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A Handy Radiation Dose Chart From XKCD

Posted by timothy on from the is-there-anything-xkcd-can't-do? dept.

An anonymous reader points out Randall Munroe's latest contribution to public health awareness, a "chart of how much ionizing radiation a person can absorb from various sources, compared visually. 1 Sievert will make you sick, many more will kill you, however, even small doses cumulatively increase cancer risk." It's a good way to think about the difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima.

7 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bananas by MrQuacker · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, eating a banana is as radioactive as a threesome?

  2. Re:Bananas by Nimloth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I believe the threesome would be higher because most of them involve at least a little of banana eating.

  3. Research by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what you are saying is that XKCD did more research and analysis for a web-comic than the 24 hour news networks do for a story?

  4. TSA airport security dosage by FauxReal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would like to have seen the dosage given by using the backscatter machine at an airport listed.

    --
    Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
  5. Re:Cute, but not accurate by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Agreed. As a physician I am well aware that the body has compensation mechanisms for virtually everything, and they work fine so long as you don't overwhelm those mechanism (it usually always boils down to the rate of reaction of some enzyme or other). But was trying not to get too technical.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  6. Re:Cute, but not accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the real unit behind the sievert is the J/s

    This is actually completely wrong. The Sievert is based on the Gray, which is defined in terms of J/kg. For a fixed mass, it's J, energy. It makes no sense to say "exposed to 1 Sievert for 1 second". You would have to say "exposed to 1 Sievert per second for 1 second".

  7. Re:Media sensationalism no doubt by ShakaUVM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    >>Maybe I'm wrong but I'm vastly annoyed with the media, given how they talk you'd think people were losing their hair and growing skin lesions.

    You're absolutely right to be annoyed at the media for getting it so wrong.

    But even the Slashdot summary is disingenuous:
    "1 Sievert will make you sick, many more will kill you, however, even small doses cumulatively increase cancer risk."

    There's no evidence for the LNT (linear no threshold) model for radiation exposure, other than people doing math and plotting a line down into the low-exposure ranges. All the epidemiological studies have shown much lower cancer incidence rates than the LNT would predict, indicating that there is a thresholding effect at work at low doses.

    This actually makes a *huge* difference when it comes to cleanup of radioactive material. Something like $200 billion worth of difference.

    That's why I'm interested in people actually, you know, testing this sort of stuff in the laboratory, like these guys: http://www.orionint.com/projects/ullre.cfm