[HN Gopher] Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades... ___________________________________________________________________ Nuclear fallout is showing up in U.S. honey, decades after bomb tests Author : ColinWright Score : 212 points Date : 2022-01-01 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.science.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org) | lmilcin wrote: | Actually, nuclear fallout is present in everything. | | Following Trinity test and the rest of nuclear testing campaign, | every single living thing or any matter that has been processed | in any way has been contaminated and shows high background | radiation (compared to pre-Trinity test). | | That's why some materials like steel from ships comissioned | before Trinity test or lead ballast from sunken Roman ships is | highly sought after where low background radiation material is | required. | | https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/search-d... | dtgriscom wrote: | Obligatory XKCD reference on radiation levels: | https://xkcd.com/radiation/ | goatsi wrote: | For lead the radioactivity comes from uranium mixed with the | original ore, not from outside sources. That's why it needs to | be hundreds or thousands of years old rather than just pre | 1945. | | >All lead mined on Earth naturally contains some amount of the | radioactive element uranium 235, which decays, over time, into | another radioactive element, a version of lead called lead 210. | When lead ore is first processed, it is purified and most of | the uranium is removed. Whatever lead 210 is already present | begins to break down, with half of it decaying on average every | 22 years. In Roman lead almost all of the lead 210 has already | decayed, whereas in lead mined today, it is just beginning to | decay. | | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-roman-lea... | secondcoming wrote: | Probably a stupid question, but wouldn't all lead have | started decaying at the same time? Why would lead only start | to decay once it has been mined? | coryrc wrote: | Only lead 210 is radioactive. Lead 210 is only created by | uranium. | | Lead 210 has a short half-life, uranium 235 has a long one. | Thus, once uranium is removed, lead 210 levels drop | "quickly". | Lanolderen wrote: | "When lead ore is first processed, it is purified and most | of the uranium is removed. Whatever lead 210 is already | present begins to break down, with half of it decaying on | average every 22 years. In Roman lead almost all of the | lead 210 has already decayed, whereas in lead mined today, | it is just beginning to decay." | jabl wrote: | > Following Trinity test and the rest of nuclear testing | campaign, every single living thing or any matter that has been | processed in any way has been contaminated and shows high | background radiation (compared to pre-Trinity test). | | Well, high and high. On average, humans worldwide receive a | dose of about 4 mSv/year. Nuclear weapons testing and nuclear | accidents contribute about 0.01 mSv/year to that. | lmilcin wrote: | Well, "high" was meant in context of the title of the article | as in "detectably higher". | downrightmike wrote: | Yup, illegal grave robbing in the south pacific is destroying | many ships that were lost with hands onboard. | https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03... | omgJustTest wrote: | radwatch.berkeley.edu | | (This is an educational site that does food monitoring as public | outreach. It is underfunded, and full disclosure, I am a former | leader of the project). | omgJustTest wrote: | https://radwatch.berkeley.edu/current-air-activity/ | https://radwatch.berkeley.edu/current-sampling/ Are the two | links of particular interest / relevance to naturally occurring | radioactive materials, distinctions between fallout and reactor | isotopic compositions and etc. | | (Broken links are all over the page because as I said, | underfunded and mostly run by students these days) | grapescheesee wrote: | Sweet, thanks for the links and efforts. Do they have much | for historical data available? | jetsetgo wrote: | acidburnNSA wrote: | Nuclear engineer here. In school in Ann Arbor we ran a radiation | detector overnight in the lab and were able to identify several | nuclides in the air leftover from weapons tests. Fun times. | | Of course the dose rate from these nuclides was many orders of | magnitude less than natural background so it was more a curiosity | than a concern. Radiation detectors can detect single atoms | decaying. | | If I could have one media wish this year, it would be that | whenever someone says something is 'radioactive', everyone else | asks what the dose rate is compared to natural background before | talking about hazards. | roenxi wrote: | Speaking as a cheerfully untrained armchair observer, we might | also expect the nuclear fallout to be detectable for at least | the next 50,000 years [0] on the basis that detection equipment | is really sensitive. Sensitive to the point where we can detect | sunny days happening several millennia ago. | | This looks like silly news. They may as well just have run with | "US did nuclear tests in the 1960s" or "radioactive cesium has | a half life" and left it at that unless there is something to | report on. