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Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

nytimes.com

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Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#221

Post by LarryMullins »

eternityforest wrote: post #213
timr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

It's not an either/or sort of thing. Gamma decay occurs after alpha or beta decay, so a gamma source will also emit alpha or beta radiation. In the case of Cs-137, it emits a lot of beta radiation. Normally this is shielded, but normally it doesn't fall off a truck..

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#222

Post by netsharc »

jiggawatts wrote: post #192

A factor in this case is that this highway is in the middle of nowhere . The northern part of Western Australia, especially away from the coast is some of the most sparsely populated land anywhere. The highway looks like this for pretty much its entire length: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-24.8925923,119.4609135,3a,7... Nobody is stopping regularly by the side of this road to wander around and pick up shiny object…

I wonder if they asked all drivers who drove that stretch of road to contact them. Imagine getting the thing stuck in a tread of a tyre and taking it to civilization..

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#223

Post by Aeolun »

fnands wrote: post #99
cshimmin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but all that means is that 1g of radium will have the same activity as 0.2mg of polonium. Of course they will also have different decay spectra etc. We don't know how big the source was that the students lost, but I'm guessing that if they just gave up after a few days, it probably wasn't a very high activity. This means either very low mass, or a higher mass but just older so that it's decayed away.

It was tiny, I think something like this: https://www.flinnsci.com/alpha-source-polonium-210/ap8794/ They were letting undergrads handle it, so definitely wasn't a large source. Also, hey Chase! Funny to see you in the wild (Ferdi here)

It’s nice that they add just enough material for a given amount of radioactivity.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#224

Post by worthless-trash »

AlbertCory wrote: post #217
worthless-trash wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fortunately we were off the coast of cairns at the time, so it was a very, rushed boat trip to the cairns and then police ride to the hospital.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#225

Post by a_bonobo »

erentz wrote: post #111

This 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…

>so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has

There's a famous Australian sketch about an oil spill from 1991 that uses very similar wording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E8LW7qaDG4

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#226

Post by interestica »

rowanG077 wrote: post #208
Bluecobra wrote: post #193

Earlier 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.

The design of that page with the new Wiki format is terrible

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#227

Post by bamboozled »

BetterGeiger wrote: post #167

Radiation 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…

If a critter moved it or ate it then it's probably gone forever. At a distance of 1 meter the dose rate from that source is already not extremely hazardous unless a person were exposed for an extended period of time (like a full day or two). Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes.

Bit of contradiction in your statement here? If putting it against your torso would mean serious health effects in minutes, how would a critter "eat" it and get more than a few meters away?

I guess by minutes you mean tens of minutes?

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#228

Post by suprjami »

BetterGeiger wrote: post #167

Radiation 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…

Please consider writing to the responsible government department and give them your credentials and suggestion.

This thing has been missing for months. Their current detection strategy is to post a picture of a watch battery on Facebook and hope it just magically shows up.

We're a little deficient in technology here in Australia, especially in government, doubly so in state government.

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#229

Post by 13of40 »

nosmokewhereiam wrote: post #187
BetterGeiger wrote: post #167

Radiation 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…

Any recommendations for detection at home? Are wearable dosimeters enough to detect before damage occurs? ...or if there is already a crowdsourced detection effort for looking out for this sort of thing, that'd be a cool map to plot.

You can get a detector/dosimeter on Amazon in the $50ish range. I got one a while back and verified it works for increased background radiation at 30,000 feet in a plane and separately with an alpha radiation source. The interesting thing is if you leave it on the background radiation sometimes just spikes for no apparent reason. Maybe something like a cosmic ray hitting the sensor every once in a while?

The one I got is on Amazon as "Geiger Counter Nuclear Radiation Detector, Professional High Accuracy Radioactive Detector Meter Beta Gamma X Ray Data Tester Marble Dosimeter".

Re: Australians scour desert for dangerous radioactive capsule smaller than a penny

#230

Post by Always42 »

bamboozled wrote: post #227
BetterGeiger wrote: post #167

Radiation 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…

If a critter moved it or ate it then it's probably gone forever. At a distance of 1 meter the dose rate from that source is already not extremely hazardous unless a person were exposed for an extended period of time (like a full day or two). Getting closer, like putting it directly against your torso, would mean serious health effects in a matter of minutes. Bit of contradiction in your statement here? If putting it…

Playing devils advocate, what if a bird grabs it and fly's 1000 meters before death?
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