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US Military Tested the Effects of a Nuclear Holocaust On Beer
pigrabbitbear writes "Is bottled beer nuclear bombproof? The United States government conducted a couple tests in the 1950s to find out—it exploded nuclear bombs with 'packaged commercial beverages' deposited at varying distances from the blast center to see if beer and soda would be safe to drink afterwards. The finding? Yep, surviving bottled and canned drinks can be consumed in the event of a nuclear holocaust, without major health risks."
in the refrigerator. Searching for beer!
Too bad they didn't test Nuka Cola as well.
This is how you MAKE Nuka Cola.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Were you paying taxes in 1955?
From the summary: "The United States government conducted a couple tests in the 1950s to find out". Testing this was probably very relevant under the threat of the cold war to know what food and drink would be safe to consume.
Who would want normal beer, when you can drink Nuka-Cola. Keep the caps.
Thank god, that's been keeping me up at night.
The cost of throwing a few cases of cheap beer a round and then testing them is practically infinitesimal to the cost of setting of a nuclear weapon. It's not as if they blew the thing up just to test the drinks.
We irradiate our food to ensure its safety. Radiation is not a threat to food... at least not once its been picked or killed. Radioactive material is, of course.
That's a whole 'nother level. The radiation food is exposed to is also almost nothing compared to the radiation released in a nuke. Plus, in a nuclear blast, you have all sorts of particles flying around that are radioactive, but not the same high frequency beams used in industrial purposes.
How do you think we learned it is safe? Besides, I'm sure this wasn't a central reason for the testing, more like an add-on since they were setting off the nukes anyway.
Radiation is not a threat to food... at least not once its been picked or killed. Radioactive material is, of course.
Perfect example of historian's fallacy.
Unless you know something about time travel that I don't, the reason we know it's safe now is because in the 50s they did not know, and did the tests to find out.
Money borrowed in 1955 would have been paid off in 1985. Unless you want to claim that you still are because the debt was rolled over, at which point you need to start complaining about the horrible debts that were racked up putting down the Whiskey Rebellion by Washington too.
The world (especially voters and politicians) believe in nutjob armageddon/rapture bullshit and are hell-bent on making sure it happens as soon as possible. I, for one, would love to know that beer will be safe to drink if I happen to be fortunate enough to still be alive after all the crazies have self-fulfilled their insane prophecies.
First, beer surviving the holocaust is not something I see as a useful way to spend my tax dollars.
I have to disagree with you. It was a rather important first step to decide if it's even worthwhile trying to survive the holocaust.
In the immediate aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, surviving still-sealed drinks would likely be the only available clean water not heavily contaminated with radioactivity. This would in fact be quite important before any efforts to cleanse contaminated water could get underway, which would take longer than one can survive without water intake to establish on any significant scale. In any case, I really doubt the "spending" on this went beyond some guy laying out drinks in a line away from another test and checking them afterwards.
That being said, glass and water don't suffer lasting neutron activation and we knew that even in 1955. That's why water can be used in nuke cooling loops and sodium is used in experimental FBRs so yes it's kind of superflous.
Radiation is not a threat to food... at least not once its been picked or killed. Radioactive material is, of course.
Perfect example of historian's fallacy.
Unless you know something about time travel that I don't, the reason we know it's safe now is because in the 50s they did not know, and did the tests to find out.
But we don't know that, in spite of the testing done in the 1950s. By 'we', I include all the paranoid crybabies that get their panties in a bunch every time the FDA considers allowing irradiation as a food preservation method.
Have gnu, will travel.
At least we know now the Irish can survive a nuclear attack
The United State's national debt was completely paid off in January 1835. It only lasted a year though.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt#Early_history
I have already started my bottle cap collection... when the big one hits, I'll be a billionaire.
It's an organization that has as its main purpose defending the nation. Back then, there was a lot of concern about nuclear holocaust and most people were certain that it was just a matter of time until one side or the other lit the fuse. Knowing what would be usable afterward and what would be dangerous was critical knowledge if society was to rebuild itself.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
From the '50s, beer would have been in rugged steel cans. How about today's thin aluminum cans?
Since the beers were made in 2077, and you're in the Mojave in 2281, your biggest problem is going to be the born-on date.
And in the Mojave Wasteland, when they talk about skunky beer, they mean it has giant, two-headed, cybernetically enhanced, armor plated skunks... with lasers.
If you're going for Devil's Advocate, you should understand that it means taking a position you don't necessarily agree with. I'm pretty sure you meant something else, so keep looking.
And the better way to be the whatever it was you hoped to be, is the normal nerdly way. We don't even have a published scientific report, and it's hardly peer reviewed. At best we have a "finding" which has yet to be validated and verified. It is not proof, nor does it pretend to be. As with most of the science that hits any news paper/aggregator/site.