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating | theptip wrote: | This is the general point that most of the press and general | public fail to appreciate when thinking about radiation risk. | | Similarly after Fukushima, there were terrified articles about | how radiation could be detected in fish across the Pacific. But | as you say, at what level? Certainly orders of magnitude lower | than your baseline exposure. We just have very accurate | detectors! | mwattsun wrote: | I wore a dosimeter in my 20's on a nuclear submarine and received | some radiation exposure working on the reactor, but the Navy | explained to me that it was balanced out because I was underwater | and not receiving radiation exposure from the sun. 40 years | later, and still cancer free, knock on wood. | | In a related note, I know someone who keeps bees and harvests | honey. I recently visited the spot way out in the mountains where | he does this and I asked why he chose a spot so far out. He | explained that to get the organic label, the honey must contain | no pesticides and if you keep bees around the property of other | people they will ingest pesticides from flowers on those | property, since pesticides are so commonly used. | Tade0 wrote: | It might have been because of the insecticides really. I have a | donation subscription to an organisation which keeps bees in | the dead center of a 1.7mln city. | | Turns out the bees thrive in this environment, because they're | still better off there than in the countryside. | Luc wrote: | > the honey must contain no pesticides and if you keep bees | around the property of other people they will ingest pesticides | from flowers on those property, since pesticides are so | commonly used. | | I think this is a very common misunderstanding. The bees are | allowed to forage on organically-cultivated crops, and farmers | can use a whole range of 'natural' but also 'certified' | synthetic pesticides on them. | | Producers of organic food don't seem to mind too much that | people assume organic food growing doesn't involve the use of | pesticides. | mwattsun wrote: | Is there a word for "strictly" organic, because that's what | my friend is by choice | Arnt wrote: | Biodynamic, more or less. | | Which is a funny group of people. Their rules sound kooky, | but their results aren't at all what I would expect from | kooks. The best strawberry jam I can get here comes from | from a farm where they (I learned when I asked about why | it's so good) turns their compost according to the phases | of the moon. Weird. The same farm was also raided by the | police. 130 police officers searched the place at dawn one | morning, and apparently the only reason for suspicion was | that those weirdos had money to spare for a succession of | new greenhouses even in years when all their conventional | neighbours had no money to spare for anything. | nsxwolf wrote: | I first heard about biodynamics on a winery tour in | Sonoma Valley. I couldn't believe my ears. It was like | Scientology for grapes. | Arnt wrote: | The _Oxford Companion to Wine_ has a long article about | it. It "remained little known in the wine world until an | increasing number of top-quality producers" adopted it, | many of whom learned about it from someone who "makes no | claim to understanding how biodynamics works". I, uh, | find it difficult to believe ... but these actually are | top-quality producers. | | The _Companion_ also notes that many of them do it but | prefer discretion. I can see why. