what to know about Curies, Becquerels, Rems, Rads, Grays, Sieverts, Roentgens, Q, RBE

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/hoffman04222011.html


From Becquerels to Sieverts, From Birth to Death
Measuring Radiation


-long snip explaining type, reaction, etc.-

What is really happening when radiation damages the body, in large or small doses, is a very complex microscopic assault on living tissue. Certain elements concentrate in certain organs: Iodine in the thyroid, strontium in bones, astatine in the brain, etc.. If the percentage of radioactive strontium isotopes goes up compared to non-radioactive strontium isotopes (as it is in Japan today), the radioactive strontium will concentrate in bones and teeth. And, sometime in the future, the incidence of bone cancer and leukemia will increase.

So simply averaging the assault across "whole bodies" can miss things and is improper. Another adjustment factor is needed.

-snip-

None of these values consider the effects of bioaccumulation: Radioactive isotopes build up in the edible portions of one living thing (strontium concentrates in beans, for instance) and are then eaten by another (beans concentrate in Mexicans, for instance) up the food chain to us, at the "top". When that happens, a dose that had been dispersed into the environment becomes concentrated again.

It's all a very inexact science, and that inexactitude is used by the nuclear industry to hide what is really nothing short of premeditated murder.
-----------------------

PREMEDITATED MURDER

[bananas]

1. k&r nt

[crickets]

2. Another K&R

Thank you for an informative article that cuts through the BS. :thumbsup:

Accurate information is power, and we need more accurate information about what is going on with the Fukushima plants and what affect this will have worldwide. I was heartened to see that Hoffman is going to continue writing more about this as time goes on.

[Yo_Mama]

4. Hong Kong, Cornwall Radiation Beats Tokyo

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-01/hong-kong-radiation-exceeds-tokyo-even-after-japan-crisis.html

Many countries have naturally occurring radiation levels that exceed Tokyo’s, said Bob Bury, former clinical lead for the U.K.’s Royal College of Radiologists. A 30-fold surge in such contamination in Tokyo prompted thousands of expatriates to leave Japan after the March 11 tsunami knocked out power at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, triggering the crisis. Radiation in Tokyo is barely above levels in London and New York even now, analysts said.

The takeaway that residual in the food chain is really the issue. Current evacuations in the Fukushima expanded zones are from areas that have direct radiation levels below natural background levels in other parts of the world, but the soil/water contamination levels are a real danger.

[ensho]

3. kick so more DUers can be informed

nt