Nuclear food
- Thread starter K.I.L.E.R
- Start date
If I turn on a light bulb will it contaminate my room with light even if I turn off the light source?
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Probably. I was born around the chernobyl disaster and my parants couldnt eat a few kinds af vegtibles because it got contaminated with radiation.
Surely there's a difference between the food being contaminated with radioactive/toxic heavy elements and just having gamma rays passing through the material. As the latter are EM radiation, they could be on the other side of the solar system within a few hours.
Of course, some may cause chemical reactions due to ionisation which might not be terribly healthy.
Gamma radiation is EMR with a shorter wavelength than X-Rays.Isn't that what gamma radiation is?
I'm confused.
Actually I was under the opinion that it really didn't have to be a shorter wavelength then X-Rays but had to be source from a nuclear reaction. I would rather think that the X-Rays emitted from accelerating particles in atom smashes would be shorter then some Gamma rays.
hoom
Veteran
From memory:
Gamma radiation is pure energy
Beta radiation is high speed electrons
Alpha radiation is Helium cores
If you irradiate some food with gamma radiation, depending on intensity & period of irradiation, you may get some atoms to absorb some & then re-emit later, thats secondary radiation.
Radioactive/toxic materials are just the unstable heavy atoms that tend to emit any of the above in the first place, its their heavy metallic nature that makes them toxic & thats a seperate matter to radioactivity caused by the unstable atomic nucleus.
Gamma radiation is pure energy
Beta radiation is high speed electrons
Alpha radiation is Helium cores
If you irradiate some food with gamma radiation, depending on intensity & period of irradiation, you may get some atoms to absorb some & then re-emit later, thats secondary radiation.
Radioactive/toxic materials are just the unstable heavy atoms that tend to emit any of the above in the first place, its their heavy metallic nature that makes them toxic & thats a seperate matter to radioactivity caused by the unstable atomic nucleus.
Not according the spectrum here. <shrug>
Nah. A dose of polonium never hurt anyone.
I vote we test the theory that only heavy metals are toxic and someone here consumes some Na-20* the excited the sodium-20 atoms Come on a bit of salt never hurt anyone.
Its pretty evil stuff I've heard of researches who use it in combination with heavy water as a neutron source. The gamma rays emitted are nice and powerful enough to knock the neutrons out of the Deuterium.
Come on a bit of salt never hurt anyone.Its pretty evil stuff I've heard of researches who use it in combination with heavy water as a neutron source. The gamma rays emitted are nice and powerful enough to knock the neutrons out of the Deuterium.
I was refering to its toxicity and to the unfortunate Russian ex-spy who was murdered by it recently.
Heavy metals are quite often chemically soft.
Sulfur is chemical soft.
Like things go together.
The heavy metal binds to sulfur in proteins.
So you can eat gamma-rayed food, but you shouldnt make it angry `till it left your body.I can't believe that nobody else has mentioned the obvious. Gamma rays make you become a huge green muscular beast - but only if you're made angry. Really angry.
Cobalt-60 and caesium-137 are quite commonly used to irradiate foods to reduce the number of harmful organisms and parasites and increase shelf life. Spices, flour, cosmetics and tubers(for inhibition of sprouts) in particular. Beta and gamma irradiation are approved for food use at up levels of up to about 0.1 to 10 kGy(!!!) depending on country and foodstuff, which is about 1 to 100 million times the absorbed energy of a chest xray.
(dose on the other hand is weighted after how dangerous it is to human health which depends on the type of radiation, not just the amount of energy absorbed. When speaking of irradiated potatoes dose is not the measurement you're interested in.)
In the US the label "Treated by Irradiation." or similar must be affixed.
Irradiation of foods causes some degradation of nutrient content but not any more than cooking or freezing foods. Radiation of food also causes various compounds by radiolysis(it's ionizing radiation, it will fairly randomly destroy molecules by knocking of electrons etc.). These compounds are refered to as "radiolytic products".
There's a fairly large overlap between x-rays and gamma rays.
(dose on the other hand is weighted after how dangerous it is to human health which depends on the type of radiation, not just the amount of energy absorbed. When speaking of irradiated potatoes dose is not the measurement you're interested in.)
In the US the label "Treated by Irradiation." or similar must be affixed.
Irradiation of foods causes some degradation of nutrient content but not any more than cooking or freezing foods. Radiation of food also causes various compounds by radiolysis(it's ionizing radiation, it will fairly randomly destroy molecules by knocking of electrons etc.). These compounds are refered to as "radiolytic products".
There's a fairly large overlap between x-rays and gamma rays.