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | Regenerative Organic Certified | https://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic- | certificati... | hammock wrote: | The synthetics that are allowed in certified organic farming | are pretty limited (when it comes to pesticide use) and | pretty innocuous. Anyone can read about them specifically | here: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/part-205/subpart-g | traceroute66 wrote: | > the Navy explained to me that it was balanced out because I | was underwater and not receiving radiation exposure from the | sun | | With the greatest respect to the Navy, I smell more fish than | in the seas that submarine travelled through. | | My non-scientific understanding is that sun exposure is UV | radiation exposure which causes skin melanoma. Meanwhile with | nuclear reactors, UV is not the problem and the problem with | exposure goes deeper than skin melanoma. | | My feeling is you received a standardised "policy explanation" | rather than an entirely scientific one. Happy to be proven | wrong with links to scientific fact though ! | lorenzhs wrote: | Cosmic background radiation is a thing and water is really | good at blocking it, so it's not complete bullshit. Of | course, without knowing what dose the GP received, it's | impossible to say whether it's a comparable dose to what they | would have received on the surface - but it's plausible. | doodlebugging wrote: | (https://spaceweather.com/) | | There is some good information about the relative exposure | levels to cosmic radiation that one can expect to encounter | on this site. They have been doing balloon launches and | measuring in-flight levels for quite a while now. | spfzero wrote: | Not to mention radiation from the ground, which can be | significant in some locations. | traceroute66 wrote: | > Cosmic background radiation is a thing | | Indeed. But isn't it really only "a thing" for airline | pilots, cabin crew and a few unfortunate people at ground | level who happen to live/work high-altitude on mountains or | somewhere lower down with the wrong kind of rocks ? | mlyle wrote: | See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595 | traceroute66 wrote: | Cool, thanks for that. I didn't realise XKCD actually | posted serious stuff. ;-) | trenchgun wrote: | Also: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ | _ph_ wrote: | Depends how you look at it. Cosmic radiation might not be | extremely high level on the sea level, but it is a thing. | So the total radiation dosis in a nuclear submarine might | equal or even be less than on the surface. | | Fun story: as part of my physics education we did an | experiment on the cosmic radiation with a "radiation" | telescope. That were 2 Geiger counters with a logic that | only registered events which basically occured in both | counters at the same time. That made the observation | reasonably detectable and you could "see" the sun with | this. This experiment was conducted indoors, just on the | top floor of the building. We had about 1 event/second, | our bodies would be getting a similar dosis all the time. | goodpoint wrote: | The idea that radiation exposure can be "balanced out" is | very sketchy. Reminds me of | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation | ch4s3 wrote: | I think they just poorly explained that his exposure in | the sub was lower than background radiation levels on the | sea surface. You get more rads living in Colorado for a | year than anyone would get working in a nuclear power | plant for a year at sea level. | mlyle wrote: | XKCD has a really good chart: | | https://xkcd.com/radiation/ | | Humans receive about 3-4 mSv per year of background radiation | on average. Some of this is from radioactive decay, and some | from cosmic radiation. Being underwater much of the year | might shave 1-2 mSv off this. | | Civilian radiation workers can receive, by regulation, doses | up to 50 mSv per year. Typical reactor workers in the | civilian energy sector get a couple mSv per year of dose. It | is plausible that he was close to breakeven. | | 100mSv/year is the lowest dose that has shown a clear link to | increased cancer risk. | amelius wrote: | Seems strange that there is only a factor of 2 between | maximum allowed dose and lowest dose linked to cancer. | mlyle wrote: | We accept occupational risks all the time. Here, the | threshold for radiation workers allows a dose half of | what has been ever linked to any amount of cancer. | | The overall average, across all industries, fatal work | injury risk is something like 35 per 1,000,000 worker- | years. Compare to this, where the risk to radiation | workers from radiation, _if_ they receive the highest | allowed dose (and basically no one does) can be | confidently bounded to be _well_ under 1 per 1,000,000 | worker-years. (And, if it should ever happen, is likely | to be far in the future and cost less life expectancy as | a result). | gkop wrote: | Would you say more? What that suggests to me is the | authority responsible for setting the max allowed said | "Well let's keep it below the threshold linked to cancer, | reduce it by half for safety factor, and call it a day". | IE they chose one of the simplest possible approaches- | doesn't seem surprising, but I am probably missing