Oh, I know what you were being. A troll. Cute and Cuddly Troll. Or person who spouts conspiracy theories for no real purpose. Cute and Cuddly and irrelevant. Either way, the answer to both is "no" and your post serves no purpose.
Twinkies, which last on the order of geological time, have these few main threats against their long term shelf life: 1. subduction under an adjacent tectonic plate 2. expansion of sun into red dwarf, though as the sun becomes less dense the earth and unconsumed twinkies may survive by increasing orbital axis 3. collision of earth with another major major astronomical body, eastimated to be on the order of every five billion years for event sufficient to destroy most or all twinkies 4. proton decay and/or quantum tunneling, 10^100 years or more
But if George Washington hadn't spent $100 of the national treasury on fake teeth and cherry trees, the country would have been $100 further in the black in 1835. And when we went back in debt, our debts would have been $100 less, all the way up until today, not accounting for interest & inflation.
The point is, it's silly to complain about relatively small expenditures from a long time ago.
Bahh. That was back in the day when "beer" meant beer. The strength of the old steel can was intended to compliment the beer with a sense of substance -- and it was built to last. This newfangled bubbling pansy fuddle is put into aluminium for morale. The poor excuse for men who feebly molest the frail cans of today need the extra confidence that the lightness of aluminium provides; it makes them feel strong and capable, like their ancestors. These modern milksop piss-containers couldn't survive fallout from a wet cherry-bomb.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The world will be dearly in need of leadership after a nuclear war. I think these tests need to be repeated with politicians to see how they fare.
The Reinheitsgebot isn't necessarily a good thing to follow. Many great British, Belgian, and American craft beers do not meet the sometimes odd rules of the Reinheitsgebot.
The list of "11 Reasons why the Reinheitsgebot is bollocks" explains it pretty well: http://patto1ro.home.xs4all.nl/reinheit.htm
Homer no function beer well without.
Typically, being stuck with the bill from an earlier generation is reason to complain. But, if we have enough good left in us, we can pay off the bill so our children / successors do not.
I am John Hurt.
Preventing the holocaust is, naturally a top priority, but don't you think a plan B might be in order? Things like determining what can and cannot be consumed afterwards for survival for example.
Second... duh? We irradiate our food to ensure its safety. Radiation is not a threat to food... at least not once its been picked or killed.
And we know all about that because....(drum roll please) ...... the military researched it in the 1950's by irradiating foods and seeing what happened!
Not all radiation is created equal - anything close to a nuclear blast will be subjected to high levels of both ionizing and neutron radiation, think sticking it within the shielding of a nuclear reactor for several days or weeks. Ionizing radiation is probably not directly a problem - just wait for the ionization to neutralize, but it could conceivably initiate chemical reactions that would make previously harmless food toxic - one of those things that's good to test. Neutron radiation on the other hand could be a real problem - anything exposed to it may undergo transmutation to become radioactive in its own right, with sufficient exposure this becomes the stuff we call low-level nuclear waste - you're typically safe enough handling it with some minimal shielding, but you probably don't want to eat it which incorporates the radioactive atoms directly into your tissues where they can do serious damage (think the Fukushima radioactive iodine scare)
Moreover this test was done back before we irradiated food - you can bet if they had found some horrible effects the whole irradiated food movement wouldn't have gotten off the ground.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Sorry you couldn't find any beer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Beer = sealed unit that is covered to keep radioactive dust out. Water would have been exposed and open to radioactive dust. Radioactive dust is the biggest concern outside the immediate blast zone. I sincerely doubted the exploded a nuke just to test it's effect on beer. Probably a case of next nuke, throw a few cases downwind to see how they do.
The cost would be trivial and the knowledge would have been practical. Living in fear of a nuclear attack was quite real in those days. Remember this was back in the days of performing drills to duck and cover under desks in case of nuclear attack.
Using beer when water wasn't safe to drink is a tradition going back centuries. If you really want to get down to it, the founding of Plymouth was because the Pilgrims ran out of beer and needed to make more. The pilgrims were notable puritans of course. It actually makes a lot of sense to test it. I would imagine they also probably tested bottles of soda for the same reasons.
If you're going for Devil's Advocate, you should understand that it means taking a position you don't necessarily agree with.
No, Devil's Advocate on Slashdot is not just taking a position you don't normally believe in (lying), but deliberately taking the most absurd counterpoint to not only argue against something but do so in a manner that makes both people look dumber for trying. "The War Department, paid to kill people, suggests food near a nuclear blast is safe." So should we take that to mean that it's safe, or that the War Department wants us to try and die?
Learn to love Alaska
Thats a myth. Twinkies have a shelf life of approximately 25 days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie#Shelf_life
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Modern economies have been constructed so that there simply isn't enough money to pay off the debt. Individuals may be debt free, but in total, the debt can not be paid back.
Eg, in the USA, the Fed creates the money, and it is immediately loaned and begins earning interest. That interest doesn't have currency in the system to cover it, hence money has to be borrowed from the Fed to pay the interest owed to the Fed. Vicious cycle ensues, borrowing money to pay the interest on the borrowed money.
