Two common foods that are ALWAYS radioactive
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Date: 2025-02-02
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Comments and reviews: 20
knpark2025
I think burying your instrument inside them to get a reading did help. The radiation you measure at 6: 42, and the radiation you measure at 10: 10 are two different particles. The one from Potassium (and in bananas) is beta particles. It is an electron with an unhealthy amount of energy, but it is an electron, so it can be stopped with a sheet of metal. If the salt container had a layer of aluminum on its inner coating like a bag of potato chips, you would detect far fewer beta particles from the outside, if at all. The one from Brazil nuts can even be stopped with a sheet of paper because it is made up of alpha particles. Alpha particles are the atomic nuclei of helium that have been stripped of all electrons, and this is how naturally occurring helium on Earth is created underground. We often separate them from fossil fuels because the rocks surrounding oil or gas deposits will release alpha particles from millions of years of radioactive decay into them. An alpha particle is a sledgehammer with tremendous energy it is a helium nucleus, which is thousands of times more massive than beta particles. But because it is a sledgehammer, it can't even pierce human skin if you hold its source in your hand. Crushing them into finer granules should have helped your instrument read more radiation because it makes Brazil nut block less radiation of itself.
This is also why contractors and construction workers talk about Radon all the time. Radon is nasty it is a gas, and it will readily light up your insides with its subatomic sledgehammers once you inhale it. You can eat your bananas and Brazil nuts as much as you want. A person will probably need to see the doctor for nutrition imbalance far before the radiation damage becomes noticeable. Worrying about your home's ventilation is far more productive than worrying about radiation from produce you picked up from the local groceries because Radon accumulation in a poorly ventilated house is far more dangerous than any agricultural produce that is naturally radioactive. If beta particles hit you like poking someone with a needle, then alpha particles will bludgeon you like swinging a medal made of solid gold. And yes, I made this analogy just to make an obligatory Marie Curie reference. Radium alpha-decays into Radon, and Radon alpha-decays into Polonium. This is a 1. 0 _gold-medal-per-alpha-particle_ decay chain.
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I think burying your instrument inside them to get a reading did help. The radiation you measure at 6: 42, and the radiation you measure at 10: 10 are two different particles. The one from Potassium (and in bananas) is beta particles. It is an electron with an unhealthy amount of energy, but it is an electron, so it can be stopped with a sheet of metal. If the salt container had a layer of aluminum on its inner coating like a bag of potato chips, you would detect far fewer beta particles from the outside, if at all. The one from Brazil nuts can even be stopped with a sheet of paper because it is made up of alpha particles. Alpha particles are the atomic nuclei of helium that have been stripped of all electrons, and this is how naturally occurring helium on Earth is created underground. We often separate them from fossil fuels because the rocks surrounding oil or gas deposits will release alpha particles from millions of years of radioactive decay into them. An alpha particle is a sledgehammer with tremendous energy it is a helium nucleus, which is thousands of times more massive than beta particles. But because it is a sledgehammer, it can't even pierce human skin if you hold its source in your hand. Crushing them into finer granules should have helped your instrument read more radiation because it makes Brazil nut block less radiation of itself.
This is also why contractors and construction workers talk about Radon all the time. Radon is nasty it is a gas, and it will readily light up your insides with its subatomic sledgehammers once you inhale it. You can eat your bananas and Brazil nuts as much as you want. A person will probably need to see the doctor for nutrition imbalance far before the radiation damage becomes noticeable. Worrying about your home's ventilation is far more productive than worrying about radiation from produce you picked up from the local groceries because Radon accumulation in a poorly ventilated house is far more dangerous than any agricultural produce that is naturally radioactive. If beta particles hit you like poking someone with a needle, then alpha particles will bludgeon you like swinging a medal made of solid gold. And yes, I made this analogy just to make an obligatory Marie Curie reference. Radium alpha-decays into Radon, and Radon alpha-decays into Polonium. This is a 1. 0 _gold-medal-per-alpha-particle_ decay chain.