your | point. | KarlKemp wrote: | There are any number of substances where there's little | doubt that they can cause cancer even at minuscule doses, | just at similarly low rates. Get enough data and you will | find that a single whiff of tobacco smoke (or any other | smoke) can cause cancer. The "lowest dose linked to | cancer" is the result of our ability to measure such | effects, not anything intrinsic to the harm these | substances do. | | That's specific for cancer. For other forms of toxicity, | the concept of "maximum safe dosage" does make sense when | the dose/effect relationship is not linear. | Pharmaceuticals, for example, can be entirely benign at | small dosages yet lethal if you overdose. | fallingknife wrote: | But we can still set a significance threshold. Your point | applies equally to radiation exposure flying on an | airplane but we don't worry about the cancer odds from a | single flight since it's lower than the (already | miniscule) odds of crashing. | KarlKemp wrote: | The dose-dependent risk of cancer is in textbooks as an | example of linearity. While it is hard to shown for low | values of exposure because any measurements/estimates would | drown in noise and errors, there is little doubt that the | relation shown for higher values is just as valid at the | lower end. That also conforms with the stochastic model of | how radiation causes cancers and the mutagenic effects of | low-dose radiation seen in vitro. | mlyle wrote: | We're not absolutely confident that there's not some | threshold dose. LNT is a decent conservative assumption | for calculating the harms from low doses and reasonable | to use for regulatory purposes. | | Even so, radiation hormesis has been noted in lab models, | etc (slight benefits from low doses). | tapland wrote: | It's true for nuclear reactor buildings where the walls block | more background radiation as well. | | I'd you are worried, avoid plane flights. | | Handy simplified chart: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ | ch4s3 wrote: | Apparently you should also avoid Finland which averages | 0.11uSv. | jabl wrote: | Per the Finnish radiation protection agency the average | dose is 5.9 mSv/y: | https://www.stuk.fi/en/web/en/topics/what-is- | radiation/the-a... | | A large chunk of that average dose, 4 mSv, is from radon, | where the dose varies a lot depending on where you live, | and if you live in such a radon-prone location, whether | you have sufficient ventilation in your house. | trenchgun wrote: | Radon should not be that bad, unless combined with | smoking. | | Source: live in Finland and have read the health | authority info on subject. | jabl wrote: | Yes, you're correct. The page I linked to has this to | say: | | "For example, the health risk caused by radon is | estimated on the basis of epidemiologic examinations, not | the effective dose. Every year, an average of 280 Finns | die from lung cancer caused by radon. Of these cases, 240 | deaths are induced by smoking in addition to radon." | | So they're not actually measuring an average 4 mSv/y dose | from radon, but rather going the other way, that is that | 280 yearly deaths from radon would be consistent with an | average dose of 4 mSv/y (assuming LNT, presumably). | mwattsun wrote: | You're probably right. I thought the same thing, but since I | didn't care I didn't pursue it. I would have cared if the | scuttlebutt was that people were getting sick and dying, but | that was not the case. Sub sailors were not dying in an | detectable numbers. | ampdepolymerase wrote: | The math sounds nonsensical. The risk adjusted exposure from a | reactor should definitely be higher as you would be closer to | the threshold of DNA bond breaking. Being stabbed once a year | isn't necessary better than getting hundred paper cuts. Any | actuaries here care to comment? | giantg2 wrote: | Depends on what the actual numbers are. Can't really do the | math without them. | ErikVandeWater wrote: | > The risk adjusted exposure from a reactor should definitely | be higher as you would be closer to the threshold of DNA bond | breaking. | | How are you so certain? You don't know the specifics of the | situation. If he worked underwater for a year and spent half | a day working on a reactor in protective gear it could easily | even out. | manquer wrote: | He is not saying the overall exposure may not be same (it | could be) he is saying risk of cancer or other bad side | effects may not be equal in both scenarios. | trenchgun wrote: | He said: | | > The risk adjusted exposure from a reactor should | definitely be higher as you would be closer to the | threshold of DNA bond breaking. | | That does sound like bullshit to me. Using the