No way out except to default, or nationalise the Fed.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
So you are on wife number 4?
Excluding the production by the Fed and currency that is physically lost or destroyed the money supply is a zero-sum system. This means that there is only one possible way to produce the money to pay the interest owed to the Fed, and that is the Fed loaning sufficient money at negative interest to cancel the interest they are already owed. Not likely.
You can at maximum pay back the capital. Inflation can reduce the value of what is owed, but not the numerical amount. The interest debt is unpayable within the current system.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Glass and water, yes, but bottle tops are thin steel, and cans are aluminum. Starting from the most common isotope of Iron (which is about 90% of all the iron in the normal environment), one extra neutron captured gives an isotope with a half-life of roughly a couple of days. For aluminum, having the most stable isotope capture either 1 or 2 neutrons gives it a half-life of respectively 2 or 6 minutes. Military exposure recommendations are to assume aluminum in fallouts will be back to close to background rates in less than three days. That's a lot of half-lives at 6 min each, so Al will initially be a major source of the total radiation dose, but it's contribution will fall off much faster than the fallout overall becomes non-radioactive. You can take the proportionate decay rates and conclude that Iron won't contribute 1/1000th of the dose in the same quantities, but won't get back to near background level dose for thousands of times as long. So, for the first 37.8 hours, you should drink from bottles, and after that, switch to cans. *
* This is not a real recommendation. Real fallout will not just include neutron activated metals found naturally in whatever got nuked, but bomb material daughter products, and some of these may be very exotic isotopes, so real fallout should (but won't) come with a YMMV warning. If you are in a real fallout zone, knowing whether the soil of the target area was Al dominant minerals or not will probably not be of any use to you.
Who is John Cabal?
I ordered a box of Twinkies at an insane price from the US, just to finally taste this product of American culture so often mentioned in movies. It says on the box that they can only be kept for a short time, so I decided to taste this over a long period. 1 year and still going. Taste? Still the same. GODDAMN AWFUL! Next month I will try another one. I am thinking of turning myself in for unethical testing on a dumb animal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The world (especially voters and politicians) believe in nutjob armageddon/rapture bullshit and are hell-bent on making sure it happens as soon as possible
Let me help you out there -
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, AKA the Soviet Union, governed by the religion suppressing atheistic Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" operated according to the "scientific principles" of Marxist-Leninism, built an actual Doomsday weapon, that is still active: Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready and Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine.. Apparently secular socialist progressive totalitarians are just as crazy as anyone else. Salud.
Related: Moscow arms against nuclear attack
Nearly 5,000 new emergency bomb shelters will be built in Moscow by 2012 to save people in case of potential attacks.
Out of sight but not out of mind
Shelters part of long-term civil defense plan - Shanghai leaders stress the date of 2012 is purely a coincidence
Assessing PLA Underground Air Basing Capability
Bunkers for all
Switzerland is unique in having enough nuclear fallout shelters to accommodate its entire population, should they ever be needed.
IKEA in Hell - The interior design of Sweden’s giant nuclear bunker.
Israeli leaders spend day in 'Nation's Tunnel' nuclear bunker
The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
2012 - 1835 = 177 years
Formula for computing the future value (FV) of an investment's present value (PV) accruing at a fixed interest rate (i) for n periods:
FV = PV*(1 + i)^n
Computing...
FV = 100 * (1 + 0.06)^177
FV = 3013964.63322
Assuming that you deposited it at a bank that gives you 6% annual interest, your $100 in 1835 would have grown to $3,013,964.63 by now.
Yeah, but you need to consider that most lagers are just coloured heavy water.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You also need to consider that irradiated food has to be labeled as such and has generally been rejected by the consumer as unsafe. (Whereas, presumably, they'd have eaten food irradiated by far harder radiation, then smothered in radioactive particles of assorted deadly kinds, and regarded it as safe.) Most supermarket food is NOT irradiated, the market opted to go the GM route because people were more willing to buy something that produced its own toxic pesticides.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Don't you ever confuse governments with the mentally ill. The more I compare modern politicians with the script for "Quatermas II", the more concerned I become. Look for strange purple blotches around the face or neck. That can be a warning sign of aliens.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I dunno, you can brew beer. And after the holocaust, I'd consider beer brewed the Old Egyptian way (it actually contains high levels of antibiotics) rather than by "modern" methods to be rather more useful for containing outbreaks of disease. That would make starting over on the beer production a more practical approach.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
These people are merely a vocal minority.
But vocal enough to affect FDA (or EU) decision making.
The majority have accepted radiation of food,
But you don't see the FDA mandating "ionizing radiation" warning labels on microwave ovens or cast iron skillets.
We need an FDA-mandated "crazy" label that we can tattoo on these peoples' foreheads.
Have gnu, will travel.