It's gonna be in the last place they look.
Someones going to come back from vacation and go like; -Yeah I took that out to prevent it from falling off during transport. Taped to the underside of bosses chair so we wont lose it.
Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
211–220 of 357 posts
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#212Radiation detection is my specialty. This source is Cs-137, few hundred mCi. It's easy to detect within a few seconds at distances of a few tens of meters or more with professional detection equipment if there is direct line of sight. If it was knocked off the road, though, the question will be if it fell into a crack or other such place because then the radiation is somewhat shielded and it would take much more meas…
I was thinking, 10 x-rays per hour doesn’t sound so terrible. But if you bring it closer than 1 meter it would start getting exponentially worse.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Wikipedia, Polonium is 5000 times more radioactive than Radium (just 0.001g of Po emits the same number of particles as 5g of Ra). It has a half life of just 138 days so in only 4.6 years the missing Polonium will be equivalent in radioactivity to Radium, which is known to cause cancer. This doesn't sound like something that should be treated lightly.
It's an alpha emitter (and if being used in a university classroom, probably a sealed one). Unless you eat it, the danger is not comparable. Radium, in contrast, emits gamma radiation, which presents more of a threat to casual bystanders. All of which is to say: you can't just compare "radioactivity" levels and extrapolate to "danger".
I'm more scared of alpha than gamma. If the alpha source gets tampered with and becomes a dust somehow, it could stay in someone's lungs, and kill someone without being easily detectable.
Cheap eBay Geiger counters will probably tell you if gamma rays are an immediate danger, and if you're close enough to have problems, your probably also close enough to detect it.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
No moose, bears, wolves, cougars, or other alpha predators in Australia though. About the worst are wild dogs / dingos, though they typically won't be a problem unless they're in a pack. I'll take Australian dangers over North American every day of the week.
I've been there three times. How about you? Those megafauna in North America are pretty hard for a human to encounter accidentally. As opposed to these: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2013...
I agree, but the links ratings are a little funky,
I can't fully agree with their ratings, as someone who has lived in the bush in queensland, I'll re-rank these how I imagine someone native to the area has sees it.
Irukandji (rarer but more painful) is MUCH nastier than the box jellyfish (painful but more common), I wanted to kill myself with a very mild Irukandji sting.
The paralysis tick is much worse than a bull ant, which just hurts quite a bit, but the symptoms/fatality of the tick is worse (which doesn't really hurt, just ends up killing you slowly)
The gympie gympie stinging tree(common, but not listed) is much more painful than the bull ant, and people with grass allergies get even more pain from it.
Oh and stonefish, fuck stonefish. I've seen a tough bastard get stung and bastard was weeping like a baby for hours even after the anti venom. I think the guy almost died from the shock alone.
When you're in the city, a lot of this risk isnt anywhere near you, when you are working on the farm in the country near either the desert or the rainforest , native flora and fauna risks are very real.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#215Here's a story about a lost capsule[0] that ended up being made into building material for the wall of an apartment if you think something small isn't worth being concerned about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...
this seems to happen quite frequently according to a linked article about orphan sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incident...
> The lumberjacks were scavenging the forest for firewood, when they came across two metal cylinders melting snow within a one meter radius laying in the road. They picked up these objects to use as personal heaters, sleeping with their backs to them.
Sure. Free heater! That doesn’t look ominous at all.
But I guess that’s hindsight speaking. Because who’d expect two major radioactive sources to just be lying next to the road :/
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best part is how the person responsible for the problem (the director of Ipasgo) could redirect the blame to the owners who tried to prevent the catastrophy doing everything they could - he stopped them to do the right things with the help of cops: > Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent on…
The owners also had left it there for two years. They weren't without blame either.
idk but at least they tried to remove it and WARN about the risks, unlike the director who made sure it stayed there.
I'd consider it very likely it wasn't moved for 2 years because the director pulled some strings to make sure it'd stay there, consequences be damned
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been there three times. How about you? Those megafauna in North America are pretty hard for a human to encounter accidentally. As opposed to these: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2013...
I agree, but the links ratings are a little funky, I can't fully agree with their ratings, as someone who has lived in the bush in queensland, I'll re-rank these how I imagine someone native to the area has sees it. Irukandji (rarer but more painful) is MUCH nastier than the box jellyfish (painful but more common), I wanted to kill myself with a very mild Irukandji sting. The paralysis tick is much worse than a bull…
Wow. I always thought stonefish was say-your-prayers deadly.
Never heard of that tree.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was in Cairns & a little north of there for a bit. Certainly never went all the way to Cape York. Although I did go on a kayaking expedition to Dunk Island, where there were only four 2-person kayaks, unusually high waves, and my boat-mate asked, "Are we going to sink?" Obviously we didn't. Of course this is all for laughs, but some HN'ers are incapable of that.
Fun Story time. I grew up in far north Queensland, the risk of crocodials are always one of those real but manageable risks in your life, I was very young and remember a family friend being taken by a large one (Search for Beryl Wruck in Daintree), I am very familiar with the risks, but risks are part of life in that area. I regularly spend time there and was canooing one of the fresh water creeks which lead into the…
That's what I found so amusing about Oz and NZ: all kinds of fun things you can do that can kill you.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#219Really 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
This source is way less radioactive, though.
Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes. Let’s hope that some random person doesn’t find it and turn it into a necklace or something. The TNG episode “Thine Own Self” comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident Stuff of nightmares.
Or in a wall of a building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...