/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10922896]

Whenever I hear about radiation I feel like the dumbest person on earth... I'm scared as fuck of being exposed to it. I know a bit about it, but reading or watching materials about early experimentation and disasters turned me into a complete conspiracy theorist, specially considering, that I'm in the armed forces right now.
I would like to know a few things which are hard to research.
>How much knowledge about exposure and radiation sickness do/did people involved in tests/disasters possess?
I had to take an x-ray this year and the nurse doing it didn't initially give me a lead apron and she got kind of annoyed when I asked for one. I wasn't sure if I was just paranoid and technology had moved on, or if she didn't take it serious. It was my first one since over a decade, but she didn't know about that. Stuff like this makes me really unsure about not the obvious stuff like the Bikini Atoll victims, but rather the Chernobyl and 3 mile personnel, the cleanup team and so on)
>When did awareness for that get widely spread among people working around radiation?
>How shielded are control rooms in older plants?
In movies like China syndrome they are safe spaces, but is that always the case?
>How does radiation puncture structures? When trying to escape it, what's smart to do
>How effective are measures against radiation, like chemical scrubbing and suits?
I know it's a bit allover the place, sry for that.
Feel free to post other interesting facts about radiation here.

[Anonymous No.10922983]

It's difficult to avoid radiation in urban regions because too much sources mostly irradiated steel from the nuclear experiments when they literally blew up nuclear bombs out in the open like its nothing. That poison will stay with us for billions of years and it might be right next to your head.

Personally I solved it moving away from the cities and into a small mountain town. You know simple houses, lots of pine trees, granite rocks and stuff like that. Beautiful nature and clean air not poisoned from radioactive particles spewed out from some artificial horror humans should have never created.

And fuck this I just broke my favorite red cup and it was a gift from gramps. Fuck this thread and fuck radiation. Just watch that recent movie chernobyl but keep in mind you might not sleep well for a few days I certainly didn't.

[Anonymous No.10923357]

>>10922896
>the Chernobyl and 3 mile personnel, the cleanup team
judging by the the HBO miniseries everybody seems to be completely unaware of it. Was it really that bad? I'd like to see some kind of chard where the awareness about radiation is scaled by country and year. I guess it was fairly high in post war Japan, but much lower in Soviet Russia.

[Anonymous No.10923618]

>>10922983
Thanks for contributing nothing even representing anything factual

[Anonymous No.10924149]

>>10922983
>granite rocks and stuff like that
lmao granite is radioactive you fucking dumbass. so is the radon coming up through the ground in your house unless its on stilts off the earth

[Anonymous No.10924226]

>>10922896
If you joined the armed forces you put your health in the hands of the armed forces. If they give you cancer they will fix it or not. Why the fuck did you sign on the line I wonder.

But I will still tell you what I know. Sources of radiation after a plant meltdown are limited. It depends on the type of plant. Generally there is a combination of radioactive gasses, liquids and solids which escape.

Prior to deployment on a cleanup assignment your body should be saturated with non-radioactive water, food and minerals like iodine. You also need to protect yourself from the contaminants. If you drink or eat or inhale enough radioactive stuff then you will die. Hence the air filters. The suits are reasonably effective, or they can be made that way. Plastics are actually fairly good at shielding from radiation. The air filters need to be changed often. You can even filter the radioactive stuff out of contaminated water. I wouldn't do this with food.

The scrubbing is important to remove radioactive particles from the skin. If you wear a suit a scrub shouldn't be necessary. You are still going to get a dose. The thing is with the military they usually have enough people to rotate everybody so that exposure for each individual is limited.

You want as little metal on you as possible. Buckles, canteen, waterbottles... Everything possible should be plastic. I think this is supposed to reduce secondary radiation.

Good luck in iran lol.

[Anonymous No.10924263]

>>10922896
NASA's radiation yearly limit per astronaut is 50 mSv per year. General US averages around 3 mSv per year. But as far as data suggets, its perfectly fine even upto 50 mSv per year.

But the real risk is radiation over short period of time. 0.02 mSv from 5 minute x-ray is quite a lot, but its still the risk is very low/acceptable incontrast to the problem you may be having.

[Anonymous No.10925351]

There are online dosage calculators that you might find interesting.

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/calculate-your-radiation-dose

[Anonymous No.10925353]

>>10924226
>Why the fuck did you sign on the line I wonder.
Honestly, I don't even know anymore...
But most people in armies are afraid of suffering from injury and sicknesses like everybody else.
I don't even suspect my country of recklessly testing weird shit on regulars anymore.
Thanks for the intel tho.
>>10924263
Also thanks!

[Anonymous No.10925510]

>>10922896
A good radiation primer is here:

http://www.clavius.org/envradintro.html

Also, pic related is good for some perspective.

[Anonymous No.10925655]

>>10925510
I wonder how much I've had this year. interesting stufff

[Anonymous No.10925750]

>>10925510
>>10925351
that's brilliant. I remember having watched a youtube video about how much time it would take for the contamination to kill you depending on where in chernobyl you would stand. I don't know if it was accurate, but why would you lie there...

[Anonymous No.10927542]

>>10925750
>but why would you lie there...
Maybe hes sleepy.

[Anonymous No.10927554]

>>10922983
>granite rocks and stuff like that
So you're exposed to natural radiation instead?

[Anonymous No.10927737]

>>10922983

8/10 got people to talk about granite radiation

[Anonymous No.10929211]

>>10922896
Radiation exposure in and of itself isn't bad. It's how long and how energetic the sources are as your body has natural mechanisms to repair the damage caused by radiation and only fail when too much damage has been done for the repair mechanisms to handle. That's why the Apollo astronauts were able to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts without getting cancer or radiation sickness. They went on a trajectory that took them as fast as they could through the thinnest region of the belts.

In order to measure exposure, you can do it the old-fashioned way with sheets of photography film. Over time the radiation will react with the chemicals on the film so blemishes will begin to appear on said film. If it looks like the film is about to completely change color, get the fuck out of there.

As for your fears about X-rays, as long as you don't have them too often so your cells have enough time to repair themselves and you keep your privates covered with a lead blanket or apron to reduce the chances of producing mutant spawn, then you should be fine.

You can find out more useful information here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/radiation.php#id--Types_of_Radiation

[Anonymous No.10929218]

>>10922896
Radiation exposure in and of itself isn't bad. It's how long you are exposed and how energetic the sources are as your body has natural mechanisms to repair the damage caused by radiation and only fail when too much damage has been done for the repair mechanisms to handle.

That's why the Apollo astronauts were able to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts on their way to the moon without getting cancer or radiation sickness. They went on a trajectory that took them as fast as they could through the thinnest region of the belts.

In order to measure exposure you can do it the old-fashioned way with film badge dosimeters, though they are being phased out in favor of optical and electronic versions. They are specially designed sheets of photography film that change color when exposed to radiation over time, some having multiple layers that each change to a different color indicating a low, medium or high dosage of radiation exposure. If it starts changing to the color for high dosage, then omai wa mou shindeiru.

As for your fears about X-rays, as long as you don't have them too often or too long so your cells have enough time to repair themselves and you keep your privates covered with a lead blanket or apron to reduce the chances of producing mutant spawn, then you should be fine. Most medical X-rays only expose you to a spit-second dosage, which is just enough to take a picture of your insides.

You can find out more useful information here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/radiation.php#id--Types_of_Radiation