stay underwater.
|
| On the surface any radioactive gases get dispersed in the
| atmosphere.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> On the surface any radioactive gases get dispersed in the
| atmosphere._
|
| The relevant radiation exposure when you're outdoors is not
| from radioactive gases in the air, it's from radiation
| hitting atoms in your body. (The relevant radiation to
| compare with what a nuclear reactor produces is actually not
| from the Sun, it's from cosmic rays.)
| trenchgun wrote:
| Surely that would show up on the dosimeter?
| trhway wrote:
| The accumulation of alpha emitters in the body would not.
| pdonis wrote:
| What alpha emitters would be relevant here (even assuming
| there was any stray radiation in the rest of the
| submarine)?
| mwattsun wrote:
| No, this is not the case. We often surfaced at night to
| recirculate with fresh air. In fact, this is done so often
| that the first thing we do is turn the clocks 12 hour forward
| so our day shift when everyone was working occurred at night.
| We need to surface to recharge the lead acid battery off the
| diesel engine as well, which was done to make sure that kept
| working well. I did this when newly qualified as an electric
| plant operator and it was difficult for me to do correctly.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> The radiation is continuously creating isotopes in the
| gases in that air._
|
| What radiation? Note that he didn't say he received radiation
| exposure throughout the submarine, only "working on the
| reactor". That's an isolated space that doesn't continuously
| exchange air with the rest of the submarine and has an extra
| layer of shielding between it and the rest of the submarine
| (in addition to the shielding around the reactor itself that
| separates that from the space where people working on the
| reactor go--nobody ever goes inside the reactor itself).
| tata71 wrote:
| How can we collate a list of all these committed people, and
| verifiably share their commitment to excellence?
| mixedCase wrote:
| The GP mentioned this is what the organic label requires, so
| you could use that as an indicator.
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| No idea if this comment was intended as humor but it had me
| chuckling.
| tyingq wrote:
| At least save whatever documentation you have. I have some
| letter from the military about various nasty organic solvents
| they had us use squirreled away somewhere.
| mwattsun wrote:
| They sent me something out of the blue a couple of years ago
| documenting my total radiation exposure. There must have been
| a law passed sometime.
| EarlKing wrote:
| _ahem_ https://archive.fo/8SZos
| egberts1 wrote:
| I wonder if this unclaimed and unrecoverable nuclear bomb is the
| real culprit here in North Carolina.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
| dtgriscom wrote:
| "Excuse me sir, is this your nuclear bomb?" "Let me look... no,
| doesn't look like any of the ones I'm missing."
| [deleted]
| xd wrote:
| You know what would be a really nice HN feature.. when you submit
| a URL it can be flagged as "pay per view" and I can have a
| profile setting to filter them out.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| HN... Where all the techies use a janky website up talk about
| their non-janky web projects.
| dcposch wrote:
| Exactly the opposite, actually.
|
| HN is an exceptionally clean, minimalist website. Instant
| page loads. No ads, no "accept cookie" banner, no autoplaying
| media, in fact no media of any kind, no engagement-maximizing
| algorithm. Quality moderation via dedicated human mods.
|
| Then everyone comes here to talk about their Svelte ESnext
| 69.0 x serverless kubernetes 3d metaverse animated gif NFT
| marketplace subscription-based growth hack horror they're
| about to inflict on the public.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Yet you would never see me talking about JS being a
| positive when it comes to web design, but there is still a
| lot to be desired when it comes to HN.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| HN is by far the least janky website I use.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| No bullshit != janky.
|
| Janky is 50MB of Javascript that doesn't load all at once so
| things jump around ocnstantly at the start, only to display
| 1/3 of the text of an article before you insert 3 ads but I
| won't know that until I click past the cookie warning and the
| "Please subscribe" popup that happens when I scroll more than
| 100 pixels.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| You assume that when I say janky that I mean JavaScript.
| Sites can not have JavaScript and still be featureful when
| it comes to features and privacy. In this instance I was
| specifically talking about rate limiting responses and some
| of the censorship I see here.
| fouc wrote:
| Simplest solution would be to write it at the end of the title.
| Something like [paywall] or (paywall) perhaps?
|
| It would be nice if HN posts could include an "alt link" which
| would be paywall free. (like an archive.is link or similar)
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Been asking for this feature for half a decade.
| xyst wrote:
| While the levels of radiocesium found in honey are not harmful to
| humans, I wonder if it has any deleterious effects on the bees
| themselves? Could this be a contribution to the "colony collapse
| disorder" we are seeing worldwide?
| themaninthedark wrote:
| They mention it might be having an effect but also stat the the
| level is about 10 times lower than in the 70's. So my guess is
| that unless a high level of radioactivity is good but low level
| is bad then it is not a major contributing factor.
| laserbeam wrote:
| Unlikely. The article talks about a localized phenomenon, not
| something that could effect worldwide bee population issues. It
| explicitly talks about comparing honey from that region to
| other honey in the US.
|
| Pesticides, possibly pollution, and disease in general are much
| more likely candidates. Last I heard there was an issue with
| some bee parasites, however you'd need to verify that.
| dtech wrote:
| No, if that were the case it would have started in the 60's and
| gradually gotten better (bees have short lifespans). Instead,
| it's gotten worse and started much later. Pesticides are a much
| more likely explanation.
| newsclues wrote:
| I often wonder if nuclear testing or fossil fuels is having a
| worse impact on humans and society. Maybe both are partly to
| blame for the madness
| godelski wrote:
| Fossil fuels. No question. We know the dangers of both very
| well. Only a handful of people have died from nuclear. More
| people die each day from climate.
| drran wrote:
| How much we can <<safely>> kill by nuclear power? Can you
| give us a number?
