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USPS Irradiation Damages Electronics
meehawl writes: "Bummer. Turns out the USPS's new Electron Beams anthrax zappers can erase and sometimes permanently damage CompactFlash cards. I wonder what other sensitive electronics will get wiped, not to mention seeds, film, some plastics, and so on. I guess it's more reason to use Fedex and UPS, at least unless and until they deploy these beam weapons as well. All this disruption for a campaign that killed five people? Some people think using the beams will lead to more deaths and injuries among operators. Meanwhile, electron beam makers, SureBeam, just got an analyst upgrade." Err, and be careful what you irradiate.
There is cause for concern; true, anyone worried about their mail turning radioactive is misguided:
things don't become radioactive by being irradiated.
(except if it's fast neutron radiation, in which case radioactivity may be induced)
On the other hand there is cause for concern when it comes to the chemistry.
When organic compounds get hit by gamma radiation, radicals are formed,
chemical bonds are broken, etc. It's a big mess,
and given the huge diversity of substances being irradiated, it's far to early to tell if
dangerous compounds are formed or not. (probably mostly:not)
One example is that gamma radiation can cause oxygen to form ozone, which is poisonous.
They've been saying this since the process started. In fact, the plastic bad that my irradiated mail arrived in had the following note on it:
The letter was yellow and fell apart to some extent when I opened the envelope.
All this disruption for a campaign that killed five people?
Although the self-righteous amoung us have pounced on this statement, it's not out of line. We can't substantially change our way of life every time someone dies.
Look at automobiles. A 1981 VW Rabbit (Golf in Europe) weighed about 1,800lbs. A modern Golf weighs in at about 2,800lbs. Most of that weight gain is because of safety regulations requiring everything from stronger bumpers to airbags to bracing in the doors. In another 50 years, will economy cars weigh as much as Chevy Suburbans due to ever-increasing safety regulation?
What if it could be shown that taking people's guns away wuld prevent deaths? In the U.S. in 1998, there were 30,708 deaths from firearms: Suicide 17,424; Homicide 12,102; Accident 866; Undetermined 316. And no rational person could possibly claim that self-defense uses of firearms saved anywhere near that many lives. So does that death toll justify repealing the Second Amendment (right to bear arms)?
We are slowly paralyzing ourselves as a country. We need to realize that we can't legislate or regulate death out of existence. People are going to die, sometimes tragically before their time, no matter how many laws, procedures, rules, and regulations we put into place.
I can see this being a really big deal to the type of people who'll have conniptions over anything sciencey and scary-sounding... you know, the same ones who lobby against genetically-engineered foods with signs like "NO FRANKENFOODS!".
I normally don't bother feeding the trolls (even with genetically-modified foods), but here I'll make an exception.
Ever hear of Monsanto?
They're a corporate giant thats a big player in the GM field. Based on their track record, I wouldn't trust them to provide food for my dog or cat...never mind for my own consumption.
Here are a few lowlights:
Monsanto recently sued canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser for patent infringement. The reason? His neighbour had been sowing Monsanto GM canola seed and some of the seed blew onto his property.
The Washington Post recently published this article detailing how for decades Monsanto dumped PCBs into streams in a small Alabama town despite having studies from the '60s describing the damage that was being done.
Monsanto is the parent company of Nutrasweet, one of the nastiest substances approved for human consumption.
Monsanto is also involved with a GM seed technology known as terminator. Terminator involves producing seeds that grow sterile plants, requiring the farmer to aquire new seeds from the company every growing season. It shouldn't take much imagination to realise that if these plants cross-polinate with unmodified plants, the results could be catastrophic.
Is this a company you would trust and whose products you want to be putting in your mouth?
Maybe next time you see people waving signs that that say "NO FRANKENFOODS", you might ask why before pointing the finger and screaming "Conspiracy nut!"
With other technologies, there's an element of trust involved. Break the trust and you will get flak every time you try to introduce something new...good or bad. Have the individuals making these sorts of decisions shown themselves to be responsible, looking out for our best interests? Here's your answer: After approving Nutrasweet for use in carbonated beverages, the Commissioner of the FDA, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr left his post and went to work for Nutrasweet's PR division.
You're using her as bait, Master!
The radiation level that the USPS is testing now (and maybe has in production already) is so high that even radiation-hardened microchips (for space and defense systems) cannot withstand it. Also, some packages have been reportedly catching on fire because of the high radiation levels.
55 kGray = 5500 kilorad.
Radiation-hardened ICs can withstand "only" 300 kilorad .
Think it's safe to send your consumer-grade electronics through the mail?