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How much radiation do you get from naturally radioactive foods?
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
All foods have at least a trace of radioactive material in them. It is something that cannot be avoided, and the radiation comes from the materials in nartual background radiation. There is a bit more to this, so let's look.
There is natural radiation all around us. There always has been. And in the last century, which has seen man fooling around with all manner of radioactive material (and making a lot more of it!), the background radiation level has gone up. We know about nuclear tests and nuclear accidents, don't we? But, generally speaking, natural background radiation does not pose much of a threat to people. Not the stuff we breathe, not the stuff we eat, and not the stuff we walk around near and get exposed to.
There should be concerns among some groups of people who live in areas where radon can occur in modest amounts. These folks should have their homes checked for radon accumulation. But beyond that, there is little to fear from the threat of radiation exposure owing to natural sources. It is much more likely for many folks to die in traffic (or other) accidents than to die from radiation sickness, or from cancer brought on by radiation exposure.
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
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Does the amount of radiation you give off depend on what is inside of you?
Yes. Radiation is emanated from radioactive material, so the amount of radiation that someone "gives off" is a function of how much radioactive material they have inside them.
What happens to the amount of radiation a radioactive substance emits when you heat it up or cool it down?
when you heat up or cool down radioactive substances, nothing changes how much radiation it emits.
Is Oxygen reactive radioactive or non reactive?
Nope oxygen is not radioactive if it was then all humans on earth will be sick with cancer because they breathed in so much radiation from the oxygen.
What does radiation cause?
Radiation is emitted from the sun to the Earth as short-wavelength radiation. It is also the energy that is released from a nucleus as it breaks-up, when the nuclear force acting on the nucleus is not enough to hold it together.
Why do people working around radioactive waste in a radioactive storage facility wear badges that contain strips of photographic film?
The film in the badges changes colour when radiation hits it. By looking at the badges, the people wearing them can tell how much radiation they have been exposed to. They have different strips of film for different types of radiation, so they are not only able to tell how much radiation someone has been exposed to, but also what type of radiation. Its basically a safety measure to ensure that workers are not exposed to excessive levels of radiation emitted from the waste.
What is natural radioactive decay?
GLOSSARYNATURALNORMRADONRadiation is a natural part of the earth's environment. It comes from the sky above us, the earth beneath us and even from our own bodies. The air we breathe and the food we eat contain some naturally occurring radioactive materials. In fact, on average a person in the United States receives a radiation dose of about 300 millirem per year from natural sources compared to a dose of about 50 millirem per year from "artificially produced" sources such as medical x-rays.Radioactive materials in rocks and soilNatural radioactive material in rocks and soil account for about 28 millirem or 8% of the radiation dose a person typically receives in a year from all sources (including medical exposures). The earth's crust contains small amounts of uranium, thorium, and radium as well as radioactive isotopes of several elements including potassium. The radiation dose comes from the gamma rays which are emitted from the rocks, soil and some building materials (such as bricks and concrete).Radon in indoor airSmall amounts of radon, a radioactive gas which comes from the radioactive decay of uranium, seep into the atmosphere from the soil. On average, inhalation of the radon in homes and other buildings accounts for 200 millirem per year. This is about 55% of the total radiation dose an individual receives in a year from all sources, including medical x-rays, cosmic rays, building materials, the earth's crust, and ingested radioactive materials.Radioactive materials in the bodyAbout 11% (40 millirem) of our radiation dose comes from naturally occurring radioactive materials in the body. Most of the dose comes from a radioactive isotope of potassium. Radioactive potassium-40, as well as other radioactive materials (such as carbon-14) which occur naturally in air, water, and soil are incorporated into the food we eat and then into our body tissues.Cosmic raysCosmic radiation comes from outer space. The radiation dose from cosmic radiation increases with altitude, roughly doubling every 6,000 feet. Therefore, a resident of Florida (at sea level) on average receives about 26 millirem, one-half the dose from cosmic radiation as that received by a resident of Denver, Colorado, and about one-fifth of that by a resident of Leadville, Colorado (about two miles above sea level). A passenger in a jetliner traveling at 37,000 feet would receive about 60 times as much dose from cosmic radiation as would a person standing at sea level for the same length of time.The millirem is the term used to describe the amount of radiation absorbed in the body, adjusting for radiation type.
