Posted on 05/28/2012 7:01:21 PM PDT by thecodont
(05-28) 12:48 PDT LOS ANGELES, (AP) --
Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/28/national/a120114D60.DTL#ixzz1wDhpH1BO
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
My uncle, who flies a commercial aircraft from L.A. to Tokyo (and back, of course) reported seeing glowing schools of fish (schools? the fish attend schools?) at night in the Pacific ocean.
Tuna is a big fish and (I understand) the top of the ocean food chain. It’s been eating everything smaller than itself so it’s consumed all the radiation absorbed by everything smaller than itself, plankton and krill on up the ladder.
You could go to an open-air fish market and sneak in a Geiger counter. What will you find?
Joe Biden has ordered all future boats and ships to be made out of lead.
LOL there are no 1000lb tunas here on the west coast of the USA!
More nuclear hysteria. Give me break!
Just Wow.
Radiation Schmadiation. Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Your reply is incomplete and incorrect. Although Cs137 does decay thru beta, it emits gamma rays. A standard gamma detector will detect Cs 137.
From wikipededia:
Caesium-137 has a small number of practical uses. In small amounts, it is used to calibrate radiation-detection equipment. It is used as a gamma emitter for oilfield wireline density measurements. It is also sometimes used in cancer treatment, and it is also used industrially in gauges for measuring liquid flows and the thickness of materials.
Again, a standard gamma detector will detect Cs 137.
This article does not specify the amounts of contamination, and is therefore good for little besides fear mongering.
As long as the hamachi is safe, I don't care.
Nope - Incomplete, maybe, but not incorrect. Your response is incorrect and misleading.
I’m usually really big on wild salmon when it is in season, but I’ll have to say, this has given me pause this year.
Since cs137 emits gammas, your assertion is wrong. A standard gamma detector would detect gammas thru a can. batas no. gammas yes.
Since you’re being picky, CS137 does not emmit gamma rays when it decays, but the decay product BA137 does, and yes you would be able to detect gammas through the can, but there would be some attenuation, although not more than a couple of percent max given the thickness of your average can. So the maximum accuracy would be to measure the tuna out of the can. Further a reading of .05rad is much higher than you’d expect even if the tuna were contaminated. I suspect that the previous poster’s meter is in need of calibration.
Fair enough. A standard meter should be able to detect Cs137 contamination in a tuna can.
Since the contamination in this case is so small, the ability to detect the additional emission would be doubtful. But a dangerous level would be likely be detected
I had my meter repaired and calibrated by www.KI4U.com last September.
BTW, that is one great website. You can download Kearney’s book, Nuclear War Survival Skills for free. It covers a lot more than nuke war.
When I worked at a nuclear plant, Chemistry and health physics calibrated their survey meters with a standard source every day. I didn’t work in the C&HP department, so I don’t know if they calibrated them to multiple levels or not. I do remember some guy getting his face scrubbed with duct tape when they found had an emmitting source somewhere on his face. If you could get a standard source - low level - and calibrate your meter yourself, it would probably give you a lot more accurate reading.
No, even if there were radioactive glowing fish (there aren’t) it would be kinda difficult to see them from 35,000 feet.
Thanks for the tip.
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