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Nuclear Scanning Catches a Radioactive Cat On I-5
Jeff recommends Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat's story from a community meeting with Northwest border control agents. Seems their monitoring for dirty bombs from the median of Interstate 5 caught a car transporting a radioactive cat. "It turns out the feds have been monitoring Interstate 5 for nuclear 'dirty bombs.' They do it with radiation detectors so sensitive it led to the following incident. 'Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour... Agent is in the median, a good 80 feet away from the traffic. Signal went off and identified an isotope [in the passing car]. The agent raced after the car, pulling it over not far from the monitoring spot.' Did he find a nuke? 'Turned out to be a cat with cancer that had undergone a radiological treatment three days earlier.'"
Actually I believe there have been lots of similar events. A friend of mine is a member of some service organization and was on a club outing to nearby Canada by coach. On the border crossing back to America, they were stopped at the crossing when the border guards told the driver to shut the coach down and they boarded it. The club members were apprehensive as they had been replenishing the club alcohol stash and had a bit more than the legal duty free limits in the storage areas.
The guards finally identified one older gentleman and questioned him, only to find out he had been a radiation trace injection four weeks previously. They were cleared and went on their way.
If they have this equipment at all the major crossings and on the interstates, imagine the cost and the amount of money that has been spent on these type of projects.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
It has, just hasn't been widely reported. According to this article, there are about 600 radiation scanners deployed around the country and the rate of false positives is so high that the guy in charge of the Homeland Security Dept. nuclear office says they are pretty useless in practice:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,257004,00.html?sPage=fnc/specialsections/homelandsecurity
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Yeah I once had a set of RJ45 crimping tools in my backpack that I happened to use as carry on luggage. As I waited on line to go through the TSA checkpoint and remembered they were in the bottom of my bag I was afraid of 2 things (1) the tools being confiscated because they could be used as weapons, and (2) the agents not knowing what they were and detaining me. Well they did attract TSA attention. The woman operating the scanning machine asked me if they were "telephone tools" and I said yes. She asked her supervisor who let me go through with them. So yes bringing strange things through airport security will raise eyebrows, but its not always a one way ticket to Gitmo.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
They have.
if you have to travel home to be in hospice near your family.
I'm just throwing this out there. I know this is somewhat off topic. Just don't forget organizations like Angel Flight (West, South Central, East, and North East) exist to assist ambulatory patients that can't otherwise afford air transportation for specialized, non-local, medial treatment. Of course, they help with other emergencies too, such as after Katrina.
If you have a medical and financial need, Angel Flight may be able to help you side step financial and time problems created by road travel and the TSA during public air travel.
For a little reality check, a friend went in for liver cancer treatments this morning. Mt. Sinai is in New York city, and the treatment involves Yttrium-90, so when the prepped her they told her she needed a note from her doctor because she will probably get scanned and stopped at the Lincoln Tunnel when she goes home.
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
Compare this to metal detectors at clubs or airports. EACH person is individually scanned and searched. Is this harassment? An overstep of people's rights? How many people carrying weapons do they really find? It is a deterrent, as well as a detection system.
As far as low-tech, agreed, low tech can cause minor problems such as bombing a building and is much easier. A few causalities, makes the news, etc. A nuke going off though, however, that is significant. Destroy a city, widespread panic and fear, international news. Much like the WTC incident.
For those that are curious, Y-90 has a half life of 64 hours and decays into (stable) Zr-90 via the emission of a 2.28 MeV beta- particle. It has a fairly high specific activity of 2.5x10^5 Ci/g (naturally, given its short half life). It is mainly produced from Sr-90, which is fairly dangerous if ingested because the body treats it like calcium - it ends up locked in your bones where it irradiates surround tissue - like bone marrow that produces blood cells. Here is a datasheet from a supplier - you can get it in activities of 1 Curie! That's 37 GBq.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.