radiation has traveled to another country via fava beans *no Nadin yet*

[Freeper]

ensho  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Mar-20-11 10:57 AM
Original message
radiation has traveled to another country via fava beans
   



Radiation has been detected on fava beans imported from Japan to Taiwan, Taiwanese officials said Sunday, in what appears to be the first case of contamination in Japanese exports. The disclosure came a day after Japanese officials said radiation in low amounts had been detected in spinach and milk produced near the damaged Fukushima nuclear power complex in northeast Japan that has been leaking radiation since being damaged by an earthquake and tsunami March 11. Taiwan's Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council Radiation Monitoring Center said in a statement that a small amount of iodine and cesium had been found on a batch of Japanese fava beans imported to the island on Friday. The center said 11 becquerels of iodine and 1 becquerel of cesium were detected. The amount of radiation was well below Taiwan's legal limit and not harmful to human health, an official from the center reported. The radiation was detected on the surface of the beans in one batch, said the official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to deal with the media. An official from Taiwan's Department of Health said the beans came from the Kagoshima Prefecture on Japan's northern Kyushu island. The official said the Taiwanese authorities suspected the batch was contaminated during its delivery route to the island rather than in Kagoshima because the prefecture is still far from Fukushima, home to Japan's damaged nuclear reactors.

So far, Taiwanese officials do not have an answer as to how the beans may have been contaminated. The health official said that the shipment went through Japan's Narita Airport, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) from Fukushima, but he cautioned there was no evidence to prove the batch was contaminated at the airport. He added the beans have not gone into circulation in Taiwan and will not be made available for sale. The official said that while Taiwan has been stepping up measures scanning Japanese goods for radiation, it does not plan to suspend imports from its northern neighbor for now. The health official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Japanese officials said Saturday that tainted milk and spinach were collected from farms ranging from 20 miles (30 kilometers) to 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the leaking nuclear reactors. The area is rich farm country where a variety of foods are grown. Other tests are being
conducted, and Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said food shipments from the area would be halted if further contamination was detected. Japanese officials said the radiation amounts in the milk and spinach were so small that people would have to consume unimaginable amounts to endanger their health.
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this is from an rsoe.com email alert
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x697480

Just like Bobo will show up in any homeless or poor thread I am sure Nadin will pop up soon.

[Skul]

I hope she isn't driving a Buick.

Hard to say.
Seems she's been steeering clear of other primatives posts, and working just her own.
Truth is, the original OP for that one is no doubt on her iggy list.

[NHSparky]

Oh, DUmmies--to put it into perspective:

One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.

Which means one curie is 3.7E10 Bq.

Now stick with me here, I'm gonna do a little math.  Let's assume, just for shits and giggles, that the iodine detected is all I-131.  This means that we're dealing with something with a half-life of 8.019 days, which we'll round off to 8 days.

So exactly how much iodine-131 is needed to produce 11 Becquerels, or 11 decays per second?

To obtain a sample large enough for an initial decay rate of 11 Bq, you'd have to have a sample of 6.9E05 atoms.

Given that 1 mole (6.022E23 atoms) of I-131 has a mass of approximately 131 grams, we can say that:

(6.9E05/6.022E23)*131 = 1.504E-16 GRAMS.  That's right, kids.  Less than ONE-TRILIONTH OF A MILLIGRAM.  Or one-tenth of a MILLION-BILLIONTH of gram.

Assholes.

[redwhit]

What's a good year for chianti to go with liver and irradiated fava beans?

[Randy]

What's a good year for chianti to go with liver and irradiated fava beans?

March 2011 of course. 

[Mr Mannn]

The real question here is, "Can I get Super Powers by eating a radioactive Fava Bean?"

[Skul]

The real question here is, "Can I get Super Powers by eating a radioactive Fava Bean?"

No Sir, but, your farts will glow in the dark.

[Ballygrl]

She's been MIA from Twitter the past couple of days.

[Randy]

She's been MIA from Twitter the past couple of days.

Sooooo let me get this straight. Nadine decides to take a break from DU so she stops posting to Twitter while she keeps on posting to DU? Uh  it makes sense to me. 

[Ballygrl]

Sooooo let me get this straight. Nadine decides to take a break from DU so she stops posting to Twitter while she keeps on posting to DU? Uh  it makes sense to me. 

[BlueStateSaint]

Sooooo let me get this straight. Nadine decides to take a break from DU so she stops posting to Twitter while she keeps on posting to DU? Uh  it makes sense to me. 

If you can say this equation over and over:

"One plus one equals potato,"

then it should make sense.