[quote]I think the burden of disproof should be on Scott if he's so good at this.<hr></blockquote>
do you think you'd understand it if he did? i'm not trying to be condescending, but odds are that most poeple in this thread don't know beans about radioactive decay and radioactive particles, let alone the formulas to calculate the amount of radiation that someone would be exposed to.
so if he busts out some wicked ass formulas, gets done and says "there, see, not a problem" would you believe him any more than you do now?
i know odds are i wouldn't be able to follow it.
i do know i like science over "look at the babies!" type crap. toss some science in with those baby picutres and this thread might be able to get its feet under it, otherwise it's going nowhere.
No, you posted you know a thing or two about it but haven't shed any light on the subject. We'll all work with the facts and information we have. If you can't or won't add any to the discussion, then I guess you can't or won't add anything to this discussion.
That's pretty simple.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay since no one is willing to do the homework....
Let say 99.8% U-238 and 0.2% U-235 posted earlier. One gram of the stuff. You can read the half lifes <a href="http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/uranium.html"; target="_blank">here</a>
4.46 billion for U-238 and 704 million for U-235.
So over a "life time" of 100 year you'll get
1.55e-8g of the U-238 will decay and 2.0e-7g of U-235 will decay.
Now in another page I read that 99% of the d.u. will clear the body. So take another e-2 off of those numbers if the person ingests it.
1.55e-10g
and
2.0e-9g
So you see only a very small fraction of the du will decay in someone?s body if the eat 1 gram at age 0 and live to be 100.
I don't have a number for the clearance if you breath it in. I can guess that most of it is naturally coughed up. You piss out 99% of anything else that get in.
The other piece of the puzzle is the amount of radiation someone gets naturally. You all didn't know you were getting naturally all these year. I bet your amazed you didn't come out a flipper baby huh? Oh and there's no one to blame for this but God (for those of you that are not atheist). Now <a href="http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~bland/courses/490/labs/b1/b1.html"; target="_blank">this page</a> is good because it mentions U-238 in the kidneys. But look at the other rates.
[quote]Natural background including cosmic rays and radiation from naturally radioactive material:
\tSan Francisco\t\t\t120 mrems/yr
\tNew York\t\t\t135 mrems/yr
\tSan Diego\t\t\t170 mrems/yr
\tDenver\t\t\t\t300 mrems/yr
\tPocos de Caldos, Brazil\t\t7,000 mrems/yr
Natural background living in a:
\twood frame house\t\t11 mrems/yr
\tbrick house\t\t\t30 mrems/yr
Natural radioactive materials in the body:
\tK-40\tWhole body\t17 mrems/yr
\tK-40\tBrain\t\t30 mrems/yr
\tRb-87\tWhole body\t0.69 mrems/yr
\tRb-87\tPancreas\t2.8 mrems/yr\t
\tRa-226\tWhole body\t2.8 mrems/yr
\tRa-226\tBone\t\t28 mrems/yr
\tU-238\tKidneys\t\t1.2 mrems/yr
\tRn-222\tLungs\t\t200-1,100 mrems/yr (depending on
\t\t\t\t location & housing)
Two-week vacation in the mountains\t3 mrems/yr
\t(due to an increase in cosmic rays at higher elevation)
Cross-country jet flight\t\t\t>1 mrem/hr
Radium-dial watch (dose to wrist area)\t\t10 mrems/day
Fallout from nuclear test\t\t\t5 mrems/yr
Whole-body diagnostic X-ray\t\t\tup to 25,000 mrems
Chest X-ray\t\t\t\t\tup to 100 mrems/film
Complete dental X-ray\t\t\t\tup to 5,000 mrems
NRC, NCRP & EPA whole-body limit
\tOccupational\t\t\t\t5,000 mrems/yr
\tGeneral Public\t\t\t\t500 mrems/yr
Living at boundary fence of nuclear reactor\t<5 mrems/yr
\t(Except Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, etc.)
Levels of Radioactivity in Liquids (Picocuries/Liter)
Water discharged from nuclear power plant\t1-10
Domestic tap water\t\t\t\t20
River water\t\t\t\t\t10-100
Beer\t\t\t\t\t\t120 :eek:
Ocean water\t\t\t\t\t350
Whiskey\t\t\t\t\t\t1200
Milk\t\t\t\t\t\t1400
Salad oil (16 ppm C-14/gm of carbon)\t\t4900<hr></blockquote>
Kind of puts things in perspective huh? You'd have to get about 5000 times more U-238 in your kidney to bring it up to the dose limit for a radiation worker in the US.
