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An Angry Bug posted:Whatever happened to David Hahn, anyway? He made Eagle Scout, joined the Navy where he tried to make Reactor Tech, and was arrested in '07 for apparently trying to create another reactor. Single-minded type of dude.
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Apr 1, 2016 21:43
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Kwyndig posted:Well I'm fairly certain after watching that he's upped his likelihood of getting cancer by at least 10%. I'm kind of uncomfortable when somebody has to raise their voice to be heard over their geiger counter. That's normal, right?
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Apr 1, 2016 21:47
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xthetenth posted:I'm kind of uncomfortable when somebody has to raise their voice to be heard over their geiger counter. That's normal, right? That is a perfectly normal reaction, yes. Especially when said counter is already calibrated to not tick on background radiation. Edit: taken to hilarious extremes here: http://www.atomic-robo.com/atomicrobo/v10ch4-page-20b Kwyndig has a new favorite as of 21:51 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 21:49
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Vitamins posted:Cody really is the greatest "This was part of my grandad's collection. He's been dead for quite a while now so I never got the chance to as him about it." That said: Days compared with the avg. annual human exposure (U.S.) 207 (at 100 CPM) 42 (at 500 CPM) 14 (at 1,500 CPM) 2 (at 10,000 CPM) https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=...Ohpy4LyBfnnSNTg Also, Googling that also led me to this: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=41073.0 Someone is selling necklaces with an in-set unidentified volcanic rock which he later finds out gives out 4,500 CPM. Asks whether he's fine to continue selling them since they do sell very well... [edit] OK, that glow is impressive. Munin has a new favorite as of 23:28 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 23:23
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I held a depleted reactor rod once... My university was given a reactor by the US as part of the Atoms For Peace program back in the 50's. they eventually decommissioned the reactor and took it away, but left the fuel rods. they are significantly more radioactive than the background, but apparently safe to hold, if we washed our hands.
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Apr 1, 2016 23:38
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Cumslut1895 posted:I held a depleted reactor rod once... My university was given a reactor by the US as part of the Atoms For Peace program back in the 50's. they eventually decommissioned the reactor and took it away, but left the fuel rods. they are significantly more radioactive than the background, but apparently safe to hold, if we washed our hands. Depleted uranium and other nuclear fuels are fairly safe from an exposure standpoint if you don't eat them/inhale them, at that point it's mostly alpha/beta decay with little of the high energy gamma emissions. That said, I wouldn't want to keep a spent fuel rod in my house, and keeping several pounds of uranium ore in a makeshift pig, even in a garage? Crazy town.
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Apr 2, 2016 01:25
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Kwyndig posted:Depleted uranium and other nuclear fuels are fairly safe from an exposure standpoint if you don't eat them/inhale them, at that point it's mostly alpha/beta decay with little of the high energy gamma emissions. That said, I wouldn't want to keep a spent fuel rod in my house, and keeping several pounds of uranium ore in a makeshift pig, even in a garage? Crazy town. Used fuel rods fresh from a real power plant are insanely deadly, you wouldn't get me into line of sight of one without a lot of water in the way; they are full of fission fragments that are incredibly radioactive, and a lot of that stuff goes on radiating unhealthy amounts of gamma and even neutrons for many years. So I gotta think the fuel rod in question is a really old one from some tiny research reactor, and even then I'd give it a wide berth. NB: depleted uranium isn't a nuclear fuel, it's what's left over after you enrich uranium so you can use it as a nuclear fuel. It's got a half-life of 4.5 *billion* years and is so close to inert it's used for things like counterweights for aircraft control surfaces. You've got more to worry about from granite countertops or drywall.
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Apr 2, 2016 01:38
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It's still uranium and it'll go be a fatass metal and plop its butt somewhere in your body and gunk it up.
