4 ms·

Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism - "Invisible death rays are killing you right now!" That's exactly the kind of thing you woul

by ejames 16y ago

Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism - "Invisible death rays are killing you right now!" That's exactly the kind of thing you would actually, really want to be very afraid of if it were happening, because developing symptoms is the only way a civilian could notice. But the important part of assessing danger is knowing the strength of the radiation, and most public accounts simplistically divide objects into "radioactive, run for your lives" or "safe". Since measurements can accurately distinguish levels of radiation that are actually indistinguishable as far as real danger to human beings, you get reports like in the link stating that "the milk is radioactive!" when it's only 1/75th of a banana dose and no threat at all.

Natsu 16y ago
> Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism It's strange, but it wasn't always this way. If you look back into older literature, there was a sense that radioactive things would bring about a bright, promising future. So much so that people did some pretty crazy things (at least, knowing what we know now) like those foot x-rays that shoe stores once gave (which caused some pretty high radiation exposure), or those "health" drinks that got people to drink Radium water a long time ago[1]. But once the problems came to light along with the fears of nuclear war and the demonstration of the power of atomic weapons, radiation became something to be feared, even irrationally much. I really hope that things even out over time, so that we fear it neither too much nor too little. It certainly can be dangerous. There were even some really scary criticality accidents[2] with people working on the cores to nuclear bombs. But at the same time, people point out that we don't have to fear every bit of radiation. After all, there's plenty of natural background radiation all around us, from bananas to Brazil nuts. I wish that we could come up with a happy medium, but I think it will require a lot of time and education. [1] If you want to see the Radium water, read this: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-drink-radiation http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-d... [2] The "walking ghost" phase after massive exposure is especially creepy. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident

by ejames 16y ago

Natsu 16y ago

> Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism It's strange, but it wasn't always this way. If you look back into older literature, there was a sense that radioactive things would bring about a bright, promising future. So much so that people did some pretty crazy things (at least, knowing what we know now) like those foot x-rays that shoe stores once gave (which caused some pretty high radiation exposure), or those "health" drinks that got people to drink Radium water a long time ago[1]. But once the problems came to light along with the fears of nuclear war and the demonstration of the power of atomic weapons, radiation became something to be feared, even irrationally much. I really hope that things even out over time, so that we fear it neither too much nor too little. It certainly can be dangerous. There were even some really scary criticality accidents[2] with people working on the cores to nuclear bombs. But at the same time, people point out that we don't have to fear every bit of radiation. After all, there's plenty of natural background radiation all around us, from bananas to Brazil nuts. I wish that we could come up with a happy medium, but I think it will require a lot of time and education. [1] If you want to see the Radium water, read this: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-drink-radiation http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-d... [2] The "walking ghost" phase after massive exposure is especially creepy. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident