9 ms·

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 balan

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.

tata71 5y ago
How can we collate a list of all these committed people, and verifiably share their commitment to excellence?
- mixedCase 5y ago
  The GP mentioned this is what the organic label requires, so you could use that as an indicator.
  - natpalmer1776 5y ago
    No idea if this comment was intended as humor but it had me chuckling.
tyingq 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
ampdepolymerase 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Depends on what the actual numbers are. Can't really do the math without them.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
- jcims 5y ago
  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 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).
Luc 5y ago
> 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.
- hammock 5y ago
  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 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/part-205/subpart-g
- mwattsun 5y ago
  Is there a word for "strictly" organic, because that's what my friend is by choice
  - Arnt 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      I first heard about biodynamics on a winery tour in Sonoma Valley. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was like Scientology for grapes.
traceroute66 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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.
  - traceroute66 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595
      - traceroute66 5y ago
        Cool, thanks for that. I didn't realise XKCD actually posted serious stuff. ;-)
        5y ago
hasmanean 5y ago
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.
- trenchgun 5y ago
  Surely that would show up on the dosimeter?
  - trhway 5y ago
    The accumulation of alpha emitters in the body would not.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      What alpha emitters would be relevant here (even assuming there was any stray radiation in the rest of the submarine)?
- pdonis 5y ago
  > 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).
- pdonis 5y ago
  > 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.)
Tade0 5y ago
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.
errcorrectcode 5y ago
I would take anything the US mil claimed with a large grain of sodium chloride. There has been an extensive history of them and their affiliated contractors lying to personnel and civilians: agent orange, ddt, pcbs, gulf war syndrome/pesticides/sarin/mustard gas, radium, and so on. You have to know your actual average, peak, and total dosages to be able to compare it with everyday civie life. Regarding pesticides: the US has a major problem with gross under-regulation of chemicals in nearly every context. This stems from TSCA 1964 grandfathering-in 10k's of chemicals without evidence of safety, a guiding principle of "assume safe until proven otherwise because profits", and ignoring safety data and conservative exposure standards set in the rest of the industrialized world. Edit: My father worked on the flight line of a US military base in Vietnam. He was exposed to agent orange, unburnt napalm, and jet fuel many times. He suffered from the rare adult-onset type I diabetes for most of his life and experienced several kinds of cancers.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  > Regarding pesticides: the US has a major problem with gross under-regulation of chemicals in nearly every context. There’s other weird corners to pesticides. I found myself helping somebody with a .gov contract that required computing equipment to be sanitized and cleaned with a manufacturer recommended method that is a listed pesticide. Problem: most manufacturers recommend isopropyl alcohol for this purpose, and it’s one of those grandfathered in chemicals, and isn’t “listed” as a pesticide. Solution: We found a company that made cleaning supplies for industrial processes, and they had a specific formulation of isopropyl alcohol wipes listed as a pesticide. (For a price nearly 20x more than normal products) It’s a silly story but illustrates how nuts this stuff is. Just with something silly like sanitizing wipes, people are using proprietary “quats” with serious potential health impacts where something as simple as alcohol could easily do the job.
  - sizzle 5y ago
    Any idea how carcinogenic Lysol wipes are from exposing them to your hands everyday from sanitizing surfaces? The chemical is really unique sounding.

tata71 5y ago

How can we collate a list of all these committed people, and verifiably share their commitment to excellence?

mixedCase 5y ago
The GP mentioned this is what the organic label requires, so you could use that as an indicator.
- natpalmer1776 5y ago
  No idea if this comment was intended as humor but it had me chuckling.

tyingq 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.

ampdepolymerase 5y ago

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 5y ago
Depends on what the actual numbers are. Can't really do the math without them.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
jcims 5y ago
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 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).

Luc 5y ago

> 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.

hammock 5y ago
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 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/part-205/subpart-g
mwattsun 5y ago
Is there a word for "strictly" organic, because that's what my friend is by choice
- Arnt 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    I first heard about biodynamics on a winery tour in Sonoma Valley. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was like Scientology for grapes.

traceroute66 5y ago

> 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 5y ago
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.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29761595
    - traceroute66 5y ago
      Cool, thanks for that. I didn't realise XKCD actually posted serious stuff. ;-)
      - 5y ago

hasmanean 5y ago

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.

trenchgun 5y ago
Surely that would show up on the dosimeter?
- trhway 5y ago
  The accumulation of alpha emitters in the body would not.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    What alpha emitters would be relevant here (even assuming there was any stray radiation in the rest of the submarine)?
pdonis 5y ago
> 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).
pdonis 5y ago
> 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.)

Tade0 5y ago

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.

errcorrectcode 5y ago

I would take anything the US mil claimed with a large grain of sodium chloride. There has been an extensive history of them and their affiliated contractors lying to personnel and civilians: agent orange, ddt, pcbs, gulf war syndrome/pesticides/sarin/mustard gas, radium, and so on. You have to know your actual average, peak, and total dosages to be able to compare it with everyday civie life. Regarding pesticides: the US has a major problem with gross under-regulation of chemicals in nearly every context. This stems from TSCA 1964 grandfathering-in 10k's of chemicals without evidence of safety, a guiding principle of "assume safe until proven otherwise because profits", and ignoring safety data and conservative exposure standards set in the rest of the industrialized world. Edit: My father worked on the flight line of a US military base in Vietnam. He was exposed to agent orange, unburnt napalm, and jet fuel many times. He suffered from the rare adult-onset type I diabetes for most of his life and experienced several kinds of cancers.

Spooky23 5y ago
> Regarding pesticides: the US has a major problem with gross under-regulation of chemicals in nearly every context. There’s other weird corners to pesticides. I found myself helping somebody with a .gov contract that required computing equipment to be sanitized and cleaned with a manufacturer recommended method that is a listed pesticide. Problem: most manufacturers recommend isopropyl alcohol for this purpose, and it’s one of those grandfathered in chemicals, and isn’t “listed” as a pesticide. Solution: We found a company that made cleaning supplies for industrial processes, and they had a specific formulation of isopropyl alcohol wipes listed as a pesticide. (For a price nearly 20x more than normal products) It’s a silly story but illustrates how nuts this stuff is. Just with something silly like sanitizing wipes, people are using proprietary “quats” with serious potential health impacts where something as simple as alcohol could easily do the job.
- sizzle 5y ago
  Any idea how carcinogenic Lysol wipes are from exposing them to your hands everyday from sanitizing surfaces? The chemical is really unique sounding.