Adafruit sells a geiger counter kit. It's been on my list of things to tinker with for scanning living and work environments for potential hazards. Just for fun. I'm curious if anyone here has ever found high levels of radiation while playing around with geiger counters?
Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
121–130 of 357 posts
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#122This is really weird. FTA: "These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration,” Dr. Robertson said at a news conference on Saturday, “so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has." See also this [1] article with a picture of an example gauge. Again making the point that this is really weird: "Radiation Services WA general ma…
It was probably tampered with.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The equipment to detect high levels of radiation is very cheap. Likewise the equipment to detect lead... And hundreds of other deadly pollutants. Part of owning a house should involve getting it tested, perhaps once per 10 years, for all these contaminants. They might have been put in during construction - or it might be arsenic in the wood of your bed... Or a mixing mistake while making the plastic for your toothbru…
Are there testing services you’ve used before or would recommend to perform the testing? There does not seem to be a major brand or service provider offering this. Thank you!
Not a direct answer, but there are lead testing kits on Amazon. You mail a tap water sample to a lab. The “kit” is not much more than a vial and prepaid shipping label on a small box.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#124Adafruit sells a geiger counter kit. It's been on my list of things to tinker with for scanning living and work environments for potential hazards. Just for fun. I'm curious if anyone here has ever found high levels of radiation while playing around with geiger counters? https://www.adafruit.com/product/483
I have had an old Geiger counter in my office for a number of years my dad gave me he got in a crate of junk he purchased. Best I can tell it doesn't work, I've tried bananas and the like. I've always had a mild fear that the thing itself might be radioactive.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#125I don’t really buy the “fell off a truck” story, will be very surprised if they find this before it gives someone cancer… and if whoever took it knows what they’re doing, it will never be found.
What motive would someone have to do this? Seems like a baseless conspiracy theory
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#126Interview question: can you design a system to safely locate and retrieve the capsule?
These systems exist. To name a couple: https://www.arktis-detectors.com/products/ https://www.ansto.gov.au/products/detection-and-imaging-cori...
Neat, a fleet of those drones working in coordination might be able locate it.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#127Really scary. For those unaware of how badly this kind of situation can end up, read about the horrific Goiânia incident in Brazil. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
There’s a good Well There’s Your Problem episode about this, if people would rather see a video about it: https://youtu.be/34rdxDgpaaA
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#128Some relevant-looking thing I found on Google: - "9. SEARCHING FOR RADIOACTIVE OBJECTS" - "The first part of this section describes three different airborne surveys that successfully located lost radioactive sources. The three incidents were quite different in nature and provide useful information should similar accidents occur in the future. Section 9 concludes with a discussion showing how to estimate the count rat…
> 9.2. LOCATING THE LOST ATHENA MISSILE"
Where can I read more about this? How does one lose a missile?
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#129This is really weird. FTA: "These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration,” Dr. Robertson said at a news conference on Saturday, “so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has." See also this [1] article with a picture of an example gauge. Again making the point that this is really weird: "Radiation Services WA general ma…
Is there any chance it was theft?
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#130Adafruit sells a geiger counter kit. It's been on my list of things to tinker with for scanning living and work environments for potential hazards. Just for fun. I'm curious if anyone here has ever found high levels of radiation while playing around with geiger counters? https://www.adafruit.com/product/483
I have one, it works, but I really want to connect it to a pi for data logging and visualization but I don’t have the time to code it up. If you go down this road, please let me know if you wind up finding a good open source project for managing the data! You can purchase rocks off ebay that have some radioactivity, which I use to show my kids how radiation works much to the chagrin of my spouse : )