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"Dark Lightning" Could Expose Airline Passengers To Radiation
mbstone writes "Lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology claims that thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays which could cause airline passengers to receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body. Dwyer hopes his sensor aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, will provide more data."
I smell a boost in tinfoil hat sales skyrocketing ....
It's an interesting claim and I look forward to hearing more about it but there is effectively no risk to people flying being suggested. Unfortunately /. has decided to focus on the non-existent risk rather than the rather interesting properties of 'dark lightning' and what study of it could help us to understand.
Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
It being common knowledge that flying is subject to higher than normal radiation levels, and there is therefore a worry about crews, I had assumed that aircraft carried dosimeters so that crew members' total personal doses were monitored. No? If so, then this would not be a theory - it could be checked from the monitoring.
If they do not carry dosimeters, why not? Ground level radiation workers have to by law. I am a nuclear engineer and do so on visits to plant - yet my total life dose over some years of this is tiny, less than typical aircrew would have I believe.
Don't most planes fly above the storms?
Not necessarily. Airliners in which I have flown commonly go no higher than 36,000 feet - occasionally perhaps 40,000 feet. The tops of thunderstorms often reach 55,000 feet and can be even higher. One extreme case reached about 70,000 feet. Moreover, it is necessary to fly well above the tops of the visible clouds, as bad things can happen up to a mile higher. Check out, for instance, http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/152684/
So pilots almost always opt to fly around storms instead.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
...and no commercial passenger airplane can fly that high, only some very special aircraft (hint: some spy planes... by now replaced by cheaper satellites, though).
Not if you've been spayed. My condolences to your reproductive capabilities ;)
Airliners in which I have flown commonly go no higher than 36,000 feet - occasionally perhaps 40,000 feet.
I thought flight levels were odd-only starting at and above FL290 — or do the airliners in which you fly not adhere to flight levels?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
I thought flight levels were odd-only starting at and above FL290 — or do the airliners in which you fly not adhere to flight levels?
Not since 2005 in the U.S. - under a program called Reduced Vertical Separation Minima, the 2000-foot separations apply at FL410 and above. Below that, it's based on heading (or actually ground track); 0-179 will be assigned odd FLs; 180-359 get assigned even FLs.
People have been flying for many decades. Epidemiologically, there is a significant increase among airline pilots only of melanoma and breast cancer, not of other cancer types. That's not consistent with occasional large bursts of x-ray and gamma radiation (it may be due to leisure activities).
Airlines should be subject to the same regulations as nuclear power. All planes should have a few meters of lean and concrete shielding to protect the passengers. Anything that saves one childs life should be done.
Pilots (I am one) live longer because of the strict medical requirements imposed upon them, and the fact that the moment a pilot shows any sign of sickness, especially with respect to the most common health problems in the US (Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Hypertension), they are grounded and do not get included in the long-term studies of pilot lifespan.
The studies of pilot lifetime have the unfortunate bias of the FAA weeding the unhealthy from the sample group long before the "bad" samples can be included in the statistics.
Note that it doesn't actually matter whether you're above or below the storm. If this dark lightning is releasing gamma radiation it is likely doing so in all directions. Including *up*
Common Sense (+1)
FTFY
You crazy Americans insist on misspelling everything
That's exactly how we spell 'everything', what are you talking about?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/557340.stm
Radiation damage isn't cumulative. If it were, you would see greater incidences of cancer in areas with higher naturally occurring background radiation, or in workers with greater exposure. Unless you overwhelm your body's repair mechanisms, the damage is essentially harmless and repair is a natural part of everyday life. Low levels of radiation are much less dangerous than ordinary carcinogens and particulate that we are dumping into our environment by the billions of tons every year.
Granted, this so-called dark lightning may exceed safe levels over short periods of time. Then again, if you are struck by lightning, you will also probably exceed a maximum safe number of electrons transiting through your body. This would appear to be an extremely rare, if not entirely imaginary problem. To my knowledge, there have't been any planefuls of people who have died of acute radiation exposure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum#Etymology
The scientist who first named the actual element settled on the name aluminum, which matches the oxide to the elemental name, alumina -> aluminum, as is consistent with other oxides. It is not incorrect, and predates the -ium use.
thats just the thundercell itself, essentially the motor that drives the rest of the storm system. the rest of the storm system will still produce rain and lightning without rising higher. the thundercell is essentially a self-reinforcing vortex (though vortex isnt really the right word) that builds and builds on itself, and provides the energy to the rest of the storm.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Of course they'd need radiation shielding. Something like lead?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Then don't get those flight attendants angry. You wouldn't like them when they're angry.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
They have tethers. They can be led.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Listen buddy, were it not for us and our "aluminum," you'd be referring to it as "das aluminium" right about now.
It's not that we're "misspelling" it; it's that we had a spelling reformer by the name of Noah Webster whose dictionary has been the standard of American English for nearly 200 years.
Given that England has dramatically different ways to pronounce words, and throwing in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales mixes things up even more, I'd expect there to be a more enlightened understanding that distance and time results in different, but by no means incorrect, dialects.
America is over a thousand miles from the British Isles, and has a culture sundered from the British for centuries. We're not British, and we don't speak British English. We have our own set of dialects, and our own linguistic history. It's no more incorrect for an American to spell "color" than a Britain to spell "colour".
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
No, I just don't give such obtuse attempts at humor anything but derision.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.