[HN Gopher] Radioactive Tape Dispenser (1970s)
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Radioactive Tape Dispenser (1970s)
Author : thunderbong
Score : 86 points
Date : 2024-09-24 08:05 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.orau.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.orau.org)
| khafra wrote:
| I thought this was going to be about generating x-rays by peeling
| scotch tape
| (https://www.technologyreview.com/2008/10/23/217918/x-rays-ma...)
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I thought it was going to be some kind of anti-static device to
| make the dispensed tape less statically clingy.
| m3047 wrote:
| I've seen antistatic devices based on ionizing radiation, but
| not recently. That might be partially a function of different
| work environments.
| m3047 wrote:
| All of a sudden I'm imagining some kind of wintergreen-flavored
| device which you bite on and which takes dental xrays at
| home...
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| Yeah, when I read the title I immediately thought "big fng
| deal, EVERY tape dispenser is a (mildly) radioactive tape
| dispenser".
| jakedata wrote:
| About 20 years ago I kitted out our office with furniture and
| supplies from a business liquidation auction. Several tape
| dispensers of that general shape came along with the lot. I guess
| I had better bring my geiger counter to the office. Probably the
| wrong vintage, but who knows?
| kragen wrote:
| monazite isn't radioactive enough to be dangerous unless you're
| breathing the radon. chemically it's very stable, even without
| the epoxy encapsulation
| jakedata wrote:
| Just curious. I bought the geiger counter to verify the
| authenticity of some fiestaware and discovered that my radium
| dial alarm clock is hot enough to trigger the alarm.
| kragen wrote:
| yeah, radium-dial alarm clocks actually _can_ be dangerous.
| but i think you can put monazite sand in your food with no
| ill effects except for tooth wear
| qingcharles wrote:
| I set off the explosives detectors at LAX on one trip back from
| Apex Surplus:
|
| https://apexsurplus.com/
|
| My wife ran off laughing while the officers pulled random bomb-
| looking pieces from my luggage.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think those detect certain kinds of nitrogen. I wonder what
| set it off.
| detourdog wrote:
| Designed by Henry Dreyfus & Associates. I collect them them.
| jakedata wrote:
| Be careful how you stack them.
|
| (this is a joke, I realize that criticality would be completely
| impossible for a zillion reasons)
| K0balt wrote:
| I think fusion from gravity would be the first radiation
| hazard lol. You would need quite a few.
| buescher wrote:
| Interesting to know. These were so commonplace but it's been a
| while since I've seen one. I was struck by the design while
| reading the article. I almost want one, but I so rarely use
| scotch tape...
| Animats wrote:
| Dreyfuss designed that? With those swooping curves? That looks
| more like Loewy or Eames.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" This particular example came from a 55 gallon drum of tape
| dispensers that the U.S. Army was about to dispose of as
| radioactive waste."_
|
| This is a common beach sand [0]. It illustrates something absurd,
| I can't quite put my finger on what, about the relation between
| human society and technology. No one knows anything about the
| physical or chemical properties of sand on the beach. No one
| asks; no one cares. There are no EPA surveys of beach
| radioactivity. No beach signs warning beachgoers "do not eat the
| sand", or, "this beach is known to the state of California to
| cause cancer". But you take _one handful_ of the beach into a
| plastic box, and accidentally walk it past the wrong regulatory
| compliance officer, and suddenly the US Army is burying your one-
| handful-of-beach-sand in a 55-gallon drum packed in bentonite.
|
| It's one lens for nature, and one lens for the anthropogenic.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monazite
| gnfargbl wrote:
| I wonder if the phenomenon you're describing is the subtle and
| often hidden complexity of science, and our inability as humans
| to recognise and handle that complexity appropriately.
|
| In this case, we have the US Army's procedure for disposing of
| low-level radioactive waste. That process probably says
| something like "if a thing has been identified as more
| radioactive than THRESHOLD, then dispose of as radioactive
| waste." Could the process be expanded to cover cases where the
| radioactivity is naturally occurring? Probably, but who would
| then take on the liability if there were any? I'm not sure.
| What about a case like this, where a naturally occurring
| radioactive source has been transformed into some piece of
| equipment that nobody would reasonably expect to be
| radioactive. Does that need special handling, or not? If so,
| who is responsible -- the US Army? The manufacturer? The US
| EPA, even?
|
| It all gets quite complicated, and as complexity increases the
| risk of a procedure not being applied consistently, or at all,
| rises quickly. To keep the collective human machine functional,
| we need to ignore the complexity, and have every radioactive
| thing be disposed of in the same way.
