Can we test for radiation content in random samples of semen?
I see all the data on milk or what not but the real burning question in the Bay area is our semen safe to drink yet? I stopped at undergrad, but it would be sensible to me to expect fukushima could be concentrating in the gonads. My boyfriend doesn't believe in fukushima and takes absolutely no precautions. Scary :) Would like to have a sample tested for peace of mind.
My favorite post on this forum yet!
I have been wondering the same thing. I figure that the health benefits of receiving my boyfriend's semen far outweigh the risks (unless he's cheating on me.) One of the hormones they give women my age to increase drive & lubrication is testosterone. Unless I am totally off-base I imagine I'd be getting a little testosterone in his semen. As far as the small amount of cesium I'm also getting in his stuff - I'm going to get some from our environment anyway. Also, we're irradiating eachother just by sleeping next to eachother. I've probably taken more commercial flights than he has so I'm probably irradiating him more than he is me. I am trying to get him to not drink so much milk though.
Useful Link on Human Contamination
This reference doesn't mention semen, but does give contamination rates for human tissue from various locations. May provide info to consider at least in realative terms....
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp157-c6.pdf
I heard if you take it in
I heard if you take it in the ass, then the effect is lessened. try it out.
well there sure is alot of
well there sure is alot of that going on across the bay. hiyoooooooo
DTRMFA!
DTRMFA!
Internal radioactivity
Mother Nature, and not Fukushima, is the #1 source of radionuclides
in the human body. Courtesy of the University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/natural.htm
Scroll down to the heading "Human Body":
You are made up of chemicals, and it should be of no surprise that some of them are radionuclides, many of which you ingest daily in your water and food. Here are the estimated concentrations of radionuclides calculated for a 70,000 gram adult based ICRP 30 data:
Some of the radioactive substances found in the human body are:
Uranium, Thorium, Potassium-40, Radium, Carbon-14, Tritium, and Polonium.
Potassium-40, Carbon-14, and Tritium are beta emitters. The radiation they release is the same type as the I-131 and Cs-137 that people get so bent out of shape about.
Trolled is a fail.
Trolled is a fail. Fail-Troll.
Pee is the standard to test
Pee is the standard to test for radiation the test is called urinalysis test...costs a couple hundred dollars.many labs can run this analysis.
Radioactive boyfriend
Whether or not your boyfriend got contaminated by Fukushima; you boyfriend is radioactive. People are radioactive naturally. We contain elements like Potassium. A certain percentage of Potassium, the Universe created as Potassium-40 which is radioactive.
People are also made of Carbon-14. Have you heard of "Carbon-14 Dating?" The reason we know the age of the ancient Egyptians so precisely is that they were radioactive from eating radioactive food. We measure how much of that is left in order to determine their age.
Courtesy of the Health Physics Society at the University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm
you see that about 11% of your background radiation exposure comes from "internal" radiation. That's because you are irradiating yourself. Add to that close contact with a boyfriend who is also radioactive, and you have more to "worry" about than semen.
If you really are so radiation phobic; you will have to ditch the boyfriend altogether.
Or you can just accept that radiation is a part of life, just as germs are a part of life. ( You don't go around attempting to sterilize everything, do you? )
This argument is a blatant
This argument is a blatant strawman. Who is your employer?
I will never accept nuclear industry radiation and waste
Cesium 137 has never been part of natural life on earth as well as melted weapons grade plutonium aerosols .both manmade! add in enriched melted uranium not natural manmade.it's like saying my neighbors is or has burnt toxic trash so if I do to it won't be any worse for environment seems like very flawed position.
"Or you can just accept that
"Or you can just accept that radiation is a part of life, just as germs are a part of life."
Please tell me you are playing devil's advocate with this shamefully cavalier remark as it applies to the OP's concerns about Fukushima?
OP, welcome to the propaganda of the century, twisted to accommodate nuke plant contamination. "it's normal", they tell you. Or "it's low level, no worries".
You are right to be concerned. It may not amount to anything. That is, he may not have anything measurable, it all depends on what he's consumed, been exposed to, etc. , so no one here can properly advise you unless he had testing.
Not even those who tell you that this is all normal. That is neither logical nor reasonable. Man made nuclear contamination is not normal and is cumulative.
HOGWASH!!!
Not even those who tell you that this is all normal. That is neither logical nor reasonable. Man made nuclear contamination is not normal and is cumulative.
=================================
HOGWASH - this is what you get from non-scientists that are listening to the propaganda from the anti-nukes.
The following is scientific FACT that is not spun to accomodate nuclear power plants.
The fact is that Mother Nature creates radioactivity too. You are made up of radioactive materials that are irradiating you from inside. Courtesy of the Health Physics Society at the University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm
You see that 11% of your annual radiation exposure is "internal". That is the radiation exposure you get from the radioactive elements that make YOU up. The boyfriend is made up of the same stuff, and if you are close to the boyfriend, then you get an additional dose of radiation.
Contrary to what the uninformed poster above states, our world is naturally radioactive. Courtesy of the University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/natural.htm
"Our world is radioactive and has been since it was created. Over 60 radionuclides can be found in nature, ..."
You don't have to believe me; believe the University of Michigan above; but sure as hell do NOT believe the previous poster who is trumpeting his ignorance of radioactivity for all to see.
Did you know that alcoholic beverages in order to be sold legally in the USA are REQUIRED to be radioactive? If alcohol is made from recently grown plants and fermented, then it is radioactive because of the natural radioactivity in plants. If the alcohol were not radioactive, then the alcohol must be so old that it has died away. The only way that can be is if the alcohol were distilled out of petroleum. US law requires that alcohol for consumption must be from recently grown plants, and to enforce this the ATF checks for the natural radioactivity.
