A number of years ago there was an incident in Sweden where a tiny crack was discovered in a container that had been used to transport nuclear waste from one of Sweden's reactors.<p>This caused a lot of media attention and some politicians made statements about how this was unacceptable and that they would look into it.<p>One reporter interviewed an older physicist that worked with radiation protection for the government and asked him if a substantial amount of radiation had been released. He said something along the lines of:<p>"Well, yes there was a fairly significant amount of radiation, about the same level as you would be exposed to when standing next to several crates of bananas."<p>This made the media hype seem somewhat exaggerated...
Radioactive output of Chernobyl = 140e6 curies [1]<p>Output in picocuries = 140e6 * 1e12 = 1.4e20<p>Picocuries per kg of bananas = 3520<p>Radioactive output of Chernobyl in kg of bananas = 1.4e20 / 3520 ~= 4e16<p>(for reference, the weight of the Earth ~= 6e24 kg [2])<p>1: <a href="http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/read25.html" rel="nofollow">http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/read25.htm...</a><p>2: <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+the+earth+in+kg" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+the+earth+in+...</a>
This seems like a useful way to <i>decrease</i> concern about radiation exposure, but I think it causes the reverse problem. There is no size of banana-pile that I would consider dangerous. I would never think, "Well, that's as dangerous as a pile of 5 million bananas! Holy shit! Break out the lead suits and the iodine pills!"<p>Edit: if you believe the Wikipedia page on röntgen equivalents in man, it would seem that 100 rems "will cause illness," which, if I did my math ("maths" in the UK) correctly, is equivalent to eating around 10,000 bananas. It's not clear how much safer it is if you're not eating the bananas, but merely sitting near them, juggling them, or bathing in their puree.
When I worked at Brookhaven National Lab, the sewer system had radiation detectors in it, to ensure there was no improper disposal of radioactive stuff. It was said that it was sensitive enough to detect someone flushing a banana down the toilet.<p>The Assistant Director of the lab at the time, had had a radionuclide angiography, and I guess the radio marker is emitted in the urine, because he claimed to have set the alarms off after coming back to the lab post-procedure.
One thing to keep in mind vis-a-vis radioactive iodine is that it tends to concentrate in the thyroid, whereas potassium is distributed pretty evenly and excreted quickly.
The BED cited by wikipedia (3.6 millirems for eating one banana a day for a year) is equal to .000036 Sv. Will you get chronic radiation sickness from that? Not even close. Chronic exposure to radiation in the 0.4 Sv range--over 10,000 bananas per day--is not enough to cause harm, and actually appears to be beneficial.<p><a href="http://cerrie.org/committee_papers/INFO_14-C.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cerrie.org/committee_papers/INFO_14-C.pdf</a>
For those wanting to learn more about nuclear power, from uranium mining to how power plants work and how they are operated (the logistics of them), I recommend:<p><i>Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy</i> by Gwyneth Cravens.<p>She spent almost a decade doing the research for this book with lots of help from a physicist who works on nuclear safety at a US lab (forgot which one). She used to be an anti-nuclear activist, but gradually changed her mind during the process of writing this book.
I propose a larger unit of measure: the Chernobyl Sheep Equivalent Dose. This is based on a 50kg sheep at the upper allowable limit of 1000 Becquerels per kg.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects#Food_restrictions" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects#Food...</a><p>Converting our Banana Equivalent Dose of 520 picocuries.
1 Bq (Becquerel) = one radioactive decay per second.
1 Ci (Curie) = 3.7 * 10^10 Bq.
520 picocuries = 520 * 10^-12 Ci = 19.2 Bq.
Our 50kg sheep = 50 * 1000 = 50000 Bq.<p>1 Chernobyl Sheep Equivalent Dose = 2600 Banana Equivalent Doses.<p>Hopefully I got my sums right.
Ok. Exposure equiv to 1 banana. Sounds innocuous. But, is that 1 banana per day, hour, minute, per walk by the contaminated creak? And, for folks living near/in contaminated area with say 2 beqs a day. Has there been any studies of radiological health effects of "eating" 2beqs a day for 365 days over 10 years.<p>This measurement unit swings too far in the other direction of making radiation sound safe and tasty.<p>Radiation exposure is cumulative, every bit damages dna/cells even if only a little. I stopped eating Brazil nuts as a kid due to radiation amount. Now considering limiting banana to 1-2week instead of 1-2 day I eat now.
And I just can't help but thinking... "Aha. So that's where the Bananaphone song got its superpowers from!" ><<p>On a more serious note, I do love everyday comparisons that everyone can understand. For example, science books for kids measuring things in elephants or houses. It's a comparison they can understand. It's like scaling things down for your brain. They're good tools to detect nonsense, too. Take antivaccinationists. For example, they do talk a lot about "toxins" in vaccines - like formaldehyde. Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? Except... That the average pear has about fifty times the formaldehyde in it, and formaldehyde is naturally present in your body in the first place. Then there's the mercury preservative mostly gone from vaccines anyway - gone in a matter of days, since ethyl mercury is easily passed. The methyl mercury from that tuna salad you ate a month ago is still in your body. But when a non-scientific person just hears "mercury" or "formaldehyde"...
Speaking of having fun with radiation. I've never had the opportunity to point a geiger counter at the stomach of someone who has just eaten a banana, but I have "tracked" through walls and around the corner a co-worker who had just taken radioactive iodine(to destroy his thyroid). Good times.
A better idea might be more education on how radiation works and what kind of radiation is coming from the leak/crack/banana etc. At least in the US people are extremely ignorant of how radiation works and how it can make you sick.
"Chernobyl's radiation was detectable across Western Europe. Average doses received ranged from 0.02 mrem (Portugal) to 38 mrem (portions of Germany).[2] For comparison sake, the dose received from eating one banana per day for one year is roughly 3.3 mrem."
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_compared_to_other_radioactivity_releases" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_compared_to_other_rad...</a>
"Banana equivalent dose (wikipedia.org)
420 points by soyelmango 19 hours ago | 74 comments"<p>I wonder if I'm the only one who saw that, didn't read the article, and thought "Did some stoner just hack HN?"