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Apr 2, 2016 01:44
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Yeah it's still a toxic heavy metal and is pyrophoric in air at high surface areas
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Apr 2, 2016 01:52
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Kwyndig posted:Well I'm fairly certain after watching that he's upped his likelihood of getting cancer by at least 10%. Everything he has there is actually essentially safe, particularly over the short term. Unless he eats it. Almost everything he has there was uranium, uranium, and more uranium. You can basically hold pure uranium in your hand for essentially unlimited amounts of time with no ill effects. Uranium, found in nature, is about 99.27% u238, and .71% u235. U238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Sure, it sounds like there's a huge amount of events going on, but actually natural uranium is very calm, relatively speaking. U258's half life is only 700,000 years, and is actually pretty chill itself. Its use as fuel is actually exploiting a bit of an odd condition, not actually related to how radioactive it is. So while it's very active compared to, say, lead, it's no where near as active as you might think. The other thing is that uranium is primarily an alpha emitter. Alpha particles are incredibly easy to shield against. Like. A piece of paper will. Or the outer most layer of your skin. You know, the layer that is already dead. So for the most part the radioactivity can't even get to live tissue where it can harm you. The last thing is that radiation damage has a disproportionate effect on organs, and a much lower effect on extremities. In various accidents people have survived enormous dosages to arms and legs with little ill effect. Though it's still luck, sometimes you need amputation instead. But those accidents are orders of orders of magnitude higher than this. But, if you eat it, you've just put an alpha emmitter right next to your very alive inner core. That's why the revigators and the like were dangerous. Also uranium is a toxic heavy metal, even ignoring the radioactivity. Though, again, there's much worse out there. Uranium glass, like his marbles, is essentially safe, and was occasionally used in cookware. There's very little uranium in it, though you can easily measure it's radioactivity, and it doesn't really leach out either. The glowing tubes work by hitting phosphors with electrons from decaying tritium (beta decay). It's impressive, but harmless. It's actually the same process as the old CRT TVs used. Though these electrons are even weaker than the ones in the TVs. It should be noted that tritium DOES have particularly weak beta rays, some beta emitters can go though your skin and do need serious shielding. He also notes that it makes some xrays when it the electrons hit the glass. This is true, but the power of xrays is proportional to the power of the electrons striking. And again, these are some weak electrons. He says he should be careful about about breaking them, but really that's not a concern. The amount is tiny and would dissipate incredibly fast. If you breathed it in, you'd just breath it out again, your body doesn't really have anyway of hanging onto free hydrogen. If you drank a serious amount of trititated water though you'd have problems. In many countries (UK, China many many others) those little tubes are sold as keychain accessories. They're nice for finding your keys in the dark as the light lasts decades. The half life of tritium is about 12 years, so after 12 years it's half as bright, after 24 it'll be 1/4 etc.
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Apr 2, 2016 02:45
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I could've sworn the radiation from tritium as an ingestion hazard was a secondary concern to the most likely way to get it in and stay being heavy water which causes problems on a chemical reaction level.
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Apr 2, 2016 02:57
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xthetenth posted:I could've sworn the radiation from tritium as an ingestion hazard was a secondary concern to the most likely way to get it in and stay being heavy water which causes problems on a chemical reaction level. It may well be, deuterated water water can eventually be fatal without radioactivity. In rats it seems to be lethal when it approaches 50% in the body. In humans this would take a massive amount of water. Though the additional weight of tritium would exacerbate the problems beyond what deuterium would cause, I would suspect that the beta radiation would be the worse problem before you replaced that much water with trititated water.
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Apr 2, 2016 03:10
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DemeaninDemon posted:It's still uranium and it'll go be a fatass metal and plop its butt somewhere in your body and gunk it up. Uranium is an estrogen mimic, in doses well below the EPA safe threshold.
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Apr 2, 2016 04:26
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Tunicate posted:Uranium is an estrogen mimic, in doses well below the EPA safe threshold. Wait how does an element (presumably present as an ion) mimic a complex organic molecule?
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Apr 2, 2016 04:44
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Aurium posted:In many countries (UK, China many many others) those little tubes are sold as keychain accessories. They're nice for finding your keys in the dark as the light lasts decades. The half life of tritium is about 12 years, so after 12 years it's half as bright, after 24 it'll be 1/4 etc. It's often used here in the States for glow in the dark night sights for pistols and other firearms. They usually last for about a decade before they fade into normal sights. 
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Apr 2, 2016 05:03
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The Lone Badger posted:Wait how does an element (presumably present as an ion) mimic a complex organic molecule?
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Apr 2, 2016 05:11
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The Lone Badger posted:Wait how does an element (presumably present as an ion) mimic a complex organic molecule? Estrogen isn't really all that complex and toxic metals like to get stuck in places. Probably good at getting into the receptor.
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Apr 2, 2016 05:17
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You have far more to fear from common pesticides acting as hormones than you do from uranium or most other toxic metals. Unless you in the geographic vicinity of a mine.
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Apr 2, 2016 05:49
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Phanatic posted:Used fuel rods fresh from a real power plant are insanely deadly, you wouldn't get me into line of sight of one without a lot of water in the way; they are full of fission fragments that are incredibly radioactive, and a lot of that stuff goes on radiating unhealthy amounts of gamma and even neutrons for many years. So I gotta think the fuel rod in question is a really old one from some tiny research reactor, and even then I'd give it a wide berth. yeah, a small research/education reactor
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Apr 2, 2016 10:39
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DemeaninDemon posted:Estrogen isn't really all that complex and toxic metals like to get stuck in places. Probably good at getting into the receptor. Also metals tend to be big old particles with easily variable electron excitation states. So pretty much a perfect fit for tricking biological processes.
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Apr 2, 2016 12:57
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I have one of those tritium keychains. The plastic its encased in will handily take care of any stray beta- I put it next to both Geiger counters I had access to and they registered nothing whatsoever.
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Apr 2, 2016 18:10
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Tritium emits such low energy beta radiation that my PhD supervisor was perfectly happy to let me use it (whereas she figured with P32 I'd be a menace).
