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#3401 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 5,918
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Well, we certainly do enjoy reading the delightful articles from enenews.com (like this one: "Why Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl; “Now the truth is coming out” — 72,000 times worse than Hiroshima & 1 million+ cancer deaths, says professor August 29, 2011"). When do we get to read the evidence from a journal? Do you think they'll be "believ[ing] that this may reflect" in the journal article as well? Do you think they'll say anything about Chernobyl in the article? No, I don't think so either, but I guess we'll just have to wait to separate the facts from the speculation.
However, it appears that this thread has gone into an area well beyond facts here. |
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#3402 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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First off, Fukushima is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl.
Second, we know from established authorities in the field of nuclear safety and engineering that the area around Fukushima is safe for human habitation. Third, did you notice this part of the article you quoted? In July 2011, the researchers identified and counted birds at 300 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, ranging from 15 to 30 miles from the damaged nuclear complex. Largely still open to human occupation, these areas had external radiation levels from 0.5 to 35 microsieverts per hour.They checked only around Fukushima. They can't have reached any scientifically valid conclusions because they didn't also check everywhere else affected by the quake and tsunami. |
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#3403 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 17,199
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Any views as to whether TEPCO n particular is a suitable organisation to run nuclear power plants? As opposed to questions of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power from properly controlled organisations?
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#3404 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 14,519
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The point is why didn't you just link to the actual report rather than a summary article from somewhere else which paints the report's contents in alarmist tones? No need to add spin to the data; let the data speak for itself. See above. Any time you insist on putting spin on data I'm going to question your reasons for doing so. Let the data speak for itself. You apparently missed the key word from the quote of the report you offered as to what may be happening around Fukushima. I've emphasized it above. |
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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our abilities and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." |
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#3405 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Olomouc, Czech Republic
Posts: 1,417
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Birds will be affected heavily by tsunami .. as long as they build nests on the ground and trees. And tsunami hit during spring, and destroyed most of food sources. So any birds who survived, would most probably simply move away.
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#3406 |
Non credunt, semper verificare
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Sigil, the city of doors
Posts: 14,581
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#3407 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 38,612
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__________________
Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes |
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#3408 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 17,199
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#3409 |
Scholar
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 114
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Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia) and http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html |
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#3410 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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More bad news (for the anti-nuke kooks) out of Japan:
Quote:
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#3411 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In the details
Posts: 72,392
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But... but... it has "nuclear" in it !!!
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Master of the Shining Darkness ![]() ![]() |
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#3412 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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'Commission Calls Fukushima Nuclear Crisis a Man-Made Disaster'
""""TOKYO — The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a parliamentary inquiry concluded on Thursday. The report, released by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, also warned that the plant may have been damaged by the earthquake on March 11, 2011, even before the arrival of a tsunami — a worrying concern as the quake-prone country starts to bring its reactor fleet back online. The commission challenged some of the main story lines that the government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has put forward to explain what went wrong in the early days of the crisis. “It was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response,” Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the commission’s chairman and the former head of Tokyo University’s Department of Medicine, said in the report’s introduction."""" [My bold -JJ] |
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"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3413 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 18,534
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In other words, if people actually learn the lessons from this disaster (which still hasn't killed anyone), nuclear power could be even safer in the future since much of the problem was due to human errors and not inherent to nuclear power. It's not great news for the people involved since it suggests they weren't doing their jobs properly, but other than that it's nice to hear that one of the safest forms of power generation we have could be even safer.
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#3414 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 22,755
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__________________
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare |
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#3415 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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Lol. Radiation can takes decades to kill people and death isn't the only unpleasant thing in life! How do you plan to ascertain that radiation pollution from Fukushima will have no negative effects on anybody's lives?
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lol -great advertising speak!
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Earlier in this thread posters were (IIRC) saying how this disaster couldn't be seen as a blot on nuclear power because the exceptional magnitude of natural disasters couldn't have been predicted. They also celebrated how the reactors survived the earthquake. Both arguments have proved to be rubbish. Of course no other country operating nuclear power could have any similarly disastrous cultural traits such as corruption and cost-cutting, for example... |
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"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3416 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 23,064
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#3417 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 38,892
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You know what else can kill people over decades?
Old age.
Quote:
Quote:
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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#3418 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 22,755
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Or to look at it from a different angle, it was disastrous in a different way:
The tsunami clearly killed more people, but the nuclear accident rendered a large area uninhabitable for decades, with about 125,000 displaced. It's also made people afraid to buy agricultural products from anywhere in Fukushima or even neighboring prefectures. |
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A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare |
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#3419 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 38,612
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You moved the goal posts. The tsunami was out of our control, as the report shows, the nuclear disaster was entirely within our control. Safety evaluations of the site showed that the pumps were vulnerable to flooding, and nothing was done, even though it would have been relatively inexpensive to remedy.
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__________________
Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes |
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#3420 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 38,612
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__________________
Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes |
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#3421 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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#3422 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 38,612
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__________________
Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes |
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#3423 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
Posts: 38,612
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Today, Tepco claims a tapes of conferences will be released. One tape of the PM giving them some heated instructions has a drop out of audio, due to a hard disk filling up. The video is intact however.
![]() I don't think that's possible. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-1...2?WT.svl=news1 |
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Continually pushing the boundaries of mediocrity. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. Hobbes |
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#3424 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 4,286
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#3425 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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Some good news for nuclear health freaks - the elixir of life, life-enhancing radioactive cesium 137, is coming to America's shores!
