I’ve finally gotten to where I’ve wanted to be in working through Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) VII: capable of evaluating radiation doses at Fukushima in terms of health risk. I would have liked to have been able to evaluate the radiation readings at various places around Japan in terms of health risk, but […]
Tag: radiation
Cheryl Rofer: Radiation dose and cancer risk: some numbers
I really like numbers, and it’s taken me some time to get to them in discussing risk to health from radiation. I also like to know what goes into the numbers, so I’ve taken some time working through Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) VII. Now I’m feeling that I (almost) know what I’m doing, […]
Cheryl Rofer: Radiation, radioactivity, and other terms
A commenter requested that I explain the difference between radiation and radioactivity. These two words are often used interchangeably by reporters, but they have different meanings. Confusing them is related to other misunderstandings. Radioactivity is the phenomenon of energy emission by unstable atoms. Radiation is what is emitted. More generally, Wikipedia defines radiation as: “a […]
Ryuki Kassai: Update from Fukushima – the second seven days of the disaster
First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who provided us with useful information, who kindly donated to us, who warmly encouraged us, who thoughtfully conveyed our messages abroad, and who continue to pray for Japan after the disaster. […]
Cheryl Rofer: Radiation exposure standards – some hard judgments
Radioactive decay is inherently probabilistic. It’s not possible to point at a particular unstable atom and predict when it will decay. Further, some types of unstable atoms have more than one path for decay; it’s also not possible to predict the path of a single atom. The behaviour of large numbers of atoms, however, is […]
Cheryl Rofer: Reading Fukushima status reports
Now that things are happening less rapidly at Fukushima, I’ve been looking less frequently at the status reports. It became obvious early on that the general aftermath of the earthquake, the loss of electrical power and communication, and other factors were leading to erroneous reports and too much instant interpretation. Taking some time helps to […]
Ryuki Kassai from Fukushima: the first seven days of the disaster
First of all, I want to express my deep sympathy for those who lost their loved ones, their houses, their work, their home towns, and their hope by this terrible disaster. Who, in later times, will be able to understand that we had to fall again into the darkness after we had once known the […]