5 ms·

In most regions of southern Germany, many varieties of mushrooms as well as game (in particular wild boar) are still contaminated with >1k Bq/kg caesium 137 [1]

• JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  The wild boars eat moss growing on trees, which is a tremendous filter for particles. A reasonable cleanup process might be, harvest tree moss and reduce it to radioactive elements. Or just harvest the boars I guess?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• dgellow 5y ago
  To give a bit of context and relativize: > Between September 2012 and August 2013, 297 out of 752 boars exceeded legal limits of radiation -- particularly the hazardous isotope Caesium 137, which has a 30-year half-life and decays slowly. But to give an idea of how strict the regulations really are, experts say that a person would have to eat 13 kilograms of contaminated meat to get the same low-level radioactive effects of being on a transatlantic flight. Quote from this article from 2014: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chernobyl-disaster-leaves-radioactive-wild-boars-roaming-germany-n193596 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chernobyl-disaster-leaves....
  • CoastalCoder 5y ago
    > Caesium 137, which has a 30-year half-life and decays slowly Forgive my layman's ignorance, but "decays slowly" is just a less precise version of the "30-year half-life" statement, right?
    • bluGill 5y ago
      Either way it is wrong. 35 years is fast enough to not worry about long term. It only takes a couple centuries for anything with a half-life that small to complete decay. For nuclear waste we worry about things with half-lives in the thousands of years as we can't be sure we can store it for as long as it is dangerous. The real question then becomes what does it decay into? A lot of things decay some something with a dangerously long half life.
      • refurb 5y ago
        But, half-life and hazard are related as well. If atoms aren’t decaying (and spitting out alpha, beta particles or gamma rays) they aren’t much of a radiological hazard. Short-half life means more radiation hazard.
      • Pyramus 5y ago
        I'm not sure I understand, are you saying we should not worry about immediate effects that only affect 1 or 2 generations? I don't see why thinking about negative effects over different timespans should be exclusive - climate change certainly won't be an issue in thousands of years (if we still exist).
        • bluGill 5y ago
          I'm saying 30 year half lifes are still considered short. We still need to worry for a few generations, but that is enough to remain in memory. If we forget about the problem in 300 years - that is 10 half lives and so it isn't a big deal. If something has a 1000 year half life it will be dangerous far longer than we can remember to watch out.
          • Someone 5y ago
            Yes, but assuming equal mass of radio active material and identical radiation output something with a half-life of 1000 years is less dangerous, radiation-wise (it still might be more poisonous) Caesium is often brought up in this kind of discussions. I think one reason might be because it decays fast enough to be harmful and still slow enough to be harmful for considerable time. Another reason might be that more of it gets released in your typical nuclear accident. I wouldn’t know whether that is true.
• ipaddr 5y ago
  It is still contaminated because the half live is 30 years. After 35 years it is half as strong. In 350 years it will still be contaminated but it would have halved 10 times.
  • fastball 5y ago
    *300 years
• cbmuser 5y ago
  They are. But you would have to eat 50 kilograms of these mushrooms to get a dose of 2 mV which is the safe annual dose for your average Joe: > https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/lebensmittel/pilze-wildbret/pilze-wildbret.html https://www.bfs.de/DE/themen/ion/umwelt/lebensmittel/pilze-w... > https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ If you’re a smoker, you’re probably exposing yourself to higher doses per year than anyone eating these mushrooms during mushroom season.
  • tremon 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying that one needs to eat 50 kilogram of those daily to exceed the safe annual dose, or that if one eats 50 kilogram over a year, they'll have amassed more radiation from that single source than is considered safe? If the latter, is it safe expose yourself to more than [annual dose/365] in a short time? Because 50 kg/year is just 150 gram/day, and some people eat more than that in one sitting.
• amelius 5y ago
  Reminds me of atomic gardening, where the radiation is deliberately introduced to perform mutation breeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening