Hi guys,
Sorry for the morbid title, but it could be true in the event of a nuclear attack. And to be honest, it might have been better to have been in the blast radius than to be present in the fallout. There are a few different types of nuclear detonations: underground/water, high altitude, air, or surface. The Surface detonation produces the most air born fallout. Fallout is made of dust that becomes radioactive from being irradiated in a high neutron flux. These particles are generally short lived, but a few are not, and that is where the real danger comes from.
Depending upon the weather conditions, the fallout can travel long distances and take up to months to come down and have effects. Once the fallout come down, it can take effect immediately if there is a high dose or ionizing radiation. The affected people would get radiation sickness which entails alot of different symptoms, depending on which parts of the bodies receive the largest dose. Internal bleeding along with organ shutdown are possible.
From past posts, you can see how we obtain risk of cancer from low dose. Its kind of like throwing a dart at a board. But from high doses, there is a direct link to higher cancer risks. So even if someone survives fallout, they more than likely have a much higher risk of cancer.
In order to avoid fallout, build a shelter with state of the art air filtration, water filtration, and lead shielding. Do not lick the lead.
Also, if your cow was lactating at the time of exposure, and the cow survived the irradiation, you might wanna monitor the milk for radionuclides. The milk can contain traces of these, mainly Cs-137 from what research I have done, and can contaminate your insides. Thats not good. Test it before you drink it!!!!!
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects17.shtml
http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/rad-exposure-cancer.html
Hope this was at least a little interesting,
The Nuke Cow
I like how you talked about the risk of cancer that comes from nuclear fallout. Most of the public when reading about anything nuclear just want to know what their chances are of getting sick. I also liked that you mentioned the different types of detonations since most people don't realize that there can be anything other than a surface detonation, or a dropped bomb.
ReplyDeleteKind of interested in fallout shelters now and what is available. But I definitely think this post was interesting. Funny that you were able to work in nuclear cows in your post. Would the milk test be a chemical analysis or just activity testing? What kind of effects would the cow be experiencing if its exposure was to the point that it was producing dangerous milk?
ReplyDeleteApparently milk is periodically tested for radioactivity all the time. It has its own natural source or radioactivity coming from Potassium-40. I would assume chemical tests would show a concentration of iodine or cesium, but Im not entirely sure they can tell the difference in isotopes. The cows that have these sources showing up in the milk dont necessarily get irradiated. Most of the time they eat grass or hay that has fallout in it. And Iodine has a short half life which means that it wont accumulate enough concentrations to actually harm anyone that drinks it. There are actually reports of the cows out west testing higher for radiation in the milk. The FDA states that it isnt enough concentration to worry about.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/why-the-government-tests-milk-for-radiation-levels/
As for the fall out shelters, HEPA filters seem to be the talk of the people that design these. I have seen some people say there is no need for one. I would think that is false, because these particles would be sucked into your current air system and spit out into the house. Many companies make these. For water contamination, reverse osmosis seems to be the way to go. Those systems are very common but dont remove radon or gaseous contamination. As for your shielding in general, power plants use lots of steel and concrete as well as lead in certain instances. Those things are relatively common but might require permits. Everything says seal it up tight and bury it. Lots of places that will take lots of money to help you design it :).
ReplyDeleteHope this was helpful!!!!
On a side not, cows that get enough radiation to affect you through their milk, would probably be dead, and if not dead definitely sick. I worked on a dairy for 6 years and any cow that has symptons of any sickness will be removed from the herd and their milk tossed. Thats how its done with farms for most of America due to rigorous testing by the FDA.