NUCLEAR CLOUD!!!! OMG!!!!!!11!!!!!ONE!!
Look, folks, the Alpha particles and Gamma radiation that might- and might is the operative term- might end up in the USA in total may be the equivalent of the contents of a handful of smoke detectors. Which you could tear apart and EAT, and probably not suffer any harm (the Americium in a smoke detector is in a non soluble form- in any kind of soluble form, you’d get a healthy dose of gamma radiation and probably get bone cancer.)(I still would try to avoid, if possible, but if someone breaks in your house, ties you up, and forces you to eat the Americium pill out of the ionization chamber of a smoke alarm, you’ll probably be OK.) (Unless they shoot you, or force you to watch the Barry Manilow Farewell special)
I had to explain to someone at work what the Banana Equivalent Dose was, and they freaked out that their fruit had radioactivity!!! Then they didn’t believe me, and googled around until they found someone “Proving” bananas weren’t radioactive by holding a CDV-715 over them.
Sigh. Science is such an undiscovered country for most people.
19 comments Og | Uncategorized
EVERY-DAMN-THING in the universe is radioactive.
People don’t know dick about science.
Man that was a funny posting… as you say the average joe knows nothing about bananas or science for that matter.
Most people’s beliefs about science don’t even rise to the level of being wrong, they are simply incoherent.
On the plus side, that dude at all the gun shows with the geiger counters will probably sell out the next time.
Yes, we are having one here this weekend and I would expect that it will be loaded with nuke material.
Capitalism at it best.
As we all know from comics, only gamma radiation counts as radiation!
(Ed: Not technically true. There’s lots of stable isotopes!)
Wasn’t it “gamma rays” which gave us “The Fantastic Four”, “Doctor Doom”, and a host of others? And a “radioactive spider” happened to bite the unsuspecting Peter Parker, giving us “Spider-Man” … err wait a sec, that’s all fantasy and make believe.
As for “the masses” having any sort of a grasp of things truly scientific, I doubt that has been the case for at least some 30-40 years. thanks in part not only to our lame stream media, but our sterling public school systems.
This former high school science club president is going back to eating his banana in peace and quiet.
loved this!
and oh so true :D
So, it’s the geek consensus then that the at-least-partial core meltdown in Japan is such a laughing matter that we need not even go out and buy a few rolls of duct tape and some visqueen to prepare for radiation from this or OTHER sources?
You know, people, the hoplophobes use that argument on us all the time to tell us that we don’t need guns…
Og,
You know the guy who sets up at the Indy 1500 with the cool Geiger counters and other radiological Civil Defense paraphernalia? Guess whose table wasn’t mobbed at the show today?
I was so proud of my fellow Hoosiers. (And, off the record, he was too.)
Rivrdog,
The geek consensus is you should always be prepared, but if you’re panicking over the events at Fukushima I and don’t even live on the same continent, then you’re just showing off how little you know about the topic.
I swear, I think some “preppers” are just DYING to strap their colanders on their faces and call the boss on Monday morning and say “Can’t come in today. World just ended. Gotta go be Lord of the Wasteland.” I guess it beats another dull day in accounting…
(Just like some hoplophiles endlessly game out their dream shootout at the 7-11 Corral, like getting cleared of homicide charges via an affirmative defense is a glorious thing to look forward to.)
” Guess whose table wasn’t mobbed at the show today?” That actually gives me some hope for my fellow man. I’d love to have one of those old counters, but they cost as much as 1k rounds of ammo, and I’d rather have the ammo.
Dog: From day one, I have prayed for the safety and security of the Japanese people, and our company has set up a matching funds program for donations. This is not Chernobyl, not yet, anyway. The Japanese are doing their level best to control the situation under horrible conditions, and my heart goes out to them. But the radiation which is going to make landfall here is of so little consequence as to be immaterial, and the people allowing themselves to be frightened by it are unaware of the nature of radiation.
I found Ann Coulters blog, this week, interesting along these lines.
http://www.anncoulter.com/
“A GLOWING REPORT ON RADIATION”.
Your mention of the “Banana Equivalent Dose” reminded me of an article that Jay Lehr wrote back in the 90’s about the risks that most people are not willing to accept from supposed environmental contamination vs. the risks that most people *are* willing to accept from normal every day activities.
IOW, if you ride a motorcycle on a regular basis and/or smoke cigarettes, you have no business worrying about a meltdown in Japan; or a meltdown anywhere except for your master bedroom for that matter.
And if you live in a brick house, bricks have been known to contain naturally occurring radioactive matter, especially fireplace brick. You’ll absorb more merms from your brick walls than the Japanese meltdown.
But shhh, if Pharaoh finds out, he will regulate us to make bricks without uranium, same as (United Mine Worker endorsed) Pharaoh said he’d make coal to expensive to use …
People are worried about radiation from Japan getting over here? (insert ominous music here) What of Gamma Ray Bursts! That’s when a supernova occurs and massive amounts of gamma radiation more powerful than the sun has poured out over its entire 10 billion-year lifetime flow forth through space and, can potentially, smear Earth like a spit wad.
Throw in Geological Paradigm Shifts, Biochemical precipitate implosion and Geomorphological Compression and we’re screwed (OK, I made those words up).
So I’m not going to lose any sleep over radiation.
Way more likely to lose sleep over a bit of pork, or a blot of mustard.
Brigid: From what you say I think a good burst of extra-solar radiation onto some strings of mainstream media molecules might have the unintended consequence of starting intelligent life here on Earth.
I’m looking forward to that.
Sounds like your coworker falls into the “find evidence to fit the theory” school of scientific thought.
Ask him if he believes the Good Lord buried dinosaur bones just to screw with us and test our faith.