Weird fact of the day
Have you heard of the banana equivalent dose (BED)?
It’s the dose of radiation from bananas that can be compared to other sources of radiation to make the figures more understandable. So rather than use scientific terms such as microcurie, milirem, Bq you can use bananas. A bit like comparing the amount of water coming out of a dam in terms of elephants per second but a bit more realistic.
So instead of saying that the annual dose of radiation from living within 50 miles of a nuclear power station is 0.03 millirem you can say that it is equivalent to 1.64 bananas. That is the equivalent of eating 2 bananas in one year. And who does that? Unless you don’t like bananas you will probably be eating around 20lb of bananas each year. So it’s more dangerous to eat bananas than live near a nuclear power station.
But what about living near a coal fired station. It’s not nuclear and all the “smoke” you see from the cooling towers is only steam and they are supposed to filter out all the bad stuff from the actual smoke. So it should be safer. Well actually its not. Living within 50 miles of a power station your annual radiation dose is 5.45 BEDs. Yep, its higher because of all the naturally occurring radiation in coal.
In fact there is a lot of naturally occurring radiation all around. Granite is one major source. Even potatoes can emit radiation. So chopping up potatoes on a granite worktop probably means that you have had a higher radiation dose than someone working inside a nuclear power station. So I wouldn’t worry too much about the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone masts or the radiation from a power station. If you tried to avoid them you would get the dose in some other way.
Just to make things even more confusing and twisted there is a theory that small amounts of continual radiation is actually good for you. On the similar basis that it’s healthy to have some bugs around you and not to live in too clean an environment as it helps your body learn and immunise itself. There is even one theory that lung cancer is not so much from the particles as from the radiation from the tobacco plant.
SBML
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February 19, 2011 at 13:37 -
The concept of ‘Alternative Units of Measurement’ is an opportunity for creative explanations of basic facts.
I used to work in the Industrial & Commercial department of a region of (the original) British Gas, dealing with major energy users.
Many of which used prodigious amounts of gas.
The Region’s Sales Director only had a ‘domestic’ background, so to help him understand our achievements we had to translate our sales into “Domestic Cooker Equivalent” units, which occasionally would be multi-million.
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February 19, 2011 at 13:44 -
So the equivalent of 13 years of Labour would be inserting a bunch of bananas up your rectum. Is that right?
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February 19, 2011 at 13:45 -
I et lods of bnns ; is there ny truth in the rumour tht the rdition from them cn destroy your vowels (beginning with the letter ‘’ of course) ?
Boom, boom !
ΠΞ
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February 19, 2011 at 14:47
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February 19, 2011 at 14:08 -
Another Register reader I see
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February 19, 2011 at 14:14 -
I should have added (before a certain very large black and white newfoundland started trying to see out of the window by standing on me and the desk) that I totally agree that many of today’s ailments are caused by people living in a nearly sterile environment and then having to go out into the ‘dirty’ bug infested world.
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February 19, 2011 at 14:36 -
Be carful, SBML – you’ll have the Greenies launching a campaign to ban bananas.
It’s a very sad reflection on the education system that such tricks have to be resorted to to explain basic facts. There was a surreal outbreak on the PM programme some months ago about the use of football pitches and Wales as size comparators (“the dance floor is the size of two football pitches” – what, side by side or end to end?). It became daft when someone emailed in asking how many Waleses make one football pitch.
The points about radiation are pretty accurate, however. Apparently, the pilots and cabin crew of civil airliners get a higher dose of radiation than anybody working at any British nuclear establishment over a given time – there’s less atmosphere to shield them from cosmic radiation at 40,000 feet.
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February 19, 2011 at 15:26 -
“how many Waleses make one football pitch.”
You can’t do it, however much you stretch or rearrange Charles and Camilla you won’t get a football pitch.
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February 19, 2011 at 14:55 -
What the Righteous don’t tell you is that PO 210 (Polonium is a Radon daughter) has a half-life of just 120 days. Since all cigarettes are stored for up to 2 years before hitting the shelves, the PO 210 no longer exists.
PO 210 is present in all broad-leaved vegetable. Cabbage, spinach, and lettuce for instance. Now, do the Righteous tell us to avoid these veggies (often picked and sold on the SAME day) because of the (very active) PO 210? Do they tell you that you are ingesting 50 times more polonium in spinach than you would ever ingest from a whole carton of cigarettes?
No.
No they don’t.
Because that would be the truth, and they avoid the truth like genital warts.
Add to that the silly old scientific rule of “It’s the dose that makes the poison” and you have something resembling an honest statement.
Keep eating the broad-leaved veggies. No harm will come to you.
CR.
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February 19, 2011 at 15:53
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February 19, 2011 at 15:10 -
Woe betide anyone still wearing a “luminous” watch…. You’re talking whole plantations of bananas!
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February 19, 2011 at 15:11 -
I thought bananas were full of potassium. Remembering my school chemistry lessons, I have always avoided eating them, lest I should carelessly drink a glass of water and then cause the potassium to explode into flames and set me on fire from the inside out.
I am always concerned for the safety of professional tennis players, who I believe run an almost suicidal risk in the regard.
I should be very pleased to hear from any readers who have suffered spontaneous human combustion after eating a banana, thus vindicating my theory.
Sister Eva-
February 19, 2011 at 15:11 -
“this” regard. Sorry
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February 19, 2011 at 15:38 -
I’ve had something similar after eating curries on occasion. Does curry contain potassium?
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February 19, 2011 at 18:15 -
I should be very pleased to hear from any readers who have suffered spontaneous human combustion after eating a banana, thus vindicating my theory.
Sister Eva
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I’m just tucking into a pre-prandial banana and, even as I type, I have been chomping and chuckling about how risible I find the idea that anyone could combust, explode or suffer any ill as a result of nibbling on a bana*BANG!*-
February 20, 2011 at 09:13 -
Oh dear! still, at least I was right all along! Tra la la!
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February 20, 2011 at 09:14 -
Heaven’s above….
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February 19, 2011 at 19:03 -
When I served in a nuclear-powered ship, any-one that frequented spaces on the decks that included the plant (propulsion machinery) had to wear a radiation dosimeter (TLD). The use of these things, which were checked regularly by the lab. technicians to ensure no-one acquired an excessive cumulative dose, was overseen by a barrel-shaped senior-chief. I recall his coming around one day to tell all those in CIC (the operations room) that they must remove their TLDs before entering CIC : he was getting outrageous readings on his equipment because of the radiation from the PPIs (radar displays).
ΠΞ
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February 21, 2011 at 14:39 -
“So I wouldn’t worry too much about the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone masts or the radiation from a power station”
I don’t worry at all about the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone masts… any more than I worry the electromagnetic radiation coming out of the light bulbs in the roof. Neither are ionising radiation, and therefore don’t have a BED.
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