Do you know bananas, potassium, cigarettes, human bodies, to name a few, are all radioactive?
It would not take 20,000 before the substance was as radioactive as normal topsoil. Throw the tens of thousand year figures out the window, unless you want to live in an absolute zero radiation world. Which would be impossible seeing as how you get a dose from your own body.
"A banana equivalent dose (BED) is a defined to be the absorbed dose of radiation due to eating one banana. It is a concept that was intended to explain the relative danger of radiation by comparison with natural doses. BED is a radiation dose equivalent unit; the corresponding SI unit is the sievert (and rem is also commonly used). The concept has been used in political argument and drawn heavy criticism.[citation needed]
The BED calculation probably originated on a nuclear safety mailing list in 1995.[1] However, the calculation was incorrectly[2] based on the dose for ingestion of pure radioactive potassium-40 (40K) , not the natural ratio found in food....."
"The oft-quoted value of the BED is unjustifiably high and was based on incorrectly applying data for the effective dose due to ingestion of radioactive 40K alone. [14]This is scientifically invalid and effectively ignores the metabolism of 40K in the context of 8,500 times as much stable 39K as found in foodstuff.
Geoff Meggitt (former UK Atomic Energy Authority) said, [15]
Bananas are radioactive—But they aren't a good way to explain radiation exposure. When you eat a banana, your body's level of Potassium-40 doesn't increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.
The effects of radiation are not linear with dose. This means that a large acute dose is more dangerous (overwhelming the body's repair mechanisms), while the same dose spread over a period of years may not be harmful at all.[citation needed] Consequently it is less meaningful to make comparisons between long-term diet and acute radiation doses.
Many common artificial radioisotopes are categorically more dangerous than the type of radioisotope naturally in bananas, even if the equivalent dose (Sv) is reported as the same. Nuclear power accidents tend to release radioiodine, which is known to be especially dangerous to children because it concentrates in the thyroid gland. Other radioisotopes may accumulate in the lung. The dose from potassium in bananas is less harmful because it is distributed more evenly throughout the body, and does not accumulate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_doseWhich of the food groups and/or common substances contain the categorically more dangerous artificial radioisotopes released in nuclear accidents instead of the harmless doses of say.. Potassium-40 contained in a banana?Regards,
Sun