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mobiusfanblade
If you are going to measure with the radiacode like that I would recommend that you have the sample as close as possible to the scintillator side. Ideally touching the tip/end on the LED side.
For your dehydrated banana sample, you may also wish to pulverize it and concentrate it in the bottom of a mug, then placing the radiacode point into the powder.
As for detecting a difference in counts or dose, it's hard to see a difference like that because of the error margins.
You can probably have a better idea of the activity of the sample if you compare it to background:
I like to take take 12 hours of background radiation spectrum, in this case kitchen standard. You can save this spectrum in the app, then set it as a background on the spectrum page.
To measure the sample, you then clear the collected spectrum and let the radiacode sit in banana/nut dust for a few hours.
Ideally you'll accumulate events over time that show if your sample has a different spectrum from your kitchen background.
Source: Radiacode user, uranium glass and fiestaware hunter, former radiation control intern.
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If you are going to measure with the radiacode like that I would recommend that you have the sample as close as possible to the scintillator side. Ideally touching the tip/end on the LED side.
For your dehydrated banana sample, you may also wish to pulverize it and concentrate it in the bottom of a mug, then placing the radiacode point into the powder.
As for detecting a difference in counts or dose, it's hard to see a difference like that because of the error margins.
You can probably have a better idea of the activity of the sample if you compare it to background:
I like to take take 12 hours of background radiation spectrum, in this case kitchen standard. You can save this spectrum in the app, then set it as a background on the spectrum page.
To measure the sample, you then clear the collected spectrum and let the radiacode sit in banana/nut dust for a few hours.
Ideally you'll accumulate events over time that show if your sample has a different spectrum from your kitchen background.
Source: Radiacode user, uranium glass and fiestaware hunter, former radiation control intern.
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dg-hughes
11: 28 I live in a basement and I recently thought I'd check out if I had radon, I do and the long term average is currently 115Bq/m3. It's only been 68 days of testing the standard metric is 91 days. I live on an island with only sandstone and I thought surely it would be zero. I've since learned even the air outside is about 15Bq/m3. Opening a window makes it worse, windy days worse, high barometric pressure makes worse, cold temperatures makes it worse (it's -20C here now and it's 184Bq/m3. Smokers (I'm not) are far worse since radon supercharges the harmful effects of smoke effects on lung tissue. My Dad who quit smoking at age 30 died of IPF which long term radon can cause. I'm going to have a radon fan installed. Radiation is all around us but some of you like me may be in a worse situation than you know. Be careful!
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11: 28 I live in a basement and I recently thought I'd check out if I had radon, I do and the long term average is currently 115Bq/m3. It's only been 68 days of testing the standard metric is 91 days. I live on an island with only sandstone and I thought surely it would be zero. I've since learned even the air outside is about 15Bq/m3. Opening a window makes it worse, windy days worse, high barometric pressure makes worse, cold temperatures makes it worse (it's -20C here now and it's 184Bq/m3. Smokers (I'm not) are far worse since radon supercharges the harmful effects of smoke effects on lung tissue. My Dad who quit smoking at age 30 died of IPF which long term radon can cause. I'm going to have a radon fan installed. Radiation is all around us but some of you like me may be in a worse situation than you know. Be careful!
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dhawthorne1634
Nosalt is a misnomer. A salt is any ionically bonded molecule. When a doctor recommends lowering your salt intake, they mean your sodium intake. Potassium chloride is still a salt, but because the ion is of a different element, it can exist in solution with the sodium without changing the solubility of either, therefore not raising blood pressure. Too much of any given salt (sodium being the most common and abundant) raises blood pressure by increasing blood volume as osmotic pressure forces water into your circulatory system to reach an equilibrium between the salinity inside and outside of your cells. This is particularly hard on the heart and kidneys which struggle to pump blood and filter out the excess salt, respectively.