word | "definitely" without giving any numbers. | jcims wrote: | There are mountains of literature and regulations on this and | the math just kind of works that way (up to some limit, | beyond which acute radiation effects will begin to dominate) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model | | There is now some thought that very low doses of ionizing | radiation are better than no radiation at all (so called | 'radiation hormesis'), but I don't believe that has been | adopted as part of any specific standard. | | FWIW an individual person may be experiencing up to a | trillion DNA mutations per day from both external and | internal mechanisms of action. We just have a bunch of | systems built in to prevent them from getting out of control | (most of the time). | hasmanean wrote: | You're breathing the same recycled air for weeks at a time. The | radiation is continuously creating isotopes in the gases in | that air. That means a continuously increasing radiation | exposure the longer you stay underwater. | | On the surface any radioactive gases get dispersed in the | atmosphere. | pdonis wrote: | _> On the surface any radioactive gases get dispersed in the | atmosphere._ | | The relevant radiation exposure when you're outdoors is not | from radioactive gases in the air, it's from radiation | hitting atoms in your body. (The relevant radiation to | compare with what a nuclear reactor produces is actually not | from the Sun, it's from cosmic rays.) | trenchgun wrote: | Surely that would show up on the dosimeter? | trhway wrote: | The accumulation of alpha emitters in the body would not. | pdonis wrote: | What alpha emitters would be relevant here (even assuming | there was any stray radiation in the rest of the | submarine)? | mwattsun wrote: | No, this is not the case. We often surfaced at night to | recirculate with fresh air. In fact, this is done so often | that the first thing we do is turn the clocks 12 hour forward | so our day shift when everyone was working occurred at night. | We need to surface to recharge the lead acid battery off the | diesel engine as well, which was done to make sure that kept | working well. I did this when newly qualified as an electric | plant operator and it was difficult for me to do correctly. | pdonis wrote: | _> The radiation is continuously creating isotopes in the | gases in that air._ | | What radiation? Note that he didn't say he received radiation | exposure throughout the submarine, only "working on the | reactor". That's an isolated space that doesn't continuously | exchange air with the rest of the submarine and has an extra | layer of shielding between it and the rest of the submarine | (in addition to the shielding around the reactor itself that | separates that from the space where people working on the | reactor go--nobody ever goes inside the reactor itself). | tata71 wrote: | How can we collate a list of all these committed people, and | verifiably share their commitment to excellence? | mixedCase wrote: | The GP mentioned this is what the organic label requires, so | you could use that as an indicator. | natpalmer1776 wrote: | No idea if this comment was intended as humor but it had me | chuckling. | tyingq wrote: | At least save whatever documentation you have. I have some | letter from the military about various nasty organic solvents | they had us use squirreled away somewhere. | mwattsun wrote: | They sent me something out of the blue a couple of years ago | documenting my total radiation exposure. There must have been | a law passed sometime. | EarlKing wrote: | _ahem_ https://archive.fo/8SZos | egberts1 wrote: | I wonder if this unclaimed and unrecoverable nuclear bomb is the | real culprit here in North Carolina. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash | dtgriscom wrote: | "Excuse me sir, is this your nuclear bomb?" "Let me look... no, | doesn't look like any of the ones I'm missing." | [deleted] | xd wrote: | You know what would be a really nice HN feature.. when you submit | a URL it can be flagged as "pay per view" and I can have a | profile setting to filter them out. | encryptluks2 wrote: | HN... Where all the techies use a janky website up talk about | their non-janky web projects. | dcposch wrote: | Exactly the opposite, actually. | | HN is an exceptionally clean, minimalist website. Instant | page loads. No ads, no "accept cookie" banner, no autoplaying | media, in fact no media of any kind, no engagement-maximizing | algorithm. Quality moderation via dedicated human mods. | | Then everyone comes here to talk about their Svelte ESnext | 69.0 x serverless kubernetes 3d metaverse animated gif NFT | marketplace subscription-based growth hack horror