Milk update (7/18)
7/18 (5:05pm): A milk sample with a Best By date of 7/21 was added to our Milk results. This is the second consecutive non-detection of all isotopes in store-bought milk.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
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7/18 (5:05pm): A milk sample with a Best By date of 7/21 was added to our Milk results. This is the second consecutive non-detection of all isotopes in store-bought milk.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Hello, Mark/ BRAWN, thanks
Hello, Mark/ BRAWN,
thanks again for all the testing you are and have been doing. With regard to milk, I am wondering if you could test a few samples of goats or sheep milk? I believe those animals are commonly grazing outdoors (as opposed to mass-production milk cows), eating this year's grass rather than last year's hay. Which may lead to higher readings. I am also concerned that once milk cows are fed this year's hay, levels may go up---but by then no one will be measuring anymore. Thanks so much, I.
Higher minimum detection levels make this misleading
The latest minimum detection levels are higher than previously detected levels of radiation. This makes it look like something has changed (like levels have gone lower) when in reality the levels of radiation are actually as high or higher than before. Please explain.
You make a fair point. The
You make a fair point. The MDA limits for the last sample are higher than the previous limits and are above some recent measurements. However, they are at the same level as the most recent detections (Best By date of 7/7), so those levels or anything higher would have been detected.
For about one and a half months now, the Cs-137 and Cs-134 levels have been hovering near our limits of detectability (≈ 0.1 Bq/L). We are going to count some more samples before the milk testing ends. We will try to keep the MDAs as low as possible, but sometimes we cannot count a biological sample like milk for too long before it goes bad and we have a spill (or at least a foul smell) in the lab.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
I had wondered about milk
I had wondered about milk going putrid. Is there a method to prevent the milk going sour, maybe some kind of anti-bacterial agent or something like that?
I had also pondered how meat could be tested...ground and thoroughly dessicated sounds like a plan (think hamburger sized bits dehydrated like jerky). Weighing the meat before and after drying would allow for a proper bq/kg measurement to be made.
During the cold war era tests, scientists would kill rabbits (and other animals) downrange of the testing and test them for materials. Makes sense to me - rabbits grow quick and eat like crazy, mostly grass. The I-131 levels were detecatable in rabbit flesh in a very short time period after the fallout.
Why does it matter if the
Why does it matter if the sample is fresh or not when it's tested?
Putrid or not, the cesium is in there or it isn't. No?
And must it sit in an open container so that you smell it the entire time, possibly even spill it? Wouldn't that expose it to more dust and possible contaminants, and then your readings potentially really be about lab dust?
If it were me, I'd be happy to leave milk until it was cottage cheese if that could improve the quality of my data, but I sure as heck would keep it in a closed container, probably in a fridge to boot. What am I missing?
You are right that the
You are right that the chemical form of the milk doesn't affect the measurements we are making. In fact, we have left milk until it was essentially yogurt or cottage cheese, and that is fine.
The main problem is that our detectors are mounted horizontally. If we were a lab that regularly measured liquids, we would have a vertically-mounted detector so that the container could sit upright on top of the detector. With our setup, we have had to tightly seal the containers so that we could set them on their side around our horizontal detectors. But even the tightest seal is no match for billions of bacteria metabolizing the milk, and sometimes the tightly sealed containers break open and leak.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Good looking count chart
This is great news ty may I ask what Name brand I hope to purchase that type.