Archive for the ‘Radiation’ Category

Low Levels of Prolonged Radiation Exposure Not Risky to Health

Thursday, May 17th, 2012
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Turns out you can plop yourself amongst over 200 times the average level of background radiation for as long as you’d like, it’s probably not going to hurt you all that much. Despite popular thought that any radiation exposure increases the likelihood of cancer, new studies are showing that simply isn’t the case for prolonged low doses.

On the most recent Weird Things podcast the boys discussed what levels of radiation exposure were safe to work around with Brian landing on the right side of the research. As for Justin’s insistence that he would eat a bag of popcorn cooked by way of an radioactive reaction, he’s still an idiot.

[Medical Xpress]

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And Then There Was The Time They Sold Golf Balls With a Radioactive Core

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

This one is going straight on my “Do Not Want” list. Apparently, back in the good old days of 1910, the Worthington Golf Ball Company produced golf balls with a radium-laced core. Known as the “Ball of Mystery that never loses life or shape due to its inherent radioactive properties”, this bad boy was supposed to travel farther than the competition. Check out the original advertisement.

“I have not found any company literature that specifically states that the ball contained radium but an advertisement (see below) in the May 17, 1918 issue of the New York Tribune quotes “one of the greatest of American Golfers” as saying that the ball had “what is known as a radium center.”

An analysis by gamma spectroscopy clearly shows that it does indeed contain radium: approximately 150 Bq (4 nCi).”

[Oak Ridge Associated Universities via Improbable Research]

 

 

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The Man Who Took A Proton Beam To The Face And Lived

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
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Meet Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski. He was a Russian scientist studying high energy physics when he accidentally stuck his face in the path of a proton beam being generated by a particle accelerator.

Reportedly, he saw a flash “brighter than a thousand suns”, but did not feel any pain.

The aftermath was even stranger. He’d received what was thought to be a a lethal dose of radiation and his face became swollen and began peeling. Everyone thought old Bugorski was a sure goner.

Except, he didn’t die. He lives to this day.

Aside from a loss of hearing and increased mental fatigue you’d have never known he took a FREAKING PROTON BEAM straight to the dome.

[Wikipedia]

Posted in Radiation, Survival | 1 Comment »