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Nosalt is a misnomer. A salt is any ionically bonded molecule. When a doctor recommends lowering your salt intake, they mean your sodium intake. Potassium chloride is still a salt, but because the ion is of a different element, it can exist in solution with the sodium without changing the solubility of either, therefore not raising blood pressure. Too much of any given salt (sodium being the most common and abundant) raises blood pressure by increasing blood volume as osmotic pressure forces water into your circulatory system to reach an equilibrium between the salinity inside and outside of your cells. This is particularly hard on the heart and kidneys which struggle to pump blood and filter out the excess salt, respectively.
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Sporkabyte
Try looking at the energy spectrum in your radiacode after you let it sit on a source for a little bit. You'll pretty much always see a peak at 1460 KeV, which corresponds to gamma radiation given off by potassium-40 (which is actually different from the beta particles you see in the cloud chamberphotons have no charge and won't create tracks. To distinguish the radiation due to the K-40 in the banana from the radiation due to the K-40 in your body and the environment, you can start by taking a background gamma ray spectrum, then subtracting it off of the spectrum you get with the banana. You will likely need to wait a very long time for both spectra unless you can get some shielding for the detector
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Try looking at the energy spectrum in your radiacode after you let it sit on a source for a little bit. You'll pretty much always see a peak at 1460 KeV, which corresponds to gamma radiation given off by potassium-40 (which is actually different from the beta particles you see in the cloud chamberphotons have no charge and won't create tracks. To distinguish the radiation due to the K-40 in the banana from the radiation due to the K-40 in your body and the environment, you can start by taking a background gamma ray spectrum, then subtracting it off of the spectrum you get with the banana. You will likely need to wait a very long time for both spectra unless you can get some shielding for the detector
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Erewhon2024
Marble countertops (& buildings) also tend to set off Geiger Counters. Marble is pressurized limestone (which is weakly pressurized & re-crystallization sintered [not the right word here, since sintering is by heat] seashells. For some reason, marine Calcium deposits tend to contain trace Uranium (this is why phosphate miners [phosphate rock is usually hydroxyapatite from fossil teeth & bones] can't sell their byproduct gypsum for drywall; except perhaps for the Red Chinese, who seem to have lost all ethics during the Cultural Revolution, and have been caught selling toxic building materials with some regularity.
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Marble countertops (& buildings) also tend to set off Geiger Counters. Marble is pressurized limestone (which is weakly pressurized & re-crystallization sintered [not the right word here, since sintering is by heat] seashells. For some reason, marine Calcium deposits tend to contain trace Uranium (this is why phosphate miners [phosphate rock is usually hydroxyapatite from fossil teeth & bones] can't sell their byproduct gypsum for drywall; except perhaps for the Red Chinese, who seem to have lost all ethics during the Cultural Revolution, and have been caught selling toxic building materials with some regularity.
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mrjava66
7: 01 lol. I’m a nuclear engineer. So, the pile of chips. Um they would work as a shield from radiation coming in from beyond the chips. So, under certain circumstances, the radiation level might drop. lol, working with weak sources can be a pain. We always used sources that were about 100 times stronger than that in our lab work. Sometimes strong enough to cause an old fashioned Geiger counter to fail and stop counting. Certain Geiger counters have a long recovery time after a count/event. Doing measurements and calculating this time period was the work of one of the labs.
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7: 01 lol. I’m a nuclear engineer. So, the pile of chips. Um they would work as a shield from radiation coming in from beyond the chips. So, under certain circumstances, the radiation level might drop. lol, working with weak sources can be a pain. We always used sources that were about 100 times stronger than that in our lab work. Sometimes strong enough to cause an old fashioned Geiger counter to fail and stop counting. Certain Geiger counters have a long recovery time after a count/event. Doing measurements and calculating this time period was the work of one of the labs.
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aaronbailey23
I’m a nuclear medicine technologist and it’s very common to misuse the word isotope’. Even other technologists and radiologists do it. The proper term is actually radionuclide. An isotope is actually referring to the different nucleon numbers in reference to an element. For example, I-131 and I-123 are isotopes of Iodine.
Also, Adam kept referring to particles but not all forms of radiation are particulate. What the instruments are actually registering is the photons being emitted from the decay, which are not particulate.