Now just for fun I'll include some information that suggest that <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020823063221.htm"; target="_blank">low levels of radiation are good for you</a> :eek: I didn't get a chance to hear this guy speak last year It would be unfair to call him a "crackpot" because he backs his claims up with real studies. At the very least it shows that there is evidence to counter any claims that low levels of radiation are harmful.
thanks for the link running.....there is an expert in DU here in Albuquerque who was in Iraq about a month ago and is supposed to go back to Iraq in late Feb (i don't think he will be going, but i hope i am wrong)...i will try to find his email and have him post here if i can....
from runnings link:
[quote] Q. There are reports from the Balkans and Iraq of individuals recovering the DU penetrators. Are these hazardous?
A. Depleted uranium penetrators are only one of many possible hazards on the battlefield. Civilians and soldiers are strongly discouraged from recovering souvenirs from the battlefield or climbing on or around damaged equipment. For example, some Eastern Bloc equipment also contains other more highly radioactive sources such as radium dials as well as asbestos. There is also a possible problem with unexploded munitions. As stated before, DU is only mildly radioactive. Depleted uranium emits alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays. Alpha particles, the primary radiation type produced by depleted uranium, are blocked by skin, while beta particles are blocked by the boots and battle dress utility uniform (BDUs) typically worn by service members. While gamma rays are a form of highly-penetrating energy, the amount of gamma radiation emitted by depleted uranium is very low. The threat of chemical toxicity would also be minimal because there is little likelihood that sufficient quantities of DU could be inhaled or ingested to cause a heavy metal concern.
Q. What has the Defense Department done to protect future generations of service members from accidental exposure to depleted uranium?
A. The Department of Defense is fully aware of its responsibility for the safe use of depleted uranium. Since the Gulf War, the DoD has dramatically stepped up its emphasis on increasing soldier and leader awareness of the hazards associated with the battlefield use of depleted uranium.
<hr></blockquote>
these seem to be mostly for soldiers who would have limited contact with DU....what are we doing to let the people of the countries know not to collect souvenirs from the battlefield or climbing on or around damaged equipment...the people most likely to do these things are children...they climb and play on damaged tanks and trucks and collect shiny objects to trade and sell or make necklaces from....i hope we have a very active program to especially let children and women of child rearing age know not to go into and collect objects from these places...especially since it may seem like a good way to make money in an economy so crippled right now....g
yes, if he is liberal then he couldn't be an expert....gotta love the open minded....g
he has studied it for many years and talks about it around the world...makes him more of an expert than me...he may even be a PhD...so i guess then you might like him.....
Yea I'm sure he was an "expert" </strong><hr></blockquote>
That's a really, really strong argument Scott.
Scott,
This guy suggests that contact with the stuff is bad. He says the US Government supports his position. Maybe it takes an akward situation to make it more dangerous than harmless, but if we look at all the information posted in this thread, the case for it being dangerous is stronger than the case for it being harmless.
<strong>...Now in another page I read that 99% of the d.u. will clear the body. So take another e-2 off of those numbers if the person ingests it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you have that backwards.
I need to find the article that I read it in, but I am pretty sure it indicated an amount that was less than 1% of DU will "clear the body" in an average life time.
still looking for an email...hope to get him to post here...
"Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning for over 20 years. A native of Socorro, NM, where the first experiments with the use of depleted uranium (DU) were performed, his discovery that 50% of the cases of hydrocephalous in New Mexico happen in that one small community led to his ongoing investigation of the impact of DU around the world. He has recently been twice both to Iraq and to Kosovo."
[quote] Yeah, but who did he vote for in the last presidential election? <hr></blockquote>
probably nader, the bastard ...he is a human rights activist and poet...sounds "green" to me....dang greens in florida, but then that is another thread topic... g
of course if you play the odds, then he voted for Gore since more people voted for Gore than any other canidate...
I need to find the article that I read it in, but I am pretty sure it indicated an amount that was less than 1% of DU will "clear the body" in an average life time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>still looking for an email...hope to get him to post here...
"Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning for over 20 years. A native of Socorro, NM, where the first experiments with the use of depleted uranium (DU) were performed, his discovery that 50% of the cases of hydrocephalous in New Mexico happen in that one small community led to his ongoing investigation of the impact of DU around the world. He has recently been twice both to Iraq and to Kosovo."
all i have found so far....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is just so sad. It blows me away that you left off the leading sentence to that.
[quote]Next up was Demasio Lopez, a human rights activist and poet Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning ...<hr></blockquote>
edited so thegelding doesn't look so much like an idiot...i'm sure i will have many more chances to prove just how much of an idiot i am.... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Comments
<a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm"; target="_blank">here's the link</a>
<strong>Compare that to the dose you that you get from radon or cosmic rays in a life time.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Cosmic Rays are good! DU bad...
