Radioactive Bananas!
October 12th, 2008
We all know that licking the glowing dials of 1950s Undark watches is probably a bad idea, but did you know that even bananas contain a small dose of radiation? Gary Mansfield over at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has written a short introduction to the hidden radiation dose lurking in everyday food items. Don’t worry – it’s not much: Gary calculated the average banana contains just 5.28×10-4 microcuries of radioactive potassium. Anyway, Gary’s so-called “reference banana” is a useful comparison to have on hand when the anti-nuclear lobby come knocking.
Entry Filed under: General
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2 Comments
1. John Sandford | October 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I am unable to post a comment in connection with the ants !
So I will do it here.
At the risk of sounding ANThropomorphic is it not surprising that they try to escape. What would you do in the circumstances ? Form an escape committee and start tunnelling.
An additional comment on the crackpot inventions/radiation – specifically the tinfoil helmets.. A friend of mine is a police officer and they had to ge the river police to drag a guy out of the Thames at Hampton Court. He had a tinfoil helmet on and had made a coat which was lined with hundreds of pencils (presumably he thought they were full of lead and would protect him).
No-one really knows why he jumped in the river but the wet coat and the pencils weighed him down so he could not swim.
His house was wallpapered with tinfoil as well (wallfoiled ?).
Committed.
Not really sure what my point is but there are loonies out there who take all this mumbo-jumbo seriously.
2. punkscience | October 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Why would knowing how much background radioactivity there is in a banana be of use when the anti-nuclear lobby comes knocking? Surely peer-reviewed data on the economics, safety record and carbon-emissions of nuclear generation and a range of other technologies would be more relevant?
Your “science” sucks goat cocks.
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