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Radiation Protection: Caffeine
B.D.Mills writes "This article on the New Scientist web site claims that "drinking coffee could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in India who have found that mice given caffeine survive otherwise lethal doses of radiation."
" Hmm...so does this mean I don't need to worry about the background radiation from my monitor?
As an added benefit for the nuclear technitions is that they will be awake and alert, which is a good thing(TM) when you are working with nuclear reactors. :)
I read the internet for the articles.
Hey wouln't a mouse or rat hyped up on that much caffeine eat the cat? Or at least make Speadie Gonzales (sp?) look like a snail.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
When I was trained for handling radiation sources for surveying oil wells, we had a big thing on safety and what radiation could do to a person. One case involved a technician at a poultry processing plant where the packaged chicken would pass through this room on conveyer. The doors had interlocks and the sources would close when a person would enter. Well, for some reason, the technician just had to check things out while it was running, so he defeated the interlocks, walked in, peered around the corner, and made it to the door where he collapsed. They did an autopsy on the guy to find that all his arteries had liquified. I bet if the guy snorted a few kilos of coffee, he might have made it out the door. Then again, maybe not!
I'm no doctor, but I can tell you caffeine is a controlled substance. I was looking through one of those big fat chemical books where you can order anything made of atoms. Pure caffeine. Buy it by the kilo. You also need a pretty good darned reason to buy it in its pure form like that. They also sell chemicals known for the other end of the speed spectrum too. I wonder who would knock on my door if I tried to make an order for this stuff?
The black on white fad that you are seeing might be the results of a Microsoft study on consumers what the desktop should look like. The white was intended to have the look and feel of a genuine sheet of paper with ink displayed on your word processor. I guess companies who want to sell computers are trying to make them look like common desktop materials, such as the paperclip, pen, etc... I seem to be an odd person that I never bought into this look and feel. I have always prefered a the soft luminescent glow of a blinking cursor on a dark phosphor screen. I can do without all the busy distractions. After all, a monitor is nothing but a low powered particle accellerator. Why turn the thing on full nuke all the time anyway?
There's something wrong with vivarin tablets. I consumed several one time along with freinds and talk about an unhappy stomach! They might have an additive to prevent abuse. Penguin mints on the other hand are some good stuff. Get a tin of those and start buzzing!
That's a f'ing lot of caffeine. Wouldn't that be nearly fatal anyway? Also, is it possible that the increased metabolic rate produced by that level of caffeine might have been a contributor to the effect?
I just wanna see what mice injected with 50+ mg of caffeine look like. Put them sons of bitches on a wheel, goddamn it! You could light up a city!
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
So, if you're working in a nuclear power plant, more caffeine is probably a good thing...
But if you're a cancer patient undergoing radiation-type treatments, will caffeine intake also limit the radiation's effect on the cancer?
--The more you know, the less you know.
Moral: be wary of mice which glow in the dark
Funny you should mention that. Scientists have actually MADE mice that glow in the dark by giving them the jellyfish gene for the light-emitting protein. The mice that were used were hairless mice, so those that took up the gene glowed in the dark with an eerie green glow.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Well microwave radiation is a bit different, but as previously suggested you should try more in the line of 100mg and wait a good 30 minutes before using the microwave. That way you give the caffine time to spread throughout the body, so that when the cat is properly cooked, you can have a tasty caffinated meal.
It's been a while since I had any Darjeeling, but if memory serves it's not a particularly strong tea. I don't know whether strength of taste and caffeine content are connected though.
For the record, I prefer Assam or Kenyan tea. I couldn't make Darjeeling strong enough.
Whywouldyouthinktoomuchcaffeineisbad? It'sfine. Noproblems. Iwrotethisin3seconds!
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
The only thing they're good at writing is...
(wait for it)
...mouse drivers.
(Ok. That was lame, but the original post was funny.)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I wish I had known you could get published with this study. 12 years ago, some friends and I did a similar study at my Mom's house:
:) )
First, all of the scientists ingested at least 35% LD50 of grain alcohol.
We then administered several milligrams of caffeine to my sister's cat, "Muffin".
"Muffin" was placed in a General Electric model 3257A 60-watt microwave oven. The oven was set for high. "Muffin" was rotated in the oven for 3 minutes.
The results were inconclusive. Perhaps further study is warranted. I should seek additional funding (and a new cat).
(BTW -- Relax, I love cats and this story was totally made up.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I read on www.caffeine.com that the LD50 (lethal dose 50% of the time for caffeine) in humans is 50mg/kg. The average dose required for caffeine intoxication (heart palpitations, etc.) is 200mg. (I haven't been able to get through to the web site recently, so it may be down).