they're | about to inflict on the public. | encryptluks2 wrote: | Yet you would never see me talking about JS being a | positive when it comes to web design, but there is still a | lot to be desired when it comes to HN. | rowanG077 wrote: | HN is by far the least janky website I use. | tenebrisalietum wrote: | No bullshit != janky. | | Janky is 50MB of Javascript that doesn't load all at once so | things jump around ocnstantly at the start, only to display | 1/3 of the text of an article before you insert 3 ads but I | won't know that until I click past the cookie warning and the | "Please subscribe" popup that happens when I scroll more than | 100 pixels. | encryptluks2 wrote: | You assume that when I say janky that I mean JavaScript. | Sites can not have JavaScript and still be featureful when | it comes to features and privacy. In this instance I was | specifically talking about rate limiting responses and some | of the censorship I see here. | fouc wrote: | Simplest solution would be to write it at the end of the title. | Something like [paywall] or (paywall) perhaps? | | It would be nice if HN posts could include an "alt link" which | would be paywall free. (like an archive.is link or similar) | ricardobeat wrote: | Been asking for this feature for half a decade. | xyst wrote: | While the levels of radiocesium found in honey are not harmful to | humans, I wonder if it has any deleterious effects on the bees | themselves? Could this be a contribution to the "colony collapse | disorder" we are seeing worldwide? | themaninthedark wrote: | They mention it might be having an effect but also stat the the | level is about 10 times lower than in the 70's. So my guess is | that unless a high level of radioactivity is good but low level | is bad then it is not a major contributing factor. | laserbeam wrote: | Unlikely. The article talks about a localized phenomenon, not | something that could effect worldwide bee population issues. It | explicitly talks about comparing honey from that region to | other honey in the US. | | Pesticides, possibly pollution, and disease in general are much | more likely candidates. Last I heard there was an issue with | some bee parasites, however you'd need to verify that. | dtech wrote: | No, if that were the case it would have started in the 60's and | gradually gotten better (bees have short lifespans). Instead, | it's gotten worse and started much later. Pesticides are a much | more likely explanation. | newsclues wrote: | I often wonder if nuclear testing or fossil fuels is having a | worse impact on humans and society. Maybe both are partly to | blame for the madness | godelski wrote: | Fossil fuels. No question. We know the dangers of both very | well. Only a handful of people have died from nuclear. More | people die each day from climate. | drran wrote: | How much we can <<safely>> kill by nuclear power? Can you | give us a number? | kube-system wrote: | Not to mention that the use of fossil fuels also releases | small amounts of radioactive contamination directly into the | atmosphere as a matter of normal use. | ThinkBeat wrote: | Um he said "nuclear testing", not "nuclear power". | trenchgun wrote: | How many people have died from nuclear testing? | laurent92 wrote: | > More people die each day from climate. | | And from solar panels! There are a dozen deaths a year, | worldwide, from installing them on roofs, which mean solar is | more deadly than nuclear ;) | 8bitsrule wrote: | >Only a handful of people have died from nuclear. | | I accept that statement only when it's followed by ' so far | as you know.' | | [https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/atomic- | veterans-1946-...] | | [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/25/us/us-nuclear-accident- | in...] | godelski wrote: | I accept that statement but also the people we do know that | have died are several orders of magnitude. While I'm sure | there are plenty of people that have died from radiation | that we don't know of I'm sure this number isn't in the | millions but rather in the dozens or hundreds. It'd be | pretty difficult to hide so many deaths. | palijer wrote: | What do you mean by "the madness"? | Victerius wrote: | I like honey and nuclear weapons. I consume honey on a daily | basis. Can this affect my health? Am I eating radioactive | fallout? | devmunchies wrote: | > I like honey and nuclear weapons | | I eat enough honey that I _AM_ a nuclear weapon. | GordonS wrote: | I can understand liking nuclear _power_ , but you _like_... | nuclear weapons?! Or has my sarcasm meter failed miserably?! | missedthecue wrote: | There is a theory that the so called 'Long Peace' of | 1945-present is a direct consequence of nuclear | proliferation. This could be one possible reason to like | nuclear weapons. