Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Radioactivity in Tobacco

epa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#31

Post by saagarjha »

gbin wrote: post #27
abpavel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. There is no such thing as safe dose with Radon. You're thinking of gamma rays and 50mSv/year safe limit. You won't find safe limit for Radon. There are guidelines when you should be very concerned, but there is no safe limit. It decays into radioactive lead, and once we breath it in, it's hard to get rid of, and stays in our bodies.

I have a hard time making sense of this. Would it mean 1 atom of Rn is always fatal for any individual? The fact that it accumulates in the body doesn't mean it is fatal at any dose.

No, of course not, but Radon is highly radioactive and extremely small amounts are enough to measurably elevate your risk of cancer. We’re talking numbers like a few million molecules in a room.

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#32

Post by saagarjha »

ISL wrote: post #6
ccffpphh wrote: post #2

Is radium only present in tobacco fertilizers? What separates tobacco fertilizers from other plant fertilizers? Am I at risk for eating tomatoes grown with normal off-the-shelf fertilizer?

Radium is also present in Brazil Nuts. Some plants aggregate chemical elements more than others. We use them to linearize the energy scale in lower-background germanium detectors. Grocery-store potassium chloride sets our energy calibration. The bad thing about radium in tobacco, I am told, is that the alpha-emitting radium (or the daughters) tends to aggregate in the lungs. Alphas do a lot of nearby damage, hence a…

Brazil nuts are known for being particularly high in selenium.

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#34

Post by raverbashing »

ISL wrote: post #6
ccffpphh wrote: post #2

Is radium only present in tobacco fertilizers? What separates tobacco fertilizers from other plant fertilizers? Am I at risk for eating tomatoes grown with normal off-the-shelf fertilizer?

Radium is also present in Brazil Nuts. Some plants aggregate chemical elements more than others. We use them to linearize the energy scale in lower-background germanium detectors. Grocery-store potassium chloride sets our energy calibration. The bad thing about radium in tobacco, I am told, is that the alpha-emitting radium (or the daughters) tends to aggregate in the lungs. Alphas do a lot of nearby damage, hence a…

> Grocery-store potassium chloride sets our energy calibration.

I'm guessing this gives a new meaning for the phrase "banana for scale"

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#36

Post by russholmes »

ccffpphh wrote: post #2

Is radium only present in tobacco fertilizers? What separates tobacco fertilizers from other plant fertilizers? Am I at risk for eating tomatoes grown with normal off-the-shelf fertilizer?

This is specific to tobacco: firstly that the tobacco leaves pick up trace amounts of polonium-210, and secondly that inhaling tobacco smoke concentrates the Po-210 into localised deposits within the lung. Because Po-210 is a short range alpha emitter, these deposits deliver a significant radiation dose to small areas of lung epithelium. This dose is believed to contribute to the carcinogenic effect of tobacco smoke.

Eating vegetables does not lead to tissue irradiation in this manner. You are not at risk from eating tomatoes (or other fruit and veg) whether or not they are fertilized with rock phosphate.

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#37

Post by Gibbon1 »

BlueYoshi wrote: post #26
throw_away wrote: post #23

> Tobacco farmers use fertilizer to help their crops grow. These fertilizers contain a naturally-occurring radionuclide, radium. Radium radioactively decays to release radon gas, which then rises from the soil around the plants. As the plant grows, the radon from fertilizer, along with naturally-occurring radon in surrounding soil and rocks, cling to the sticky hairs on the bottom of tobacco leaves, called trichomes.…

Tobacco leaves have sticky hairs on their underside, which is what makes them different from other crops: it’s these hairs that absorb the radon and prevent it from being washed away with water. Also, the type of fertilizer used for Tobacco might be different than fertilizers used for other crops.

> sticky hairs

Reminds me. My ex-wifes grandmother said when she was a little girl her family packed up from tobacco country to California. And her utter joy when her mother told her that no they don't grow tobacco in California.

Because picking tobacco is gross and nasty work.

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#39

Post by pjc50 »

abpavel wrote: post #16
acidburnNSA wrote: post #13

This is very nearly useless because it doesn't give the range of dose rates they see in tobacco (am I missing them!?). Low radiation doses are normal and natural and have been part of life forever. High doses from concentrated stuff can cause trouble. So what range are we dealing with here!? When you have detectors capable of seeing a single atom decaying, quantitative dose rates are always required to have a meaning…

Incorrect. There is no such thing as safe dose with Radon. You're thinking of gamma rays and 50mSv/year safe limit. You won't find safe limit for Radon. There are guidelines when you should be very concerned, but there is no safe limit. It decays into radioactive lead, and once we breath it in, it's hard to get rid of, and stays in our bodies.

.. but it's also pretty much unavoidable in some places, as it leaks out of the granite in the ground.

Re: Radioactivity in Tobacco

#40

Post by smdz »

Every year 8 million people die because of tobacco. In the US alone, the number of deaths (due to tobacco) per year is close to half a million. Similarly between 4-7 million people die due to air pollution. Ironically, that does not alarm anyone, that does not cause lockdowns, that does not require flattening the curve. The numbers don't lie - global lockdowns that led to significant drop in air pollution may have coincidentally saved more lives and helped mother nature heal.
Post reply on HN