'Radiation On West Coast of North America Could End Up Being 10 Times HIGHER than in Japan' |
__________________
"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3426 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Olomouc, Czech Republic
Posts: 1,417
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Concentration of Cs137 is 10 times higher then in sea near Japan at the moment. As they don't state absolute numbers, it's hard to say how total radiation is compared to Japan.
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#3427 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 22,755
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They put the worst-case scenario in the headline:
Fukushima Radiation May Cause 1,300 Cancer Deaths: Study But the best estimate is much lower:
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If it's only 130 extra deaths it would be pretty much impossible to detect because that's well within the error bar of the total number of expected cases of cancer. Basically, you can round it down to "no significant public health effects" as in "not statistically significant." ETA2: Just for perspective: Air pollution
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130 extra deaths due to cancer spread out over multiple decades is like nothing compared to that. |
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A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. William Shakespeare |
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#3428 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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'Japan's nuclear disaster avoidable, utility admits
Company feared effects of new safety measures'
Originally Posted by Ottawa Citizen
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__________________
"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3429 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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__________________
"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3430 |
Non credunt, semper verificare
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Sigil, the city of doors
Posts: 14,581
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And coal plant.
We could handle the situation rationally and evaluate advanatge and disadvantage of each tech compared to the needs we have , forget gut fears about "nookleaar", and concentrate on real effects compared to what we already accepts as human life loss (like the thousands diying of car acccidents , the innumerable death due to air polution, coal plants etc...). Or we could run around like headless chicken yelling sound bytes "nooklear we are all dooomed doooooooomed !". |
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#3431 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 63,967
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A chance for all fans of radiation** to secure yourself a healthy dose. Fukushima needs more workers.
'NHK: Concerns rising at Fukushima plant — 16,000 workers have quit, ‘severe working conditions’ blamed (VIDEO)' **Radiation is well-known for its health-promoting, life-prolonging properties. |
__________________
"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
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#3432 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 17,199
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__________________
OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#3433 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 5,918
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It appears to me that at best the paper prophesies that the total amount of the contamination from Japan in, say, the year following the breakdown, will appear off the west coast, spread from Alaska through Mexico for a distance of several hundred miles outward, before simply dispersing throughout the whole Pacific. At that point there will be more radiation off California than off Japan in an absolute sense (providing the effluent past the Japanese coast stops), but it will be very dilute; the article quotes a figure of 10 bq/m^3, which is laughably small. Natural well water in Finland reaches 220 bq/liter from radon, for example, a radiation concentration 22,000x higher. Processed water itself has 20 bq/liter.
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#3434 |
Muse
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 634
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It's a bit confusing to compare concentrations of cesium 137 to radon, in cubic meters vs liters. Yes, both are forms of radiation, but are they comparable in this manner?
The most useful information pertains to the practical significance of these concentrations, such as the incidence of cancer and birth defects, and comparisons to "normal" background levels. The reader comments on the linked Zero Hedge article contain some good observations from a skeptical perspective, by the way. |
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#3435 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 5,918
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Comparing radon and cesium might seem off to you, but as it happens the sources of the radiation are less important than the fact that both are radiation. The radiation is question is discrete particles; the measurement unit "becquerel" (bq) is the occurrence of a single particle from a decay event per second, regardless of the source. The radioactivity from radon is mainly alpha radiation, while the cesium is beta; these are fairly comparable in that alphas are rated as 20 to 1 harsher in effect than beta; see sievertWP. Thus my comparison of a harsher radiation type, higher in concentration (both numerically and by a factor of 1000 in a smaller volume [there should be no confusion over liter vs cubic meter]) was meant to qualitatively point to a lack of impression on my part with the amount of radiotides in the ocean water off SF.
Twenty years ago such small concentrations of radiotides would have been unmeasurable; they are today unmeasurable in chemical terms; they are only detected because of their radioactivity. Today they are scare headlines from the anti-nuclear power media. I agree that it would be appropriate to put the dosage in more human terms. Unfortunately, the arguments as to how exactly to do that are still wrapped in controversy and as yet unexplored data. That started when studies of the Japanese exposed to radiation in Hiroshima/Nagasaki showed that for the data available, it appeared that harm caused by radiation was roughly linear to the amount of radiation dose; this is the "Linear No-Threshold" theory. Unfortunately, the data was very sparse in the mini-dose region. Further data from Chernobyl in particular seems by many researchers to deny the LNT model in low intensity situations, but rather support a non-linear "hormesis" theory, in which the body's immune system takes a hand in helping cells recover from radiation damage. Since this has an obvious dimension in the nuke/anti-nuke power debate, don't expect quick resolution. Scientists have taken a step in that direction, though, in declaring a unit of radioactivity which quantifies the biological action of various radiation types and their targets. The "sievert" (SI unit of equivalence to the older unit REM, or radiation equivalent man) does sort out the types of radiation and how they interact with the body. 4.50 sieverts (450 REM) is the amount of absorbed radiation which has a 50/50 chance of killing the recipient human, regardless of source (alpha, beta, fission event) or target (whole body, head, heart, hand). That leaves only the manner in which objective measurements (such as mentioned for Cs137 or radon above) can be converted to seiverts. That is difficult. For a look at important numbers in this realm, see http://xkcd.com/radiation/ . |
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#3436 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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#3437 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 26,119
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#3438 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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#3439 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 15,294
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__________________
Circled nothing is still nothing. "Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong |
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#3440 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 11,494
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I'm sure you'll think of something before March 11th, 2015. It's not likely there'll be anything to draw attention back to this thread before then.
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