4 ms·
The statement is false, unfortunately. There's definite a positive (non-zero) threshold below which it doesn't trigger. Bananas are radioactive, and while a s
by tomp 2y ago
The statement is false, unfortunately.
There's definite a positive (non-zero) threshold below which it doesn't trigger.
Bananas are radioactive, and while a single banana doesn't trigger the alarms, a lot of bananas might!
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
> Although the amount in a single banana is small in environmental and medical terms, the radioactivity from a truckload of bananas is capable of causing a false alarm when passed through a Radiation Portal Monitor used to detect possible smuggling of nuclear material at U.S. ports.
- netsharc 2y agoHN headline in 3 years: airport sniffer dogs being trained to smell for bananas. Because that's what the horn-smugglers will be carrying in attempts to deflect why the airport scanner is detecting radiation in their luggage.
- ben_w 2y agoIt's the potassium in the bananas, so potassium rich salt will also do this. Presumably many other common items are also sufficiently potassium rich.
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoIf you leave a scintillating detector such as a Radiacode or similar on a bag of potassium chloride water softener salt for a while you can actually detect a very slight amount of radioactivity and generate a spectrum :)
- gus_massa 2y agoBananas are not so radioactive, my guess is that they are using a stronger radioactive source. Perhaps hide the horn inside a truck full of bananas? I guess the horn will be still more radioactive. Also, each radioactive source produce radioactivity with different energy, so you can use specialized equipment to identify the source. (We used one in the lab in an undergraduate couse of Physics. It's not very big, like the size of a shoe.)
- Havoc 2y agoWhat bananas emit is basically background radiation and not at all comparable to radio isotopes. If it was you wouldn’t see bananas at the supermarket Besides - they worked on this for three years. They likely thought this through beyond banana comparisons…