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Peace | ssivark wrote: | Sure... but that's an off-by-one error from wiping out | civilization. | hetspookjee wrote: | Well minus the fallout and mortalities quite some people, | included, find big explosions quite awesome. I wouldn't say I | like nuclear weapons specifically though | vmchale wrote: | > Levels of radioactive cesium aren't concerning, but | | See the subtitle. | tenpies wrote: | If anything, in tens of thousands of years, when | anthropologists dig up the remains of the 2000s civilizations, | you will make it that much easier for them to date us. | masklinn wrote: | dtech wrote: | It's in the article | | > The radiocesium levels reported in the new study fall "well | below" 1200 becquerels per kilogram--the cutoff for any food | safety concerns, the agency (red: FDA) says. | [deleted] | rikeanimer wrote: | Is bad understanding of dosimetry gonna be a thing now? I hope | not. Cosmic microwave background radiation only makes your dick | hard. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761587 | Krasnol wrote: | Germany still has significant radiation in wild boars (and | mushrooms) from the Chernobyl fallout: | | https://www.umweltanalysen.com/en/wild-boar/cesium-137-conta... | | > From September 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2019, muscle meat | samples from 376 wild boars were delivered by the forest services | (Bodenmais 129, Dahn 123 and Zusmarshausen 124). So far, 355 | samples have been measured for Cs-137 activity. The Cs-137 | contamination of wild boars fluctuated seasonally depending on | the availability of individual food components within a study | area, with the variability of the measured values being up to | three orders of magnitude. The values ranged from 0.6 Bq/kg fresh | mass (FM) (Dahn) to 16,704 Bq/kg (Bodenmais). | [deleted] | godelski wrote: | This constantly gets brought up but few people run the numbers | because you can safely eat kilograms of each a day. You can see | the full calculations if you search my comments. The truth is | just that we're really good at detecting radiation because | doing so allows us to better detect weapons. | Krasnol wrote: | The thing is: it doesn't matter what me or you think about | it. | | There are food regulations in Germany and they need to be | obeyed. | godelski wrote: | Sure. But if the numbers are below regulation numbers why | write articles on it constantly. I mean the same thing | happened with fish around California after Fukushima. There | was a measurable increase in radiation in the fish but | still well below legal limits which are below dangerous | levels (factors of safety are built in. Caution is good | after all). | hutzlibu wrote: | But regulations can be changed, if they are stupid. | | So are they stupid(overprotective), or do they make sense, | in the meaning there _is_ a real danger from eating | contaminated boar? | deeg wrote: | How does the radiation from boar meat compare to sunlight? | E.g. eating 500 grams is similar to sitting in the sun for 5 | minutes, in very rough comparison. | pvg wrote: | It mostly doesn't compare - sitting in the sun for five | minutes doesn't expose you to much in the way of ionizing | radiation as almost all of it is filtered out by the | atmosphere. And when you get out of the sun, it stops. | Radioactively contaminated food glows at your insides for | much longer. Cs-137 biological half-life is weeks: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137#Health_risk_of_ra | d... | godelski wrote: | Radiation is a pretty weird thing that is easily | misunderstood because people use the same term to talk | about very different things. While sitting in the sun will | cause UV radiation and can result in skin cancer it's not | the same as interesting cesium. Though both can cause | cancer. | | But if we're just talking about increase chance of cancer | iirc the meat calculations you need to eat like 15 kg of | boar a day from that region (like 3kg if the highest | measured). I'll let you make your guesstimate from there. | And we're not even talking about risk of cancer from eating | that much meat. | trenchgun wrote: | What do you mean my significant? | | See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28912557 | Krasnol wrote: | Significant means that hunters need to hand in their boar, it | will be checked and if it surpasses the health levels | defined, they're reimbursed with 250EUR for every boar. This | is taxpayer money. And just the state of Bavaria pays | millions every year. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-01 23:00 UTC)