Japan & Radioactive Products! After the tragic events that occurred this March in Japan and lead to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, recent studies revealed that it’s now on a par with Chernobyl! A very large part of the country was covered with radioactive particles & radiation carried by the wind & water, the sea was contaminated with the radioactive waste from the power plants and even the Tokyo public water supplies were contaminated! As a result many local Japanese heavy industry factories like SONY, Canon, Toshiba, etc… ceased production and closed down and only restarted production recently. It’s obvious that edible & biological goods, like fish, vegetables, meat, soya, noodles, etc… from Japan should be avoided, but what about other mechanical / electronic / paper, textiles & non-biological products made in Japan like TVs, digital Cameras, consoles, computers, cars, DVDs, comics, clothes, etc… or even older / used products like video games, books, DVDs, computer / console hardware, etc… that had been stocked in Japan?! Shouldn’t all these also be considered dangerous for public health as their parts (or as a whole) could have been exposed to radiation and contaminated with radioactive particles that recently covered the entire country and surrounding area?! For example how safe would it be to buy one of these, which is made in Japan: http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_Camera/PowerShot/PowerShot_S95/ I would really like to get some valid scientific answers concerning these queries and even get some valid scientific / encyclopaedia links that will clear up these matters. Thanks in advance.
Some materials like wood cannot irradiated. Also you have to know which radionuclide it is. Some have very short half-lives while others have an extremely long ones. Smoke detectors have Americium. Although most people do not know this, cigarette smoke contains Polonium. Fear of the unknown.... Jeff
Actually for scientific reasons, I wouldn't mind owning a meter / monitoring equipment which can pick up ionizing radiation. I've used these cool toys in the lab back during my Uni / student years and they're really cool. But do they actually sell them commercially for the public?!
RAD detection equipment is very expensive. First you have to know what energy level you are looking for. Another words if you are looking for beta but the meter is looking for a higher energy level like gamma you will not be able to detect it. If the radionuclide is unknown then spectroscopy is the way to go. Prohibitively expensive. Radio radionuclide have their own signature. Co60 has two peaks. One is 512 KeV the other is.... Opps I forgot Maybe a swap meet will help. Still the detector has to be calibrated with a known source every x amount of time. Usually every 3, 6 or twelve months. That is also very expensive Jeff
if its anything like chenobyl all the food products are safe (according to the government) (private testing done by greenpeace showed otherwise).in theory we should know if any of the goods are affected in reality we will only know what the media wants us to, unless you got the equiptment to carry out your own tests.
Question: Do Beta & Gamma radiation & particles always have a short decay time (short-lived / short half-life) & high energy, while Alpha radiation / particles is the exact opposite? Is this a scientific fact or does it depend of whether its a high-energy particle or not and Does it go like this? Alpha Radiation = low energy / long half-life, low penetrating power. Beta Radiation = Higher Energy, shorter half-life, higher penetration Gamma Radiation = High Energy, short half-life, high penetration Or are there alpha radiation / particles that also have a High Energy, short half-life, high penetration like Beta & Gamma?