|
| There are many instances of humans handling scientific
| complexity badly and coming to poor decisions as a result. A
| well-known one is declining nuclear fission power stations in
| favour of coal power stations and subsequently releasing more
| radioactivity into the environment than the nuclear power
| stations would ever have done. I'm sure there are hundreds
| more.
| xattt wrote:
| I visited a friend in Elliot Lake once and we stopped at a
| plaque on the side of the highway to read. A geologist friend
| came along, and he recognized the formation of the rocks
| under our feet as uranium-bearing. I had brought my Geiger
| counter along, and sure enough, these were hot too.
|
| As you mention: no warning signs, no caution tape. Being
| close enough to that in any "anthropoid" setting would
| require, at the very least, a dosimetry badge.
|
| I can live within that cognitive dissonance, but it's just an
| interesting observation.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| In vast sections of Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Quebec (and
| probably many other areas) anyone with a basement has to
| monitor for radon gas - it's just a normal part of the
| environment overall because of the geological makeup.
|
| If you can keep a window or two open - it's not so bad - we
| use an smart bluetooth-connected monitor that I check daily
| - CO2 seems to be more of a problem than the radon.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| Yes. Live in one of those areas and "radon mitigation
| systems" are common. There is a sealed lid that goes over
| your sump pump cover, and a fan constantly pulls air from
| it, which goes up a tube on the side of your house and
| empties near the roofline.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Relatively common is the cities around Madrid (Spain)
| mountains, and then to the west and northwest due to the
| granite there. Specially because lots of the houses in
| the area were built with that local granite.
| zh3 wrote:
| Similar in parts of the UK (where there's granite) -
| there's a map of radon-prone areas on the UK Government
| website.
|
| * https://www.ukradon.org/information/ukmaps
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Well, what's the alternative? Walk all over the US of A,
| measuring radiation at every square foot? That's
| prohibitively expensive even today for a rather dubious
| benefit: most of the terrain is not (yet) noticeably
| radioactive, after all.
| xattt wrote:
| There's no alternative, other than recognizing that these
| dichotomies exist.
|
| A brown bear in the wild doesn't have any warning signs
| or set off any alarms, but it sure would if it was in a
| human-occupied building. Context is key! :)
| alnwlsn wrote:
| On the other side of this you have something like the Runit
| Dome, which is a nuclear test crater in the Pacific which
| they filed in with radioactive debris and covered in
| concrete. It is starting to leak from rising sea levels. But
| when people complain about this, they are told "oh, don't
| worry, there's actually far more radioactive material outside
| the dome" because it turns out they only managed to clean up
| about 1% of the contamination, and the rest of the immediate
| area is still covered in fallout.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| Monazite isn't common. Well, it's somewhat common but not on
| beaches. Beach sand is mostly quartz.
|
| Beach sand may or may not be radioactive, but California only
| requires Prop 65 warnings on things for sale.
|
| The beach isn't for sale.
|
| Sand that is sold in the state of California does come with the
| warning that it is a carcinogen because regular old silicon
| dioxide is a carcinogen:
| https://mcdn.martinmarietta.com/assets/safety-data-sheets/na...
|
| With all things the dose makes the poison, so even if you are a
| beach bum you're ok but if you are an industrial worker exposed
| to concentrated amount of silica dust on a daily basis, you
| should really be informed that it is a carcinogen (among other
| things) and be equipped with PPE.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Wherever the car break runoffs from the highways reach the
| beach, the chancer rates must be through the roof too
| cduzz wrote:
| I don't think Silicosis is cancer as much as it's just
| "shredding your lungs"
|
| It's a horrifying disease and people in affected industries
| should always wear PPE and likely don't.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Silicosis causes cancer the same way a lot of things do: If
| you repeatedly damage cells over and over and over, that
| increases the likelihood that some of the DNA will be mis-
| copied, fail to be repaired, and survives the biological
| lottery to become a cancer cell.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Beach sand may or may not be radioactive, but California
| only requires Prop 65 warnings on things for sale.
|
| They're not just on things for sale. They're also required at
| workspaces, businesses, rental housing. I've seen them on
| unpaid parking structures.
|
| If the beach was operated by a private entity instead of by
| public agencies or just public access with no supervision, a
| warning might be needed.
| perihelions wrote:
| I'm not a geologist; did I misunderstand the Wikipedia entry
| I linked? It says
|
| - _" Because of their high density, monazite minerals
| concentrate in alluvial sands when released by the weathering
| of pegmatites. These so-called placer deposits are often
| beach or fossil beach sands..."_
|
| And I found two specific examples of notably radioactive
| monazite beaches--an 800 km stretch of Brazil's coast [0],
| and 55 km stretch of India's coast [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarapari#Radioactivity
|
| [1] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/No-major-birth-defects-
| fou...