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I’m a nuclear medicine technologist and it’s very common to misuse the word isotope’. Even other technologists and radiologists do it. The proper term is actually radionuclide. An isotope is actually referring to the different nucleon numbers in reference to an element. For example, I-131 and I-123 are isotopes of Iodine.
Also, Adam kept referring to particles but not all forms of radiation are particulate. What the instruments are actually registering is the photons being emitted from the decay, which are not particulate.
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salikabbasi5448
can you do a video on tinned fish and how much you can eat it there's so much information out there I can't really figure it out. I can't really afford the best norwegian brands for example that may be better, and I don't mind the smaller fish, but what's the real limit here I know moderation is key, but I got into tinned fish because it was a shelf stable protein that I could actually eat every other day (per claims about how safe sardines are) but now I don't know.
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can you do a video on tinned fish and how much you can eat it there's so much information out there I can't really figure it out. I can't really afford the best norwegian brands for example that may be better, and I don't mind the smaller fish, but what's the real limit here I know moderation is key, but I got into tinned fish because it was a shelf stable protein that I could actually eat every other day (per claims about how safe sardines are) but now I don't know.
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Keenath
And really that's the whole thing that causes so much confusion: we can measure extremely tiny amounts of ionizing radiation. A scintillator detects individual particles decaying, which is an insanely tiny amount. That's like detecting one particular grain of sand on a beach. Comparing that to a dangerous dose of radiation is, well. the equivalent in visible light would be detecting individual photons in a dark room as compared to getting a sunburn.
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And really that's the whole thing that causes so much confusion: we can measure extremely tiny amounts of ionizing radiation. A scintillator detects individual particles decaying, which is an insanely tiny amount. That's like detecting one particular grain of sand on a beach. Comparing that to a dangerous dose of radiation is, well. the equivalent in visible light would be detecting individual photons in a dark room as compared to getting a sunburn.
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P-G-77
And. anyway the Sodium present in Banana is ONE OF THE MOST THINGS OUR BODY NEED FOR WORK, THE BRAZIL NUT. please, IN NO WAY THIS TWO. AS TO SCARE ANY ONE FOR NOTHING. probably you receive more radiation during a trip on mountain. at certain elevation, or you sit on a rock who know. probably this rock contain Uranium at this point. NO FEAR, AS HUMANS, AT THE BEGINNING OF OUR SPECIES, WE LIVE IN A BACKGROUND RADIATION MORE THAN NOW.
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And. anyway the Sodium present in Banana is ONE OF THE MOST THINGS OUR BODY NEED FOR WORK, THE BRAZIL NUT. please, IN NO WAY THIS TWO. AS TO SCARE ANY ONE FOR NOTHING. probably you receive more radiation during a trip on mountain. at certain elevation, or you sit on a rock who know. probably this rock contain Uranium at this point. NO FEAR, AS HUMANS, AT THE BEGINNING OF OUR SPECIES, WE LIVE IN A BACKGROUND RADIATION MORE THAN NOW.
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strayorion2031
A lot of things that are dangerous at low doses are because it's something we evolutionary never needed to survive agaisnt, lead is so dangerous because no biological system had to survive with so much soluble lead around it as when humans started bringing it up to the surface, organic matter has needed mechanism to deal with radiation from the start and that's why we can take a lot of it
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A lot of things that are dangerous at low doses are because it's something we evolutionary never needed to survive agaisnt, lead is so dangerous because no biological system had to survive with so much soluble lead around it as when humans started bringing it up to the surface, organic matter has needed mechanism to deal with radiation from the start and that's why we can take a lot of it
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Mmjk_12
This gets me thinking about my own watch, i was quite annoyed i sent it into service and they've pretty much stolen the incredibly rare, valuable and original dial from me, due to the use of tritium on the hands and hour markers. I wonder how much actual radiation that emits into someone in a year period. Since 18 months ago when i serviced it again they said it was literally no issue
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This gets me thinking about my own watch, i was quite annoyed i sent it into service and they've pretty much stolen the incredibly rare, valuable and original dial from me, due to the use of tritium on the hands and hour markers. I wonder how much actual radiation that emits into someone in a year period. Since 18 months ago when i serviced it again they said it was literally no issue
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PaulNorman
The radiation from uranium-based glazes isn't their only problem. They mainly emit alpha particles which are easily stopped, so as long as you don't eat your dinnerware, you're fine.
