Japan made piano
I just bought a Boston brand piano which is made by Kawai factory in Hamamatsu, Japan, about 300 miles south slightly east of Fukushima. The factory is not that far from Tokyo. If Tokyo is contaminated, then there must be radiation pollution in Hamamatsu.
I was told the piano was made in late 2011, using US materials, just arrived the US in Feb. 2012, and nothing to worry. Well, you can't trust a dealer completely, right?
I am pretty nervous now because my children will be playing it all the time and they are only 3 and 5.
Any insights? Thank you very much!
Just exchanged
Just exchanged to a piano that is not made in Japan, end of story and peace of mind. And thank you all for the help.
Is there any service that you
Is there any service that you can pay someone to come to your home to do a testing with more sophisticated equipment than a $500 detector?
Why don't you buy a used
Why don't you buy a used piano? i have a friend in Manhattan that sells them and he says they are often better than the newer ones due to the parts, materials etc used in them.
How the radioactive metal tissue boxes were detected?
Thank you all so much for the inputs. My time is running out in about 10 days if I want to return the piano.
I want to ask another question. If the TWO relatively small tissue boxes can be detected at the port, that means our custom officials do check (sometimes) radioactivity among goods coming into the US. Well, they let the other boxes in before they found the two.
Steinway pianos are made in the US, but not many people can't afford one. The Japan made brands are the second best choices. There will be very limited options left for piano buyers if Japan made pianos are a NO.
I feel good about driving European cars, but again, who knows where the parts are from.
Why take the risk? College
Why take the risk? College music departments sell lightly used Japanese pianos every year... and they would have been fabricated/delivered pre-3/11/11. It's just not worth it for your children's sake, and anyone else who will be around the piano.
Don't forget, those BBBeyond tissue boxes you reference were detected at a Nevada/California border crossing (Truckee). They had entered the country through the port in Newark, NJ, and had crossed many other state borders in their cross-country trip. Clearly, it was pure luck that they were detected, since they made it into the country and all the way to the California border without detection. Are you really comfortable entrusting your children's health to those same people managing the borders?
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2012/20... (search for Jan. 11 event)
http://www.naturalnews.com/034651_radioactive_tissue_holders_cobalt-60.html (having the tissue boxes bedside is equivalent to how many chest xrays??)
Car from Japan
Several months ago, as I was sitting in his chair, my periodontist told me that he was concerned about the new car that he had just purchased which had been made in Japan. This periodontist by the way is one of the most highly recommended periodontist in probably the most affluent community in California. And, as we all know, he works with X-ray equipment. So, if HE is concerned, this is no small, silly concern that should be dismissed away here. Frankly, why should we NOT be concerned about a piano that was made in Japan post-Fukushima?
Anyway, since I had just received my Inspector Geiger counter, I offered to lend it to him. He was thrilled.
He used the Geiger counter for a week, first doing a scan and then using timed exposure. The car came back clean and he felt better about driving it and driving his kids around in the car.
BTW, I felt even better about using him as my periodontist. I want someone who IS concerned and who cares.
The problem is not what the piano is made of
The problem is dust! That is, any radiative matter that has been deposited on the pianos parts and surfaces. You need to use a meter to measure the radioactivity of the insides, keys, outer surfaces to see if there are any problems. Any item, such as cars, made in Japan since 311 may well have radioactive contaminants. Imagine sitting in your new Yakuza 311GT breathing in the air that has passed through the cars air conditioning system and filters!! That would be a real concern. Think about that as you sip your next Sapporo beer, brewed only a few miles north of Fukushima!
Won't work
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/japan-made-piano.2012-03-08#commen...
No
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/comment/reply/6288/24275#comment-24240
Piano will be delivered tomorrow
Thanks guys! Maybe I should just buy a radiation detector.
Do you think piano will absorb less radiation than cars and foods? First of all, it is made indoors. The wood are claimed to be from the US (Steinway wood); Japan has very limited resources so I am wondering where the steel comes from. The metal strings are a big concern if they use contaminated scrap metal.
