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The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

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Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#61

Post by gus_massa »

chokolad wrote: post #26

seriously, 6 foot long catfish is a radioactive freak now? I lived in Uzbekistan from the time I was born (1976) till about 1990 and six foot catfish was really big but not uncommon. I have a photo of my dad holding 5 feet one by the gills somewhere in my albums (dated before 1976 for sure). I remember my dad buying smoked catfish slices about 5-7 inches across, those definitely came from pretty damn big specimens. A…

I agree. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish#Size

>The largest specimens on record measure more than 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) in length and sometimes exceeded 100 kilograms (220 lb).

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#62

Post by nnq »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #53
rdtsc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key was if that was the dose to the total body area not just from a single grain in her hand. Imagine being covered in those grains for 1 hour that would be the equivalent.

And what happens if you "only" irradiate your hand? Presumably some of the alpha/beta particles can go into your blood and then to the rest of your body? what damage is being done by holding that grain?

Alpha particles (high energy bare Helium nuclei actually) and beta particles (high energy electrons actually) don't "go into your blood", they are just absorbed by atoms in your skin and they break a few molecules those atoms were part of along the way. If they go deep enough they make break up some DNA in you skin cells. If they would get to the blood they would just be absorbed by the blood itself and break some molecules that float in the blood - which would be pretty harmless. If the dose is really big they may even turn some atoms in your skin's cell radioactive and yeah, these could then go around your body, but at such a dose you'd have burns on your skin already.

Her biggest problem from holding something like that radioactive grain in hand would be the gamma rays causing mutations in the cells in her hand that would then lead to cancer in the log term. Like I'd imagine she will be sick with some bone cancer or leukemia or a random sarcoma in like 10 - 15 years from now. Maybe even longer if she has inherited some good DNA-repair genes and anti-cancer-immunity genes. Or sooner if she wasn't so lucky at the genetic lottery and if she has other risk factors too...

And then there's the radioactive dust... I'd imagine she has inhaled quite a lot of it along her trips, and this is probably her biggest short term (think "less than 10 years") concern.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#63

Post by triplesec »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #53
rdtsc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key was if that was the dose to the total body area not just from a single grain in her hand. Imagine being covered in those grains for 1 hour that would be the equivalent.

And what happens if you "only" irradiate your hand? Presumably some of the alpha/beta particles can go into your blood and then to the rest of your body? what damage is being done by holding that grain?

no, alpha particles cannot pass through skin. beta might

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#64

Post by nnq »

moopling wrote: post #60
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens if you "only" irradiate your hand? Presumably some of the alpha/beta particles can go into your blood and then to the rest of your body? what damage is being done by holding that grain?

The gigacounter predicts the sieverts/h based on the local amount of radiation and by assuming that is the dosage all parts of your body are exposed to. If significantly less of your body is actually exposed to that level of radiation the actual dosage you receive will be less than predicted.

You're right but it's not about the dose only. If I blast a millimeter-sized piece of your finger with neutrons the body dose might be extremely small, but that piece of finger tissue might itself become radioactive and the newly-made-radioactive atoms in it will keep irradiating the cells around. Then some of them will get cancer mutations. Then some of them will go long enough along the path to cancer. Then some of them will metastasize...

The girl seems to have a good understanding of dose safety. But a poor understanding of biological effects, just like everyone else. Beta vs alpha vs gamma radiation have very different biological effects and sieverts, the measuring units that take some of these differences into account, are a gross over simplification. You can kill someone with a radiation dose well below the lethal one in Sv and you can survive a dose above the lethal one...

Biological systems have very complicated relationships with radiation in general, that's why even the health impact of non-ionizing radiation needs to be investigated (yeah, your cellphone is most likely safe ;) ...but you know that you have at least some cells in you body that respond even to non-ionizing EM radiation - they are in your eyes and thanks to them you can read this :) )

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#65

Post by DanBC »

Joona wrote: post #32
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

This lady reminds me of Tarkovsky's Stalker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film) There was a very interesting documentary on PBS a month or two back about the 'Radioactive Wolves' of Chernobyl. Bottom line: they don't seem any more or less healthy than other wolf populations in the region, but do well because nobody hunts them.