If that's accurate, you have to drink a lethal dose of coffee to protect yourself from lethal levels of radiation. Great...
There seems to be a bit of confusion with regards to the types of radiation that exist, and where they come from
types of radiation:
1) Ionizing
2) Non-ionizing
3) Particle
4) Electromagnetic
Ionizing radiation causes the loss or gain of electrons, creating a particle (like one of the carbons or oxygens in your body) which has an unpaired electron (called a free radical) this causes rapid chemical reactions which can damage cells. These types of radiation are KNOWN TO BE BAD FOR YOU.
Ionizing radiation examples are: X rays, Gamma Rays, Alpha particle, Beta particles, and possibly Ultra Violet light.
Non-ionizing radiation does not cause unpaired electrons. Examples of non-ionizing radiation are:
Visible light, infra-red light, microwaves, and other radio waves.
Various of these types of radiation are known to be bad for you (don't stick your head in the microwave) but the mechanisms, dosage effects and chronic vs. acute exposure effects are not well known. They often cause problems because of molecular resonance, which causes heating of molecules (ie. cooking food). But there may be other effects which are not well studied.
Particle vs. Electromag: Beta particles are high energy electrons, they are ionizing radiation, can be blocked by a few millimeters of glass/plastic/metal and are not an issue from computer monitors (get a geiger counter and check it if you want).
Alpha particles are helium nuclei without any electrons. They can be found streaming around inside most smoke detectors. They are VERY bad for you, but they travel only a few centimeters through air, and can be blocked by paper or plastic or clothing. They are a big problem if you get them inside of you (ie. swallow an alpha source).
neutrons are a problem for those who are exposed, but most people aren't. so don't worry about them.
Everything else is electromagnetic (transferred by massless photons) and most of the "radiation" from computer monitors that people worry about is the MAGNETIC fields of very low frequency (ie 60Hz). There's nothing much you can do to shield yourself from these, though monitors with built in circuits can try to cancel out the fields.
This study does not deal with Ultra Low Frequency magnetic radiation, but rather with Gamma Rays, which are an extremely high frequency ionizing electro-magnetic radiation above the frequency of X-Rays. You'd expect any anti-oxidant chemical to potentially help vs. ionizing radiation and perhaps caffeine has some anti-oxidant properties?? I dunno
Disclaimer: I am not a health Physicist, just a guy who has a lot of info shoved into his head.
((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) http://www.endpointcomputing.com a scientific approach to custom computing.
1) Makes you totally irritable, annoying, on edge, and generally unpleasant. (So sue me for having a serious one. Get a life, people. It's just a TV show).
2) Gives you the magic power to type at 800 WPM in a language that not even you can understand later.
3) Makes the MicroMachines guy make perfect sense.
4) Makes your boss make perfect sense. Okay, not really.
5) Makes you think you're a good driver. Ha. See "Phones, Cell".
6) Gives you a reason to take insomnia pills at night. Makes you watch such quality 2 AM TV shows as TJ Hooker after the insomnia pills fail miserably.
7) The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real.
Looking back over this one, I become aware that a distinct William Shatner theme pervades this Top X list. The truly sad thing is that it wasn't intentional. I'm truly sorry, and I swear it'll never happen again.
-
I think we're all entitled to safety, at least in public high school.
Wouldn't be a concern if there were no public high schools. When schools are essentially prisons, people shouldn't be surprised at the occasional prison riot.
You have no 'right' to safety -- you have a responsibility for your own safety. Arm yourself if you think you're in danger. At least until the safety nazis make sure that only the Police have weapons (never ceases to amaze me that the same people who are always going on and on about Police Brutality are the ones that want only Police to be armed -- aren't these contradictory positions?)
So I'm guessing that the US has a perfect human rights record?
The US doesn't have to be perfect in order to not associate with countries that do things we disapprove of. Hypocrisy isn't the Great Sin of our times; Apathy is.
So slave and child labor are just 'cultural differences,' then? Hint: cultural relativism isn't a blanket excuse. Continued MFN for China is a national shame, more so now that BillyJeff has blatantly revealed his habitation in the Chinese pocket.
There's the kind of cheap labor driven by low cost-of-living, where the fellow who makes 5 bucks a day can make that 5 bucks buy housing and food for his family. And that's okay cheap labor. Then there's the kind of cheap labor that involves kids working 16-hour days and dying young due to factory toxins. That's worse than theft.
gomi