| welder wrote:
| Depends on the beach. Brasil has more than others.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHHUGwFoJE
| snakeyjake wrote:
| Those locations, with their high concentrations ("high"
| being "greater than 0.01%-ish") of heavy metals, of which
| mazanite is but one of many, are the rare exception.
|
| The IAEA report on Guarapari specifically says "it's
| weirdly high, brah":
|
| >The exposure level due to monazite sand radiation in Areia
| Preta beach, Guarapari, is high. The activity concentration
| of 232Th in Areia Preta is higher than others beaches in
| world studied. The values of the absorbed dose rate in air
| and outdoor annual effective dose rate in Areia Preta beach
| are higher than the world averages due the content of
| 232Th. Areia Preta is also has higher background found in
| beaches in world.
|
| https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public
| /...
| cyberax wrote:
| There are other radioactive types of sands. Black sands (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_sand ) can be quite
| active, and they can be found in many places.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> here are no EPA surveys of beach radioactivity. No beach
| signs warning beachgoers "do not eat the sand",
|
| Perhaps there should be. The idea that the natural world is
| somehow safe has roots in mythology, that some creator has
| designed the world for us and so any "untouched" wilderness is
| unpolluted and free of invisible pollutions. Maybe there are
| beaches with dangerous levels of radiation. I am open to the
| concept that there exists natural places nevertheless
| radioactive enough to justify warnings. We certainly issue
| warnings for other unseen natural hazards.
| zh3 wrote:
| A while ago now, the Oklo nuclear reactor ran - according to
| wikipedia [0] - for a few hundred thousand years albeit only
| with power levels averaging less than 100 kilowatts. It was
| discovered because there was a discrepancy in the amount of
| uranium expected from a mine and the amount they actually
| got.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_rea
| cto...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >No one knows anything about the physical or chemical
| properties of sand on the beach. No one asks; no one cares.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22026436
| SpaceFarmer wrote:
| I know what you mean! I found a random field like 20 miles from
| my house where the radioactivity was like 100x normal due to
| Thorium in the dirt. How many spots like that have a house
| built over them and no one knows? Here is my webpage with a
| video of the field visit. https://hunterwlong.com/mapping-
| radiation-with-a-raspberry-p...
| somat wrote:
| Now I am curious why 3M was using monazite specifically as a
| tape dispenser ballast.
|
| So it is sand encased in resin. My initial thought was it is
| heavier(denser) than plain silica sand, And while it probably
| is, It feels weird that 3m specifically searched it out to use
| for that reason alone, I bet they had quite a bit of the stuff
| on hand for other products, and so might as well use the waste
| as a tape dispenser ballast.
|
| A tangent on heavy rock ballast, I once saw a documentary on an
| offshore oil platform, and it was towed to the site, sunk and
| then filled with rocks to anchor it. the rocks used were
| specifically iron ore as that is significantly denser than most
| rocks.
| jeffbee wrote:
| They're doing a radiological survey of the waterfront in
| Alameda county because twentieth century humans accidentally
| depleted it of non-radioactive material, enriched it, in other
| words. They already identified a small area that's dangerously
| active.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| How radioactive is this exactly? I picked up one of these in a
| thrift store a few years ago and have just had it sitting in
| storage... Waiting to get my retro office vibe once I find the
| space but I'm willing to let it go if it might kill me?
| Especially a slow agonizing radioactive based death? Are they
| seriously so radioactive that the military was afraid of them?
| Vecr wrote:
| It's not really. It's detectable so it theory it might trip
| something in a nuclear power plant, but unless you plan on
| grinding it up and inhaling it, it should stay in the casing.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Nuclear power plants, outside of the reaction chamber, are
| about the least radioactive places you can go. Given the
| materials they handle, they operate under such strict
| procedures to get as early warning as possible if anything
| is, in fact, leaking from containment.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| I thought this was going to be able how peeling tape in a vacuum
| creates X-Rays.
| hinkley wrote:
| You know someone got kudos for finding a cheap supply of ballast.
| Never ask why it's so cheap. The answer is either slaves,
| children, or contamination. Sometimes all three.
| MithrilTuxedo wrote:
| When my father started working at the St. Lucie nuclear power
| plant in ~1988 they had just gotten rid of a shipment of tape
| dispensers that arrived too hot to be kept on site.
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