Visiting Tokyo Japan in 2013 - Radiation Concerns

The above post shows another trait of the pro-nukes; they are just so damn self-righteous. They believe that only their opinions count and are willing to throw the entire body of medical evidence into the waste can just because they disagree with it.

The pro-nuke's sense of entitlement, self-worth, and arrogance knows no bounds.

Some of the best research in this area is done at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was recently published in the highly prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/20/low-dose-radiation/

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s 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.”

Although references to the work of Dr. Bissell are in other threads; it is not in this one:

We know and have actually observed a DNA repair mechanism within our cells. That means that as long as you stay within the capability of the mechanism to repair damage; then that means there is a threshold.

Some of the best research in this area is done at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was recently published in the highly prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/20/low-dose-radiation/

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s 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.”

You really seem to have no idea of the high level of radiaoactive contamination in Fukushima do you?
Read the radiation figures in the live reading maps linked below.
Children in Fukushima are already reported to have major Thyroid abnormalities occurring from the initial Iodine-131 release from the meltdowns.
Tragically this Iodine-131 exposure would have mostly been preventable by an immediate evacuation once the 3 reactors were known to be heading to meltdown, but that evacuation did not occur.
Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 are now at high levels in the fallout zones.
People will get sick and die in Fukushima and elsewhere in Japan because of this fallout from the nuclear power plant disaster, just like they did after Chernobyl.

Your incorrect comments about levels in Denver and Fukushima are either grossly ill-informed or deliberately misleading.

Fukushima Prefecture Live monitoring:

http://www.atom-moc.pref.fukushima.jp/dynamic/C0002-PC.html

Japan Live monitoring:

http://www.bousai.ne.jp/eng/index.html

Example:
Fukushima: 18250 nGy/h
Osaka: 52 nGy/h

There is no conversion from Becquerels to Sieverts because they are units for different quantities

It's like saying, "I have an object that is 5 feet long. Help me convert that to weight in pounds".

It's a nonsensical question, that has no answer. Just because something is 5 feet long doesn't imply it has a particular weight.

When we talk about radiation and radioactivity, there are 3 differing quantities and each has its own set of units:

1) Radioactivity. The first quantity is the radioactivity. Simple put, it is the rate at which a given amount of radioactive material is decaying. For example, Iodine-131 beta decays to Xenon-131. If 100 atoms of I-131 are decaying to 100 atoms of Xe-131 every second; then the radioactivity is 100 Becquerels. The Becquerel is 1 atom decay per second. Because it constitutes the decay of a single atom, that is why the Becquerel is such a small unit. Before the SI unit of Becquerel was defined, radioactivity was typically given in terms of the Curie, where the Curie was defined as the radioactivity a one gram of Radium-226. A single gram of Radium-226 will undergo 37 Billion decays per second, so the Curie is 37 Billion times bigger than the Becquerel.

2) Dose The Dose is how much energy due to radiation is absorbed per unit mass of a material. The dose is more complicated than the radioactivity because it depends not only on how much radioactive material you have for a source, but also on what the material you are concerned about absorbing radiant energy is, and the radiation absorption properties of that material, and how far away the absorber is from the source, the geometry, is there any shielding between the source and absorber....

The unit for dose is the Gray which corresponds to 1 Joule of absorbed energy per kilogram of material doing the absorbing. Another thing about dose that confuses people is that they don't realize that dose in an "intensive" not an "extensive" quantity. Dose is clearly intensive since the Gray unit is energy per kilogram of mass. Many people get confused by the name "dose" since it is the same word the medical community uses for the total amount of something you ingest. The radiation dose is per kilogram of mass. So when someone quotes you a dose in a thyroid and someone else quotes a "whole body" dose; these doses have to be multiplied by the mass of the thyroid and the mass of the whole body, respectively; if you want to know the total energy deposited in each case.

3) Equivalent Dose The dose above is just the energy deposited per unit mass. However, in biological material, the biological damage done is dependent on more than just how much energy is deposited. It also depends on the type of radiation depositing the energy. For example, if we have a source of alpha radiation and a source of gamma radiation that both deposit the same amount of energy per unit mass; the alpha radiation does roughly 20 times the biological damage. The "equivalent dose" is a way to take this effect into account when the straight dose above would be the same for alphas and gammas that deposit equivalent energy per unit mass. It is the "equivalent dose" that is measured in a unit called the "Sievert".

So "Becquerel", "Gray", and "Sievert" are units for 3 different quantities; just as "meter", "liter", and "kilogram" are units of 3 different quantities; length, volume, and mass. You can't directly convert one to the other since there is no equivalence between them.

If you are legitimately searching for knowledge, and want the answer to a legitimate question, I can give you an informed answer. After all, I used to be a Professor of Physics.

If you dogmatically assert anti-nuke propaganda with zero proof, you are going to get an argument.

"Rude Dog"