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: Artman @_@ ]</p>
do you think you'd understand it if he did? i'm not trying to be condescending, but odds are that most poeple in this thread don't know beans about radioactive decay and radioactive particles, let alone the formulas to calculate the amount of radiation that someone would be exposed to.
so if he busts out some wicked ass formulas, gets done and says "there, see, not a problem" would you believe him any more than you do now?
i know odds are i wouldn't be able to follow it.
i do know i like science over "look at the babies!" type crap. toss some science in with those baby picutres and this thread might be able to get its feet under it, otherwise it's going nowhere.
<strong>
No, you posted you know a thing or two about it but haven't shed any light on the subject. We'll all work with the facts and information we have. If you can't or won't add any to the discussion, then I guess you can't or won't add anything to this discussion.
That's pretty simple.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay since no one is willing to do the homework....
Let say 99.8% U-238 and 0.2% U-235 posted earlier. One gram of the stuff. You can read the half lifes <a href="http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/uranium.html"; target="_blank">here</a>
4.46 billion for U-238 and 704 million for U-235.
So over a "life time" of 100 year you'll get
1.55e-8g of the U-238 will decay and 2.0e-7g of U-235 will decay.
Now in another page I read that 99% of the d.u. will clear the body. So take another e-2 off of those numbers if the person ingests it.
1.55e-10g
and
2.0e-9g
So you see only a very small fraction of the du will decay in someone?s body if the eat 1 gram at age 0 and live to be 100.
I don't have a number for the clearance if you breath it in. I can guess that most of it is naturally coughed up. You piss out 99% of anything else that get in.
The other piece of the puzzle is the amount of radiation someone gets naturally. You all didn't know you were getting naturally all these year. I bet your amazed you didn't come out a flipper baby huh? Oh and there's no one to blame for this but God (for those of you that are not atheist). Now <a href="http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~bland/courses/490/labs/b1/b1.html"; target="_blank">this page</a> is good because it mentions U-238 in the kidneys. But look at the other rates.
[quote]Natural background including cosmic rays and radiation from naturally radioactive material:
\tSan Francisco\t\t\t120 mrems/yr
\tNew York\t\t\t135 mrems/yr
\tSan Diego\t\t\t170 mrems/yr
\tDenver\t\t\t\t300 mrems/yr
\tPocos de Caldos, Brazil\t\t7,000 mrems/yr
Natural background living in a:
\twood frame house\t\t11 mrems/yr
\tbrick house\t\t\t30 mrems/yr
Natural radioactive materials in the body:
\tK-40\tWhole body\t17 mrems/yr
\tK-40\tBrain\t\t30 mrems/yr
\tRb-87\tWhole body\t0.69 mrems/yr
\tRb-87\tPancreas\t2.8 mrems/yr\t
\tRa-226\tWhole body\t2.8 mrems/yr
\tRa-226\tBone\t\t28 mrems/yr
\tU-238\tKidneys\t\t1.2 mrems/yr
\tRn-222\tLungs\t\t200-1,100 mrems/yr (depending on
\t\t\t\t location & housing)
Two-week vacation in the mountains\t3 mrems/yr
\t(due to an increase in cosmic rays at higher elevation)
Cross-country jet flight\t\t\t>1 mrem/hr
Radium-dial watch (dose to wrist area)\t\t10 mrems/day
Fallout from nuclear test\t\t\t5 mrems/yr
Whole-body diagnostic X-ray\t\t\tup to 25,000 mrems
Chest X-ray\t\t\t\t\tup to 100 mrems/film
Complete dental X-ray\t\t\t\tup to 5,000 mrems
NRC, NCRP & EPA whole-body limit
\tOccupational\t\t\t\t5,000 mrems/yr
\tGeneral Public\t\t\t\t500 mrems/yr
Living at boundary fence of nuclear reactor\t<5 mrems/yr
\t(Except Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island, etc.)
Levels of Radioactivity in Liquids (Picocuries/Liter)
Water discharged from nuclear power plant\t1-10
Domestic tap water\t\t\t\t20
River water\t\t\t\t\t10-100
Beer\t\t\t\t\t\t120 :eek:
Ocean water\t\t\t\t\t350
Whiskey\t\t\t\t\t\t1200
Milk\t\t\t\t\t\t1400
Salad oil (16 ppm C-14/gm of carbon)\t\t4900<hr></blockquote>
Kind of puts things in perspective huh? You'd have to get about 5000 times more U-238 in your kidney to bring it up to the dose limit for a radiation worker in the US.
Now just for fun I'll include some information that suggest that <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020823063221.htm"; target="_blank">low levels of radiation are good for you</a> :eek: I didn't get a chance to hear this guy speak last year
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: Scott ]</p>
Uranium is already the most plentiful element in the earth's crust.
