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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

#261

Post by wkat4242 »

MengerSponge wrote: post #107
remus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's one of those things where the intensity of the radiation is proportional to 1/d^2. If you're holding it in your hand it emits enough radiation to be very unhealthy, but as soon as you put some distance between you and it then it becomes very hard to detect.

That's why it's still lost. Cs-137 has a clear gamma emmision spectrum (which is to say it glows a unique color of high-energy photons), so you can scan and pick it up with a scintillation detector. Unfortunately, Cs-137 is one of the bits of waste generated as fallout from nuclear testing, and its half-life is 30 years, so ambient levels are generally not identically zero.

And South Australia (pretty close to the bidder is Western Australia) has seen nuclear testing at woomera missile range so it's pretty likely to have some contamination indeed.

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

#262

Post by astrange »

shirro wrote: post #181
anakaine wrote: post #89

Earlier 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.

Same. Also if some small critter bit you in Australia you don't have to worry about rabies though there is a similar virus can be carried by bats. I have a shed full of hundreds of potentially lethal spiders and there are several highly venomous snakes endemic to the area and I don't care. The actual risk is close to nil. Living in inland southern Australia the only place that scares me in the ocean where there are s…

Have you tried not having a shed full of potentially lethal spiders?

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

#263

Post by sam1r »

karmakaze wrote: post #4

Here'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...

Really interesting.

At the bottom of the page, there is a link to a "List of all Civilian Radiation accidents[0], which has at least 50 more cited situations since the 1950s.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_acc...

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

#264

Post by astrange »

car wrote: post #70
leaving wrote: post #56

This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy…

A network of scintillators in every phone would be amazing for finding stuff like this. That was my first thought too. Do you think it’s physically possible to make a MEMS scintiallation device?

If you're going to put increasingly obscure health sensors in your phone, I think air quality would come before radiation.

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

#265

Post by paranoidrobot »

leaving wrote: post #56

This is mostly a data analysis job. If the capsule is on or very near the road, a single trip from start to finish with a NaI(Tl) or CsI scintillation counter will find it. Every CBRN team in the world has these, so they have obviously completed the first run at this without finding it. The capsule is not on or near the road. Australia is famous for road trains on the Great Northen Highway. They travel fast and heavy…

I know this is just a list of theories.

> or because there was a dead kangaroo on the road or something

There's few situations where someone might stop for a dead kangaroo, or really any other wildlife. Either because they see it's still alive, or because they're checking to see if it might be a female with live young.

If it's clear that it's dead, nobody is going to stop. On a road, in WA, in summer -- yeah you're going to smell that for a long ways. Scavangers will deal with it pretty quickly, anyway.

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

#266

Post by defrost »

hammock wrote: post #252
defrost wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly if it's dry and sealed in, however .. In a rising damp, wall wicking water scenario the lead may be leached out from the paint and transported to, say, food being grown near house. The US had long term issues from lead in the water (being ingested) so there's a similar danger here if the lead isn't stable on the wall behind sealing layers.

deleted

For Flint, Michigan [1] (the recent times big news event) and other cities it was lead from pipes:

    Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
ie. Lead leached by water from a lead source (be that paint, pipes, or gasoline particulate residue)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

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

#267

Post by dajtxx »

astrange wrote: post #262
shirro wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Also if some small critter bit you in Australia you don't have to worry about rabies though there is a similar virus can be carried by bats. I have a shed full of hundreds of potentially lethal spiders and there are several highly venomous snakes endemic to the area and I don't care. The actual risk is close to nil. Living in inland southern Australia the only place that scares me in the ocean where there are s…

Have you tried not having a shed full of potentially lethal spiders?

Can't do that - the spiders are mandatory and come free with every shed. Snakes are optional though.

The lethality of Australia is vastly overstated. I'm guessing North and South America are both much more dangerous than here.

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

#268

Post by jackvalentine »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #260
im3w1l wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it sounds amazing in theory, but none of us have the time to figure that out. It's just way too complicated. It needs to be dumbed down so that you contact one single company, they send a guy over with a bunch of kits and translates it into an easily understandable how-fucked-are-you score, with upsells for improving your score.

Sounds like a business opportunity

This kind of thing exists and is rife with head office pushing iffy practices to boost the detection - e.g. sampling a bigger area than the official measurement equation requires etc.

Lots of problems with ‘meth detection’ companies that over-detect then sell you tens of thousands of dollars of remediation services.

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

#269

Post by aendruk »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #160

With sd cards, USB sticks, etc. I have concluded that anything very valuable should be made big enough so that its presence or absence is unmissable. Maybe this capsule was kept in a bigger container, maybe not. In any case, if they are so dangerous, IMHO every capsule should be kept in its own large container individually tracked. Hell, nowadays you could cheaply fit a container with its own GPS tracker and eliminat…

It already was kept in a bigger container. Reportedly the bigger container fell apart.
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