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Fukushima Radiation Nears California Coast, Judged Harmless
sciencehabit writes After a two-and-a-half year ocean journey, radioactive contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has drifted to within 160 kilometers of the California coast, according to a new study. But the radiation levels are minuscule and do not pose a threat, researchers say. The team found a high of just 8 becquerels of radiation per cubic meter in ocean samples off the coast. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for drinking water allow up to 7400 becquerels per cubic meter.
Uh, we had a slight malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
What is more interesting is our technological capability to detect such minute concentrations of just about anything.
So 2 tonnes of water has the same amount of radiation as 1 banana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Slow radioactive decay is low radiation. Think about the amount of radiation you'd face holding half a kilogram of Cesium-137. Now, think about if its half life were 8 days instead of 30 years. You'd face 30 years of radiation in 8 days.
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what about the fish that are living in it the whole time? How contaminated are they? And we still eat fish out of that water.
Actually there is nothing to see here, but thanks anyway for the weak attempt at a Bill Hicks rant.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
350,000 curies x 0.0114 gram Cs-137/curie = 3980 grams (4 kg) – of Cs-137. It decays by beta emission which in water is quickly absorbed; typically within 10mm - 15mm.
But don't let a good scare story go to waste.
There are more different units for distance. Actually its all the units for brightness that confuse me the most.
There are actually really only 2 physical units,
Activity, i.e. decays per second, Becquerel
Absorbed does, i.e. joule per kg, Greys
and a bonus biologically adjusted
Equivalent dose, like Greys adjusted by biological harm, Sievert
The others are obsolete (only used in USA).
A becquerel is the radioactive decay of a single atom per second. Your body has 4400 becquerels of radiation due to a naturally-occurring radioactive isotope of Potassium. If you drank a liter of seawater that would mean Fukushima has increased your radiation dose by 0.008 becquerel - less than a 0.0002% increase in radiation internally in your body. This is literally less than a drop in a bucket. The salt is far more likely to kill you than the radiation.
Fortunately it is incredibly dilute. Here's some fun facts. If you can manage to drink a cubic meter of the ocean water (after removing the salt so it won't kill you), you will be slightly less radioactive for a while due to potassium loss. Don't try it all at once though, it could kill you due to 'water poisoning').
If you're the sort to panic, you will add more radiation to your body by taking potassium iodide pills than the water will contribute.
You mean all the pretty pictures and panic-stricken posts on Crackbook for the past few years about how California was *already* subject to radiation from Fukushima were bullshit?
Gee. You can't believe *anything* you read on the internet anymore. *LOL*
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Cesium accumulates in your body because it's chemically similar to potassium, which your body needs for nerves to function (among other things). So it can accumulate no more than potassium does.
Potassium has a naturally occurring radioactive isoltope, K-40, which like Cesium undergoes both beta and gamma decay. The amount of K-40 in the typical human body contributes 4000-5000 becquerel to your natural radiation dose. So your contention that there is "no safe minimum dose once it is in your body" is clearly wrong. Everyone who has ever lived has been exposed to a relative "huge" amount of radiation from K-40 throughout their entire lives, and our species is still here.
Have gnu, will travel.
You would have read this:
The findings are reassuring, Buesseler says. He measured a high of just 8 becquerels of radiation per cubic meter in the samples. Of that, he says, less than 2 becquerels came from cesium-134 traced to Fukushima. The remainder is largely from strontium-90 and cesium-137: Some of that is fallout from mid-20th century atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, and some may have come from Fukushima—these isotopes lack the half-life fingerprint that ties cesium-134 to the Japanese disaster. The total level of radiation is hardly worth worrying about, Buesseler says: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for drinking water allow up to 7400 becquerels per cubic meter. Buesseler is presenting his latest findings Thursday at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry North America’s annual meeting.
So, that's 6 Bq that was most likely deposited by aboveground or underwater Pacific nuke testing.
You can now return to your previously scheduled freakout over "ZOMG RADIATSHUNS!"
There is no safe minimum dose once it is in your body, slowly disintegrating, radiating into your organs and cells.
There is also no safe minimum exposure to sunlight, no safe minimum amount of air to breath, no safe minimal exposure to germs, no safe minimal ingestion of food. Nothing you do is safe.
But, if your definition of safe is something that is unlikely to cause any harm or ill effect, then small radioactive doses, internal or external, are quite safe, particularly in comparison to many things that we do in everyday life that we consider safe.
Cesium is an alkali metal, which means it readily exchanges into and out of the salts in your body. The biological half-life of cesium is about 70 days, so it wouldn't accumulate in humans as you describe as long as there is a source of non-active cesium to replace it.
We're also talking 8 atomic disintegrations per second (individual atoms are being counted here)...we get more activity from the long ago weapons tests than we do from Fukushima.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
"Did you wake up this morning?"
"Well...yeah..."
"Then you aren't safe. You never were "safe", and you never WILL BE "safe". "Safe" is a lie and an illusion. Get used to it!"
"What if I'd said "no" to you?"
"The answer would still be the same, only preceded by the blast of an air horn to wake you up."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Seasickness sacked several seamen who set sail in search of cesium in the sea. The say the seasickness ceased after stopping to seize the cesium sea samples they were seeking. So the cesium samples were safely secured by the sailors, sans-seasickness.
The big risk however is that unlike most radiation sources, cesium is bio-concentrated. Drink the water regularly, or eat fish that live in it, and pretty soon the concentration in your body is going to be *much* higher than in the water.
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