<hr></blockquote>
No it isn't.
Oxygen makes up almost 50%, followed by silicon, aluminium, iron, calcium....
In fact, it's not even in the top half!
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: giant ]</p>
just kidding. the charts there are nice, and i think that works to put things in perspective. is everyone happy now?
(btw, thanks for educating Scott, it's a refreshing change to have a political thread that's got some meat to it)
edit: oh yeah, here's a <a href="http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/contents/10d.html"; target="_blank">link</a> to a table showing the chemical composition of earth's crust, and percents. giant is correct.
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</p>
from runnings link:
[quote] Q. There are reports from the Balkans and Iraq of individuals recovering the DU penetrators. Are these hazardous?
A. Depleted uranium penetrators are only one of many possible hazards on the battlefield. Civilians and soldiers are strongly discouraged from recovering souvenirs from the battlefield or climbing on or around damaged equipment. For example, some Eastern Bloc equipment also contains other more highly radioactive sources such as radium dials as well as asbestos. There is also a possible problem with unexploded munitions. As stated before, DU is only mildly radioactive. Depleted uranium emits alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays. Alpha particles, the primary radiation type produced by depleted uranium, are blocked by skin, while beta particles are blocked by the boots and battle dress utility uniform (BDUs) typically worn by service members. While gamma rays are a form of highly-penetrating energy, the amount of gamma radiation emitted by depleted uranium is very low. The threat of chemical toxicity would also be minimal because there is little likelihood that sufficient quantities of DU could be inhaled or ingested to cause a heavy metal concern.
Q. What has the Defense Department done to protect future generations of service members from accidental exposure to depleted uranium?
A. The Department of Defense is fully aware of its responsibility for the safe use of depleted uranium. Since the Gulf War, the DoD has dramatically stepped up its emphasis on increasing soldier and leader awareness of the hazards associated with the battlefield use of depleted uranium.
<hr></blockquote>
these seem to be mostly for soldiers who would have limited contact with DU....what are we doing to let the people of the countries know not to collect souvenirs from the battlefield or climbing on or around damaged equipment...the people most likely to do these things are children...they climb and play on damaged tanks and trucks and collect shiny objects to trade and sell or make necklaces from....i hope we have a very active program to especially let children and women of child rearing age know not to go into and collect objects from these places...especially since it may seem like a good way to make money in an economy so crippled right now....g
he has studied it for many years and talks about it around the world...makes him more of an expert than me...he may even be a PhD...so i guess then you might like him.....
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
<strong>I can guess....
Yea I'm sure he was an "expert"
That's a really, really strong argument Scott.
Scott,
This guy suggests that contact with the stuff is bad. He says the US Government supports his position. Maybe it takes an akward situation to make it more dangerous than harmless, but if we look at all the information posted in this thread, the case for it being dangerous is stronger than the case for it being harmless.
<strong>...Now in another page I read that 99% of the d.u. will clear the body. So take another e-2 off of those numbers if the person ingests it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you have that backwards.
I need to find the article that I read it in, but I am pretty sure it indicated an amount that was less than 1% of DU will "clear the body" in an average life time.
"Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning for over 20 years. A native of Socorro, NM, where the first experiments with the use of depleted uranium (DU) were performed, his discovery that 50% of the cases of hydrocephalous in New Mexico happen in that one small community led to his ongoing investigation of the impact of DU around the world. He has recently been twice both to Iraq and to Kosovo."
all i have found so far....g
<strong>all i have found so far....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, but who did he vote for in the last presidential election?
probably nader, the bastard
of course if you play the odds, then he voted for Gore since more people voted for Gore than any other canidate...
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
<strong>
I think you have that backwards.
I need to find the article that I read it in, but I am pretty sure it indicated an amount that was less than 1% of DU will "clear the body" in an average life time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/uranium.htm"; target="_blank">US EPA Radiation Information Uranium </a>
But you know pick what ever number you like. With a 4.5billion year half life you'll get very little radiation over a life time.
<strong>still looking for an email...hope to get him to post here...
"Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning for over 20 years. A native of Socorro, NM, where the first experiments with the use of depleted uranium (DU) were performed, his discovery that 50% of the cases of hydrocephalous in New Mexico happen in that one small community led to his ongoing investigation of the impact of DU around the world. He has recently been twice both to Iraq and to Kosovo."
all i have found so far....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is just so sad. It blows me away that you left off the leading sentence to that.
[quote]Next up was Demasio Lopez, a human rights activist and poet Demasio Lopez has been investigating the effects of Uranium poisoning ...<hr></blockquote>
How selective of you.
Science people! Let's stick to science.
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: Scott ]</p>
g
[ 01-31-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>