# Fuck ! Radiation exposure. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 4, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630 "2004-06-04T15:10:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scopata\_Fuori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Scopata\_Fuori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scopata_Fuori)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630/21 "2004-06-07T23:51:20Z")
…contain measurable amounts of radioactive material. If someone had tossed a bag of old ones in the trash, that could be enough to set off a sensitive radiation detector. The americium-241 in a typical smoke detector produces about one microcurie, or one millionth of a curie. With a half life of 432 years, the ten year lifespan of a typical smoke detector won’t put much of a dent in the activity level. It does emit alpha and gamma rays, but as long as it stays in the detector, it’s (relatively) safe. But if it has been busted up and crunched apart in a garbage truck, especially if there’s a number of them together, it could add up. People who have undergone recent PET scans, “glow” enough to set off ultra sensitive detectors. I have a family member who is amused by all the bells and sirens and whistles that will go off when she takes the underground home after a PET scan. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630/22 "2004-06-08T01:13:33Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > I have a hard time finding it Ethically problematic for a cancer victim, who proves the cancer could have been caused or contributed to by an exposure to radiation that should not have happened, and was due to companies missusing your services, from sueing. > > Certainly any cancer would be unlikely to be caused by this event, but that does not mean a cancer if it does occur may not have been contributed to by this event. Is there any proof that the exposure dose was trivial? The burden of proof in the event of a lawsuit would be upon **Dragonhusband’s** counsel rather than on the source of the radioactive material. In any case, you’d need quite a large quantity of most of the radioactive materials available to civilians before you’d get even a trace increase over existing ambient radiation. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630/23 "2004-06-08T01:33:55Z")
One more ex rad tech type chiming in to say it ain’t no big deal. Unless you have an absolutely huge glowing source of gamma rays that is ruining unexposed photographic film for a three mile radius, you really don’t have much to worry about. If it were such a source, they would have been a bit more agitated about it. Assuming you aren’t talking about such a massive gamma ray source (whose rays penetrate anything), the only real concern now is contamination. As **buttonjockey308** indicated, the real problems happen when it gets inside your body via inhalation or an open sore. Your clothing and dead skin block alphas and betas nicely, but once their source gets under your skin, their particles can do damage. Since distance and shielding reduce exposure, it’s highly unlikely that he received a measurable dose. To put exposure in perspective: At one power plant I was at, I received a measurable 1 millirem of exposure from the plant over a six month period. They kept dosimeters attached to sticks outside to measure natural levels and used this to subtract background radiation. As it turned out, those “background” dosimeters were registering 5 millirem per month from nature. Of course, the human body doesn’t care if it came from nature or man, but it sort of illustrates how we receive a decent amount of exposure from natural events such as plane flights, radon in the basement, false teeth, and other odds and ends. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630/24 "2004-06-08T01:55:01Z")
> [@](#): > > I have to chime in on this one, too. The clearance around langoliers is generally perpendicular to the path between langoliers (I never knew that was what they were called!). Radiation, even magnetic energy, dissipates equally in all directions, meaning that if it actually killed vegetation, we should be seeing circular areas of devastation instead of neat-edged pathways. Well, you’re right that the energy goes in all directions, however most of the Langoliers I’ve ever seen, either from the ground or the air, tower over most vegetation by many feet. There’s usually nothing in the air to evidence radiation exposure. In the rare cases (at least around here) that trees and other vegetation come within a certain radius of the power lines, there seems to be a dead zone every place the wire passes, which create a ‘U’ shaped field, rather than an ‘O’ shaped one. I’m fairly certain that COM-ED or Excelon isn’t up there with 80’ bucket cranes neatly trimming around power lines for miles on end, though I’ve been wrong before. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630/25 "2004-06-08T02:42:36Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > there seems to be a dead zone every place the wire passes, which create a ‘U’ shaped field, rather than an ‘O’ shaped one. I’m fairly certain that COM-ED or Excelon isn’t up there with 80’ bucket cranes neatly trimming around power lines for miles on end, though I’ve been wrong before. I’m pretty sure they do, as limbs too close to power lines present a hazard in the event of ice and/or wind storms. Though I haven’t seen them trim out in the country with the really big langoliers, I have seen power companies trim trees in the city. I imagine the principal is the same. I’ve worked in a lot of biotech labs where they use P32 to tag DNA. I had to go through this 2-day radiation safety class, even though I was never going to use it (though my bench was next to the hot bench). It’s a beta emitter, which means it can be stopped by plexiglas or metal foil. The real danger is injesting it. There are all sorts of regulations on its disposal (usually radioactive waste just sits in a plastic container until the requisite number of half-lives has elapsed). I could easily see that if someone wasn’t marking dates correctly and marked a bag for disposal too soon a similar brouhaha would result. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-radiation-exposure/248630.md?page=1)