Re: Is The Crap About To Hit The Fan?


"Scotty" <nobody@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2r65c5hlqu4eep7rd0cj61cg9kal01b90r@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:17:37 +0100, "Robert Peffers"
<peffers50@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Armageddon, don't forget Armageddon must precede the rapture, that's
what
they need all those nukes for..
Let us be a little realistic here. There are two dangers not one.
Radiation
itself and contamination. What the radiation misses can be contaminated
afterwards and the radiation also irradiates other things that in turn ...
... ...
The contamination then gets into things including us and starts to work
from
the inside. Not only that but, depending on how the body deals with it, it
migrates to different parts of the body and goes on working.

Bob, you paint a terrible scenario, fortunately it is not entirely true.

The IAEA reports on the meltdown at Chernobyl are very informative, I
suggest you read them. The dangerous, high energy particles, because they
are high energy, decay rapidly, (from memory) five days. There are others
of course but not harmful and within a very short time ( weeks, I think)
the radiation from contaminated stuff was back to less than the natural
background radiation. It's all on their website... Not that I'm saying we
should encourage behaviour like operating a Power Station that was not
intrinsically safe.

I visited South Africa earlier this year and near Cape Town there is a
Nudist beach where, mainly gay men sit on the rocks sunning themselves and
developing an all over sun tan.

What they don't know is that the background radiation from the granite
rock
is high and much higher than in the control room of a Nuclear Power
station
at the other end of town and they don't know that they are getting burnt
from both ends...

I visited both locations.
Actually I was talking more in a general way about the dangers of
Radioactivity.
In point of fact there are many places where backgrounds are high. Aberdeen,
with granite buildings, is higher than most urban areas. In Rosyth Dockyard
the docksides and dry docks are constructed from large granite blocks and
the level exceeds most areas inside nuclear powered vessels. Many homes are
subject to Radon gas. Then there is an effect called, "bremsstrahlung", This
is radiation given off by the electrons as they are scattered by a strong
electric field near high-Z (proton number) nuclei. I'll try to explain
that - you probably know the basics of a cathode ray tube. This produces an
electron beam that is used to, "paint", the picture you see on the screen
but all cathode ray tubes have the "bremsstrahlung", effect, (to a greater
or lesser extent). This produces x-rays and these are radiation. Now TV
viewers sit some way from the screen but computer users sit right up against
it. There may be, thus, a higher background, than normal.in front of such
screens. microwave ovens, et al.

The more common radiation particles are :-
Alpha - particles can be stopped by a *** of paper but are the most
dangerous if they get inside the body and can cause massive cell damage.

Beta - particles can pass through paper, (and 0.5mm of aluminium), but
stopped by 0.5mm of lead. They can cause skin burns and, if the get inside,
do damage particularly to the Thyroid gland.

Gamma rays - are highly penetrative and need several mm of lead to stop them
and they do lots of damage and kill cells.
X-rays - go right through humans an damage cells as they go.

Neutrons - are like high-speed bullets that kill all they hit on the way
through.

That wee explanation is far from conclusive but enough to get the picture.
Basically they all radiate but those that penetrate go right through and the
damage done is just, well, done.

Contamination, though, may not penetrate far but if long half-lifed it stays
inside and goes on causing damage.
It is scary stuff, richt enouch.




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