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Apr 2, 2016 19:35
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Heavy metals have a bunch of electrons t to interact with things and they are big enough to clog poo poo badly once it's done that interaction stuff. It'd be like throwing some loose magnets into a turbine or something, it just fucks it all up.
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Apr 2, 2016 20:51
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Alereon posted:Uranium in Drinking Water: Low Dose Acts as Endocrine Mimic. Apparently other metals have similar effects. Now I'm imagining people using low-dose uranium for hormone replacement, and wondering whether it's cheaper per gram-equivalent than actual estrogen.
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Apr 3, 2016 23:03
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Zemyla posted:Now I'm imagining people using low-dose uranium for hormone replacement, and wondering whether it's cheaper per gram-equivalent than actual estrogen. If you're gonna go that route might as well dose yourself with soy. Hell, THC is apparently an estrogen mimic and that's way more fun. Why would anyone use anything else?
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Apr 4, 2016 19:36
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where's my friggin' androgen mimics, why does every environmental toxin give me boobs and not rippling slabs of muscle!!!
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Apr 4, 2016 19:39
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Moist von Lipwig posted:where's my friggin' androgen mimics, why does every environmental toxin give me boobs and not rippling slabs of muscle!!! I actually got curious about this and apparently very few things act as androgen mimics (it was not stated what). The only conclusion we can draw from this is that mother earth is a misandrist, seeking to feminize all creation. e:https://books.google.ca/books?id=yO...0mimics&f=false
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Apr 4, 2016 20:02
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Un chien andalou posted:I actually got curious about this and apparently very few things act as androgen mimics (it was not stated what). The only conclusion we can draw from this is that mother earth is a misandrist, seeking to feminize all creation. iirc embryoes in most species start out as female and an extra thing has to happen to make them male, so that's actually kind of true
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Apr 4, 2016 20:06
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Un chien andalou posted:I actually got curious about this and apparently very few things act as androgen mimics (it was not stated what). The only conclusion we can draw from this is that mother earth is a misandrist, seeking to feminize all creation. i loving knew it, checkmate feminazis
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Apr 4, 2016 20:26
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Moist von Lipwig posted:i loving knew it, checkmate feminazis what is it called when you checkmate yourself?
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Apr 4, 2016 21:23
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Alien Arcana posted:what is it called when you checkmate yourself? checkmoot?
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Apr 5, 2016 13:12
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I was talking about meteors as natural flame tests and I tried looking up pictures of nickel flames but all I'm getting is copper. Obviously colors for a lot of metals have been reported but it doesn't look like all that many have been photographed. This is a golden opportunity to contribute to science and/or Wikipedia with fire.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:50
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Alien Arcana posted:what is it called when you checkmate yourself? An illegal move, you can't make any move that puts yourself in check.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:08
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Abyssal Squid posted:I was talking about meteors as natural flame tests and I tried looking up pictures of nickel flames but all I'm getting is copper. Obviously colors for a lot of metals have been reported but it doesn't look like all that many have been photographed. This is a golden opportunity to contribute to science and/or Wikipedia with fire. Most of the color of a meteor trail is due to the emission spectra of nitrogen and oxygen that were ionized as it went by. Nickel doesn't produce much of a flame color. Neither do iron or chromium, which is why a nichrome wire is usually used for flame tests.
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Apr 5, 2016 21:25
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Alien Arcana posted:what is it called when you checkmate yourself? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunder_%28chess%29
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Apr 5, 2016 21:57
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Abyssal Squid posted:I was talking about meteors as natural flame tests and I tried looking up pictures of nickel flames but all I'm getting is copper. Obviously colors for a lot of metals have been reported but it doesn't look like all that many have been photographed. This is a golden opportunity to contribute to science and/or Wikipedia with fire. I tried looking up photos of what different metals looked like when melted awhile back and found similarly few images. Get on this poo poo, crazy youtubers and wiki editors!
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Apr 5, 2016 21:59
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The ICP torch running about 500ppm nickel solution is orange. Could be sodium in it though. That's the problem with flaming metals. The ones that really shine loving really shine and drown out everything else.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:11
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Light Gun Man posted:I tried looking up photos of what different metals looked like when melted awhile back and found similarly few images. Get on this poo poo, crazy youtubers and wiki editors! The issue with that is most metals are glowing bright yellow by the time they melt, and most youtuber cameras can't pick up any detail from it (hell, pro film cameras probably have issues).
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Apr 6, 2016 04:32
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Enourmo posted:The issue with that is most metals are glowing bright yellow by the time they melt, and most youtuber cameras can't pick up any detail from it (hell, pro film cameras probably have issues). That’s what neutral density filters are for. Welding glass works, too.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:39
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Moist von Lipwig posted:where's my friggin' androgen mimics, why does every environmental toxin give me boobs and not rippling slabs of muscle!!! Hops apparently also contain phytoestrogens. So your favorite IPA may be able to give you those boobs! ( probably not)
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Apr 6, 2016 04:50
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