According to my research in the past year since the accident, it is not fair to compare the following:
radiation from taking a flight vs. radiation from a nuclear accident
naturally radioactive foods vs. radiation contaminated foods
radiation on skin vs. eating or inhaling the hot particles
So if anyone mention the flights to assure me, it is not helpful.
At least the children will not be eating the piano, but I just would like to know how much the dosage would likely be. For example, the contaminated tissue containers from India will give you a dose equal to one head x-ray a night if you unluckly put it on your night stand.
Any more insights?
Radiation detector won't detect what you want.
A radiation detector; that is any that you could afford; is not going to tell you what you are looking for it to tell you.
Even when there was contamination from Fukushima present; it is so low and miniscule compared to background radiation that you can't detect it with a low cost "survey" meter which would be in your price range. The radiation signature from Fukushima is "drowned out" by the magnitude of natural radiation, and is down "in the noise" that you can't see it unless you do spectroscopy like BRAWM does. However, that requires very, very expensive equipment, like the Germanium-based detectors that BRAWM uses.
Here's an answer by Mark of BRAWM to a similar question:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/can-pancake-geiger-counter-be-used...
Attempting to measure the Fukushima radiation with a survey meter in the presence of natural background radiation would be like giving a deaf person a Radio Shack sound level meter and sending them to the symphony to use the meter to detect whether the picolo player was playing. The variation in volume of the orchestra is going to swamp the volume of the picolo. The Radio Shack meter can't pick out the picolo.
However, your ears can; because they do spectroscopy. The characteristic high pitch of the picolo is discernable to a detection method that is sensitive to pitch.
Then you don't understand...
radiation from taking a flight vs. radiation from a nuclear accident
naturally radioactive foods vs. radiation contaminated foods
radiation on skin vs. eating or inhaling the hot particles
==========================
BRAWM has made the point many times that it is useful to make such comparisons.
They are not identical; but can help give you some perspective.
First, when comparing internal exposure vs. external exposure; the external exposure is actually worse. The most efficient way to irradiate some internal organ is to place some radioisotope into the organ and let it irradiate. When you irradiate from outside, for a same given internal dose; the outside radiation is worse because it deposits energy on the way in; so it is worse.
If you compare internal dose from an isotope like I-131 which seeks the thyroid; for a given dose to the thyroid, the dose from the airplane flight is actually worse because it is a whole body dose. If BRAWM says the thyroid does from I-131 is "X" uSv; and compares to an airplane flight of "X" uSv then not only is the thyroid getting a dose of "X" uSv in the flight, but every organ in the body is getting dosed.
The anti-nukes think that the radioisotope dose is worse because it is over a longer time; but they have that backwards. First, if you know the radioactivity rate, you know how many radioactive atoms there are since the rate is the product of the decay constant and the number of atoms. When BRAWM gives you a dose for a radioisotope like I-131; it's the total dose received when ALL the radioactive nuclides have decayed. For the most part especially with the beta emitters, when a radioactive isotope emits radiation, it decays to a stable nuclide. It's analogous to having your arm in a box with 50 honeybees. No matter how long you leave your arm in the box, the most you can get stung is 50 times, because stinging is fatal to the bee.
Also, the shorter the time of the exposure; the worse it is. Again, the dose from a 4 hour airplane flight is delivered in 4 hours. The dose from that I-131 is delivered over 4 months. Now think about it. Who exhibits the greater effects from drinking alcohol, the man who drinks a one bottle of gin over the course of a 4 hours airplane flight, or the man who drinks one bottle of gin over the course of 4 months? Obviously the man who drinks the bottle on the plane.
So when BRAWM says the dose from I-131 taken internally is "X" uSv to the thyroid, and compares that to an airplane flight in which the thyroid also gets "X" uSv; the airliner flight is actually WORSE than the I-131.