I remember seeing a documentary like that on Finnish TV a couple of years back, but it wasn't just about the wolves - it included other animals too. They seem to be doing very well. Do you happen to remember the name of the documentary? It sounds very interesting.

The wildlife situation in Chernobyl is complex.

Here are some BBC reports. The BBC sometimes mangles science reporting. I'd be interested to read more modern articles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm

> Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.

> But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489

> "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination."

> But this is one side of a polarised scientific debate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...

> Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm

> According to researchers working in the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, there is a "strong signal of decline [of insects] associated with the contamination".

> The team found that bumblebees, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and spiders were affected.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#66

Post by allendoerfer »

My problem with nuclear disasters or really any kind of bigger scale environmental damage is, that you have no control over other people's actions and failures. You therefore can not argue, that the technology is fine as long as we all use it securely, because you simply can not ensure that for countries you have no control over.

And it is not only the small countries. We trust developed nations with nuclear technology, when we really should not [0]. Fukushima happened, many smaller scale incidents in the US happened [1] and in Germany the nuclear waste is a constant issue [2].

Unfortunately when using a shared resource like "world security", the free rider problem occurs, so everybody keeps using it. When you enlarge the time period in which we use nuclear power/weapons long enough the probability, that we mess things up on an even larger scale than Chernobyl or Fukushima ultimately approaches 1.

While I hate, that people forget that nuclear power does run on fuel and we have to handle the waste for generations to come, I am very thankful, that they also forget to think of peak uranium [3], which in my mind as a layman might solve the problem.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_accidents_in_th...

[2]: http://www.dw.de/what-to-do-with-nuclear-waste/a-16755844

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#Peak_uranium_for_i...

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#67

Post by joshvm »

pantalaimon wrote: post #44
joshvm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or better yet, Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers which the film was based on.

But this doesn't have anything to do with radiation

Not directly, and neither does the film, but the entire 'Zone' trope was popularised in Roadside Picnic almost 15 years before the Chernobyl disaster.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#68

Post by caramel »

Joona wrote: post #32
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

This lady reminds me of Tarkovsky's Stalker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film) There was a very interesting documentary on PBS a month or two back about the 'Radioactive Wolves' of Chernobyl. Bottom line: they don't seem any more or less healthy than other wolf populations in the region, but do well because nobody hunts them.

I remember seeing a documentary like that on Finnish TV a couple of years back, but it wasn't just about the wolves - it included other animals too. They seem to be doing very well. Do you happen to remember the name of the documentary? It sounds very interesting.

There seems to be this public perception that wildlife around Chernobyl is just doing fine. Research indicates otherwise

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24963711

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22514722

The second article goes as far as to propose that [bird] populations are only maintained through immigration from nearby uncontaminated areas.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#69

Post by Tloewald »

rustsucks wrote: post #39
personlurking wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood that the two people ate a sandwich and a little girl. I'm glad that wasn't the case. This part seemed quite crazy, though: "She was buried in a common cemetery in Goiânia, in a special fiberglass coffin lined with lead to prevent the spread of radiation. Despite these measures, there was still a riot in the cemetery where over 2,000 people, fearing that her corpse would poison the surrounding area, tried…

It seems hard to understand in our eyes, but you have to appreciate the lack of education and superstition in Brazil. If you ever read the famous feedback from Feynman about the standard of teaching in Brazil (shit) then you would know why.

If I recall correctly Feynman thought his students had been taught to memorize facts and formulae, not to actually have a practical understanding of principles. This doesn't make the entire education system shit – it's a second order problem compared to graduating kids from high school who are functionally illiterate.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#70

Post by mkesper »

m0skit0 wrote: post #37

I wonder, maybe someone can answer: why is Chernobyl still remembered while nobody talks about Fukushima anymore?

WDR (a german public television channel) made (in my eyes) a very good reportage about it. Maybe if enough people bug them there is a chance of getting at least english subtitles. http://reportage.wdr.de/fukushima
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