| kube-system wrote:
| Not to mention that the use of fossil fuels also releases
| small amounts of radioactive contamination directly into the
| atmosphere as a matter of normal use.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Um he said "nuclear testing", not "nuclear power".
| trenchgun wrote:
| How many people have died from nuclear testing?
| laurent92 wrote:
| > More people die each day from climate.
|
| And from solar panels! There are a dozen deaths a year,
| worldwide, from installing them on roofs, which mean solar is
| more deadly than nuclear ;)
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| >Only a handful of people have died from nuclear.
|
| I accept that statement only when it's followed by ' so far
| as you know.'
|
| [https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/atomic-
| veterans-1946-...]
|
| [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/25/us/us-nuclear-accident-
| in...]
| godelski wrote:
| I accept that statement but also the people we do know that
| have died are several orders of magnitude. While I'm sure
| there are plenty of people that have died from radiation
| that we don't know of I'm sure this number isn't in the
| millions but rather in the dozens or hundreds. It'd be
| pretty difficult to hide so many deaths.
| palijer wrote:
| What do you mean by "the madness"?
| Victerius wrote:
| I like honey and nuclear weapons. I consume honey on a daily
| basis. Can this affect my health? Am I eating radioactive
| fallout?
| devmunchies wrote:
| > I like honey and nuclear weapons
|
| I eat enough honey that I _AM_ a nuclear weapon.
| GordonS wrote:
| I can understand liking nuclear _power_ , but you _like_...
| nuclear weapons?! Or has my sarcasm meter failed miserably?!
| missedthecue wrote:
| There is a theory that the so called 'Long Peace' of
| 1945-present is a direct consequence of nuclear
| proliferation. This could be one possible reason to like
| nuclear weapons.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Peace
| ssivark wrote:
| Sure... but that's an off-by-one error from wiping out
| civilization.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Well minus the fallout and mortalities quite some people,
| included, find big explosions quite awesome. I wouldn't say I
| like nuclear weapons specifically though
| vmchale wrote:
| > Levels of radioactive cesium aren't concerning, but
|
| See the subtitle.
| tenpies wrote:
| If anything, in tens of thousands of years, when
| anthropologists dig up the remains of the 2000s civilizations,
| you will make it that much easier for them to date us.
| masklinn wrote:
| dtech wrote:
| It's in the article
|
| > The radiocesium levels reported in the new study fall "well
| below" 1200 becquerels per kilogram--the cutoff for any food
| safety concerns, the agency (red: FDA) says.
| [deleted]
| rikeanimer wrote:
| Is bad understanding of dosimetry gonna be a thing now? I hope
| not. Cosmic microwave background radiation only makes your dick
| hard.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761587
| Krasnol wrote:
| Germany still has significant radiation in wild boars (and
| mushrooms) from the Chernobyl fallout:
|
| https://www.umweltanalysen.com/en/wild-boar/cesium-137-conta...
|
| > From September 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2019, muscle meat
| samples from 376 wild boars were delivered by the forest services
| (Bodenmais 129, Dahn 123 and Zusmarshausen 124). So far, 355
| samples have been measured for Cs-137 activity. The Cs-137
| contamination of wild boars fluctuated seasonally depending on
| the availability of individual food components within a study
| area, with the variability of the measured values being up to
| three orders of magnitude. The values ranged from 0.6 Bq/kg fresh
| mass (FM) (Dahn) to 16,704 Bq/kg (Bodenmais).
| [deleted]
| godelski wrote:
| This constantly gets brought up but few people run the numbers
| because you can safely eat kilograms of each a day. You can see
| the full calculations if you search my comments. The truth is
| just that we're really good at detecting radiation because
| doing so allows us to better detect weapons.
| Krasnol wrote:
| The thing is: it doesn't matter what me or you think about
| it.
|
| There are food regulations in Germany and they need to be
| obeyed.
| godelski wrote:
| Sure. But if the numbers are below regulation numbers why
| write articles on it constantly. I mean the same thing
| happened with fish around California after Fukushima. There
| was a measurable increase in radiation in the fish but
| still well below legal limits which are below dangerous
| levels (factors of safety are built in. Caution is good
| after all).
| hutzlibu wrote:
| But regulations can be changed, if they are stupid.
|
| So are they stupid(overprotective), or do they make sense,
| in the meaning there _is_ a real danger from eating
| contaminated boar?
| deeg wrote:
| How does the radiation from boar meat compare to sunlight?
| E.g. eating 500 grams is similar to sitting in the sun for 5
| minutes, in very rough comparison.
| pvg wrote:
| It mostly doesn't compare - sitting in the sun for five
| minutes doesn't expose you to much in the way of ionizing
| radiation as almost all of it is filtered out by the
| atmosphere. And when you get out of the sun, it stops.
| Radioactively contaminated food glows at your insides for
| much longer. Cs-137 biological half-life is weeks:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137#Health_risk_of_ra
| d...
| godelski wrote:
| Radiation is a pretty weird thing that is easily
| misunderstood because people use the same term to talk
| about very different things. While sitting in the sun will
| cause UV radiation and can result in skin cancer it's not
| the same as interesting cesium. Though both can cause
| cancer.
|
| But if we're just talking about increase chance of cancer
| iirc the meat calculations you need to eat like 15 kg of
| boar a day from that region (like 3kg if the highest
| measured). I'll let you make your guesstimate from there.
| And we're not even talking about risk of cancer from eating
| that much meat.
| trenchgun wrote:
| What do you mean my significant?
|
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28912557
| Krasnol wrote:
| Significant means that hunters need to hand in their boar, it
| will be checked and if it surpasses the health levels
| defined, they're reimbursed with 250EUR for every boar. This
| is taxpayer money. And just the state of Bavaria pays
| millions every year.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-01 23:00 UTC)