BRAWM is making these VALID comparisons to help people keep things in perspective. So counter to your uninformed claim, the comparisons with airplane flights ARE helpful and instructive, whether you know it or not. If you don't understand it; that's your problem; get an education.
You have it wrong
The shorter the duration of exposure (for the same dose) the less the damage. It's better to get it all in one blast than slowly over time. It's unintuitive and unlike the pattern for many other toxins, but radioactivity is different than chemical toxicity. The current empirical literature is clear on correcting this outdated misunderstanding.
WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!
The above statement is just flat out WRONG
It is well known that when dealing with radiation, there is a rate-dependent component to the damage. That is, the faster you receive the radiation; the worse it will be for a given dose. NOT the other way around as the above poster claims.
One of the reasons for this is that humans, and practically all animals have a radiation damage repair mechanism. We had to evolve this repair mechanism because we evolved in a world that is a sea of radiation.
For a given radiation dose that is deposited over a long time; like some ingested or inhaled radionuclide; the small daily dose of radiation may be totally within the capacity of the repair mechanism to repair; and hence there will be ZERO somatic damage. A dose received over a short period of time can exceed the capacity of the repair mechanism to totally repair.
This is corroborated by the latest research out of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science:
http://lowdose.energy.gov/
http://www.examiner.com/science-in-south-bend/dna-repair-centers-fix-low...
“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, breast cancer researcher with the Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.”
Forum readers are advised to disregard the unsubstantiated claims made above, in favor of what true radiation scientists are telling us.
Thank you very much for the
Thank you very much for the education. I am not here to provoke people. I am here, as a concerned parent, for answers from knowleged people like yourself.
Not sure if you have answered my original question or not. What do you think about the piano if it is contaminated? I kind of think everything in Japan is contaminated to a varying degree. Even things in the US are. My children eat groceries from CA and WA everyday and I am totally not sure about that. We have to learn to live with radiation, unfortunately, I am accepting.
But, the piano was straight out of Japan, made in 2011, just arrived the US in Feb, 2012, that is something I am really worried about.
It's impossible to say
It's impossible to say without dismantling the piano and subjecting it to a ridiculous amount of labwork.
Common sense says, why risk it?
You're not giving us much to
You're not giving us much to work with here.
Why do you expect a bunch of anonymous forum posters to know whether or not your piano is contaminated? Are we supposed to break out the Ouija board and hold a seance to find out? ;)
Your first instinct was the best one. If you're concerned then go get a dose meter. Wander around seeing what the various background levels are in the various places you hang out. Especially drop by the grocery store and stand in front of the bananas. (Boy, will that freak you out.) Then go to your piano and measure the level. If you can see anything above background then send the piano back, if not, then your piano is not significantly contaminated.
My grandmother, god bless her, was convinced that electricity was leaking out of the wall plugs and getting all over everything. This greatly distressed her and no amount of reassurances that her fears were groundless would alleviate her anxiety. Then one day I went down to the store and got some plastic child-proofing plugs for her to plug into the empty sockets. After that she was happy as a clam, certain that the plugs were stopping the electricity from leaking out.
My point? If you're not going to accept the science and the measurements then you need to find whatever talisman, procedure, ritual, or whatever that is going to allow you to relax and get on with it.
Stop worrying. Take action. Let us know how it turns out.
Intended pun or not?
Her fears of electricity leaking out of plugs were "groundless".
Was that an intentional pun?
Mother Nature is the biggest source of radiation exposure
Forget about the piano being contaminated.
The biggest source of radiation exposure to your children is due to Mother Nature.
Yes, the piano is a little radioactive, but mostly it has nothing to do with Fukushima. The radiation from Mother Nature is higher than anything from Fukushima.
Do you worry about the piano having germs on it? You know it does!
But the germs on the piano are not going to make your children sick.
Mother Nature is the biggest source of germs that your children's immune system has to ward off.
Mother Nature is also the biggest source of radiation exposure that your children's DNA repair mechanism has to repair.
The world was "contaminated" with radioactivity and radiation long before Fukushima.