How can nuclear radiation be absorbed?
Yes. Any element which is radioactive may bond together with other molecules and atoms, just as much as any other non-radioactive element. However, radioactive elements would have a slightly greater pull towards their bonded species if their nucleus has more neutrons than what is normal for non-radioactive elements.
How much radiation does a computer give off?
none. They are safe.
People receive some natural or background radiation exposure each day from?
There are several sources of natural or background radiation for people.First, there are naturally occurring radioactive elements in the crust of the earth which have been present since the earth's formation. These can irradiate people in several ways.They can irradiate people externally because the soil and rocks all around us (and some building materials such as concrete and brick) act as radiation sources.Plants and animals that we use for food take in the radioactive elements and we ingest them along with our food.Some of the radioactivity is present in the air and we inhale it along with the air.Second, there are radioactive elements which are produced by interactions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere, the best known being carbon-14 and hydrogen-3 (or tritium). These can irradiate us in much the same ways as the elements discussed above.Third, we are constantly irradiated by cosmic rays.
Would exposure to something which is radioactive make you radioactive?
Not much. There are various forms of radioactivity. A material can emit alpha particles, beta particles (high energy electrons), neutrons, gamma rays (high energy photos), or you can ingest it. If you eat, breathe or inject a radioactive material, it will be inside you and you will become "radioactive" in that you will emit particles or radiation. This is how PET works - the doctor injects a short-lived isotope and tracks the positrons emitted by them with a detector, so can track, say, the uptake of glucose in your brain. If you sit on a lump of radioactive material, the radiation will damage your skin and body to an extent depending on the intensity and type of radiation. If an emitted particle changes an atom in your body to an unstable isotope, this will later decay by emitting a particle itself. In this sense you will have been made "radioactive". This is I believe very unlikely - the side effects of radiation damage would kill you long before you had become significantly radioactive just from contact. A particle is more likely to break chemical bonds and create free radicals than to create a new isotope.
Where does the radiation come from and how is it made in a nuclear bomb?
Ultimately all nuclear radiation comes from the excess nuclear binding energy of unstable atoms. Nuclear binding energy is the energy of the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force that holds the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei together. When an unstable atom releases its excess energy to become a more stable atom, one or more types of nuclear radiation carries away that energy.All nuclear bombs contain some unstable atoms of radioactive elements (e.g. uranium, plutonium, tritium) in their construction to make it possible for them to work, but these radioactive elements are usually only slightly radioactive and the radiation (mostly alpha) is usually easy to shield.However when these bombs are detonated fission of uranium and/or plutonium atoms produces very large numbers of fission product atoms which are much more unstable than the original atoms and emit much harder to shield beta and gamma radiation as they decay to more stable atoms. Also both fission and fusion reactions inside the bomb generate neutron radiation in a brief pulse at the moment of detonation, this neutron radiation (unlike other types of nuclear radiation) can make other atoms radioactive that were not previously radioactive. Both gamma and neutron radiation are nearly impossible to shield.
What are some benefits and drawbacks to using radioactive isotopes in smoke alarms speaking in temrs of economic social and perhaps ethical factors.?
Radiation is a physical property of matter. Under normal conditions, radiation occurs at a quantified, predictable rate. (This is why atomic clocks are so good at keeping time.) Radioactive isotopes in smoke detectors allow simple counting mechanisms to be used. However, it is very expensive to isolate or synthesize certain radioactive isotopes, and beta and gamma radiation can be very dangerous as they ionize molecules in your body. Relatively harmless compounds may decay into much more dangerous radioactive isotopes. This is why uranium can be handled with normal precautions but "spent" nuclear fuel is so harmful. Spent nuclear fuel contains isotopes of cesium, iodine, and plutonium that decay much faster and release beta and gamma radiation.