But, in a way, you can eat your dinnerware. Uranium can leech out into your food and then be ingested. It might be radioactive, but I'm pretty sure the bigger problem is it's a toxic heavy metal.
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The radiation from uranium-based glazes isn't their only problem. They mainly emit alpha particles which are easily stopped, so as long as you don't eat your dinnerware, you're fine.
But, in a way, you can eat your dinnerware. Uranium can leech out into your food and then be ingested. It might be radioactive, but I'm pretty sure the bigger problem is it's a toxic heavy metal.
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rock77551
Beta particles are easily blocked by clothing and other barriers. Holding an instrument up to an unpeeled banana or the outside of the can of potassium chloride yields background because the betas are being blocked. Also, the background radiation being higher in the basement can often be due to radon gas buildup - worth testing to ensure safe levels are not being exceeded.
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Beta particles are easily blocked by clothing and other barriers. Holding an instrument up to an unpeeled banana or the outside of the can of potassium chloride yields background because the betas are being blocked. Also, the background radiation being higher in the basement can often be due to radon gas buildup - worth testing to ensure safe levels are not being exceeded.
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danielhale1
I know this video is meant to reduce misunderstandings and panic but. I'm also imagining the sort of person who then races to their attic to get away from the ground radiation. I've encountered too many people online with this type of bad critical thinking.
It could easily be the same people buying alkaline water or raw water.
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I know this video is meant to reduce misunderstandings and panic but. I'm also imagining the sort of person who then races to their attic to get away from the ground radiation. I've encountered too many people online with this type of bad critical thinking.
It could easily be the same people buying alkaline water or raw water.
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LogemannBilly
For those of you who read that not all fakes come from some kid-friendly (don't want comments to be flagged) companies, you can find some good stuff on kislux that people make themselves, and the replicas these days are getting better and better Excellent, both appearance and quality are very close to the original.
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For those of you who read that not all fakes come from some kid-friendly (don't want comments to be flagged) companies, you can find some good stuff on kislux that people make themselves, and the replicas these days are getting better and better Excellent, both appearance and quality are very close to the original.
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AmataTai
One of the things that really drove home how little radiation there actually is in bananas is SCP 3521, which is a pill that would cause acute radiation sickness by bananas manifesting in the target but in reality would just cause them to explode by the manifestation of the 40, 000 or so bananas in their stomach
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One of the things that really drove home how little radiation there actually is in bananas is SCP 3521, which is a pill that would cause acute radiation sickness by bananas manifesting in the target but in reality would just cause them to explode by the manifestation of the 40, 000 or so bananas in their stomach
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kruksog
One night, i was lying in bed with my eyes closed, when just one closed eye's vision flashed momentarily bright white. I'm almost certain it was ionizing radiation hitting my retina. Never experienced anything like it before or since. Apparently astronauts experience this effect more regularly.
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One night, i was lying in bed with my eyes closed, when just one closed eye's vision flashed momentarily bright white. I'm almost certain it was ionizing radiation hitting my retina. Never experienced anything like it before or since. Apparently astronauts experience this effect more regularly.
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patrickmorse7549
I use potassium salt in my water softener and I purchased a Radiacode a while back. When I put it into the water softener with 200 pounds of potassium chloride it went crazy with the alarm going off. I should go back and check the dose rate but I am guessing it is still miniscule.
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I use potassium salt in my water softener and I purchased a Radiacode a while back. When I put it into the water softener with 200 pounds of potassium chloride it went crazy with the alarm going off. I should go back and check the dose rate but I am guessing it is still miniscule.
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