The piano was made somewhere
The piano was made somewhere in Japan in 2011,
possibly during times when fallout plumes were occurring.
It is mis-information to say there is no concern,
the biggest source of radiation now in Fukushima is most definitely man-made
due to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant catastrophe
and most definitely is not the contribution of Mother Nature.
Send it back and get your
Send it back and get your money back.
If Fukushima turns out to be the health catastrophe that many think it is,
and causes in coming years an increasingly bad health of the Japanese population,
a higher rate of cancer and a higher death rate,
you will never be able to forgive yourself that you needlessly risked your children's health.
Tokyo was contaminated by fallout, it is Russian roulette to buy products made there,
your concern is wise,
Get a Piano made in the US.
Only buy US made pianos
All of Asia is contaminated. Dont trust government or the press. They change the standards to suit the contamination.
Ignore the above; it is not based on accurate science
Ignore the above; it is not based on accurate science
If nuclear plants were built on accurante science
None would be built because anything that requires subsidies to build, produces power for 50 years, then needs 500,000 years to decontaminate, doesnt require 'accurate science' to prove it isnt viable
WRONG!!
Yes - but everything you just said about nuclear power plants is WRONG or FABRICATED. Nuclear power plants are not what you just said they are.
We don't need subsidies to build nuclear power plants. The anti-nuclear propagandists like to say they are subsidized because of their misreading of the Price-Anderson act. We now offer loan-guarantees to a limited number of plants to help jump-start the building of needed low CO2 energy generation. However, those incentives only cost the taxpayer in the event of the failure of the project, and those incentives are meant to counterbalance the disincentives in the system; like having idiot anti-nukes file countless lawsuits.
It doesn't take 500 K years to decontaminate a nuclear power plant either. Most components of the plant that become radioactive are relatively short-lived. Only the actinides in the fuel are very long lived; but if we reprocess / recycle spent fuel, those actinides can be burned as fuel, and the byproducts have considerably shorter lives.
This is a scientific forum followed by scientists. Fabricating a scare story doesn't cut the mustard here.
Forget about it.
Your children are getting more radiation exposure due to cosmic rays and naturally occuring radon gas than they would ever get from a contaminated piano.
There's NOTHING you can do to protect them from cosmic rays.
They have to live with the radiation exposure just like the rest of us.
Ignore the above; it's not
Ignore the above; it's not based on accurate science.
He is not asking how he can
He is not asking how he can protect his children from cosmic rays. He wants to limit his children's unnecessary exposure to radioactive contamination from Fukushima.
Radioactive contamination from a nuclear accident of a piano (or a Toyota, or a salmon) is completely different than cosmic rays.
We really do not have to accept anthropomorphic radiation as inevitable, just because the self-serving nuke industry tells us we do.
You already accept worse.
We really do not have to accept anthropomorphic radiation as inevitable, just because the self-serving nuke industry tells us we do
----------------------------------------
You already accept worse - from the coal plants. I don't see the same opposition to coal plants as nuclear when the coal plants are 100X worse. Courtesy of scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations.
the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.
Additionally, Mother Nature exposes you to 3000 times as much radiation as does nuclear power. Courtesy of the Health Physics Society at the University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm
The percentage of the average person's radiation exposure due to nuclear power, "nuclear fuel cycle" in table is <0.03%
Guilding a lilly
It's guilding a lilly. The radiation from Mother Nature is so MUCH MORE than what you get from nuclear power including Fukushima.
Why worry about the miniscule amount from Fukushima when a single airline flight or a trip up a skyscraper is going to wipe out any effect of avoiding Fukushima radiation?
Whistleblowers and others who
Whistleblowers and others who are "inconvenient" to the PTB get killed all the time; most are made to look like accidents or natural causes.
Well, you only live once, I
Well, you only live once, I always say.
Here's to being a reviled pain in the butt in the name of protecting the well-being of others.
And I hope that piano got sent back from whence it came.
Play and pray, fella, just
Play and pray, fella, just play and pray!