If you want documentation of this, check out a book by Professor Richard Muller of the UC-Berkeley Physics Dept. called, "The Instant Physicist". The above information is on pages 12 and 13. In fact, if you look at the Amazon.com page for "The Instant Physicist", they have sample pages for you to read that include pages 12 and 13.
Please learn real science and keep the issue in perspective, and ignore the previous poster that doesn't even know grade school science.
Discredit this seems like a valid piece
As the American Journal of Public Health noted in 1962:
Of the radioisotopes originally present in rock-type formations, some may become internal emitters through natural processes. They may be leached or dissolved into ground and surface waters, thus gaining access to man's water and food supply. For either physical or biological reasons, only a few of the naturally radioactive heavy atoms are important sources of internal radiation exposure. The three most important are believed to be radium 226, the most abundant natural isotope of radium; lead 210, a daughter of radium 226 and of radon 222, and radium 228, a daughter of natural thorium.
Radon 222 has a half life of less than 4 days. Radium has a much longer half-life. However,radium ions do not form complexes easily, due to highly basic character of ions. Radium compounds are quite rare, occurring almost exclusively in uranium ores.
Some parts of the country are at higher risk of exposure to naturally-occurring radium than others. It is not only those built on top of uranium mines. For example, the American Journal of Public Health article notes:
Water derived from surface sources such as rivers, lakes, or wells penetrating unconsolidated sand or gravel deposits were, in general, found to contain considerably lower concentrations of radium 226 than wells penetrating deep sandstone formations of Cambrian or pre-Cambrian ages.
In contrast, cesium-137 - one of the main types of radioactivity being spewed by the Japanese plants - has a much longer half life, and can easily contaminate food and water supplies. As the New York Times noted recently:
Over the long term, the big threat to human health is cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years.
At that rate of disintegration, John Emsley wrote in “Nature’s Building Blocks” (Oxford, 2001), “it takes over 200 years to reduce it to 1 percent of its former level.”
It is cesium-137 that still contaminates much of the land in Ukraine around the Chernobyl reactor.
***
Cesium-137 mixes easily with water and is chemically similar to potassium. It thus mimics how potassium gets metabolized in the body and can enter through many foods, including milk.
As the EPA notes in a discussion entitled " What can I do to protect myself and my family from cesium-137?":
Cesium-137 that is dispersed in the environment, like that from atmospheric testing, is impossible to avoid.
Radioactive iodine can also become a potent internal emitter. As the Times notes:
Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days and is quite dangerous to human health. If absorbed through contaminated food, especially milk and milk products, it will accumulate in the thyroid and cause cancer.
The bottom line is that there is some naturally-occurring background radiation, which can - at times - pose a health hazard (especially in parts of the country with high levels of radioactive radon or radium).
But cesium-137 and radioactive iodine - the two main radioactive substances being spewed by the leaking Japanese nuclear plants - are not naturally-occurring substances, and can become powerful internal emitters which can cause tremendous damage to the health of people who are unfortunate enough to breathe in even a particle of the substances, or ingest them in food or water. Unlike low-levels of radioactive potassium found in bananas - which our bodies have adapted to over many years - cesium-137 and iodine 131 are brand new, extremely dangerous substances.
And unlike naturally-occurring internal emitters like radon and radium - whose distribution is largely concentrated in certain areas of the country - radioactive cesium and iodine are spreading not only nationally, but world-wide.
At the very least, it is important to note that each individual internal emitters behaves differently. They each accumulate in different places in the body, target different organs, mimic different vitamins and minerals, and are excreted differently (or not at all). Therefore, comparing radioactive cesium or iodine with naturally occurring radioactive substances - even those which can become internal emitters - is incorrect and misleading.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/03/comparing-japans-radiation...
I believe the comment was:
I believe the comment was: MAN MADE radiation is not normal, is cumulative and is dangerous. Can't you read?
You appear to be the non scientific one, and your reading comprehension is sorely lacking. In every thread, you project your hostility onto the person commenting, often extrapolating in error. You have a very angry agenda, so you lose the argument just from that point. You come off like a righteous pseudo know it all.
Read up on debating 101.
Erroneous Assumptions.
I believe the comment was: MAN MADE radiation is not normal, is cumulative and is dangerous. Can't you read?
============================
Evidently you believe that there is a difference between "man made" radiation and "natural" radiation, and that the former is some how more sinister.
The fact of the matter is that the nuclides that we are discussing are mostly beta radiation emitters. That means they emit electrons.
Do you think there are "natural" electrons and "artificial" electrons. No - an electron is an electron is an electron.
The emitted electrons may have different energies; but electrons from "natural" radiation sources can have energies that are higher or lower than those from "artificial" sources.
The anti-nuclear community has been promulgating this difference between "natural" and "artificial" for years because their arguments fall apart when it is pointed out that Mother Nature irradiates you more than Man does. Therefore, they have to fabricate a difference when none exists in the laws of physics.
I'm not hostile. I'm just very disappointed when I see so much ignorance and stupidity of science that should have been learned in grade school.
Excellent smackdown
Excellent smackdown. It does appear that the more uninformed a poster is, like thinking that there is a qualitative difference between natural and man-made radiation, the more arrogant and self-righteous they are. Nice work at demonstrating their folly.
Allowances
When explaining anything having to do with nuclear power and radiation, you have to make allowances for the manifest ignorance of science by the anti-nukes.
The anti-nukes don't know the science. They don't know that beta radiation is merely high energy electrons emitted by the nucleus undergoing decay of a surplus neutron. To the anti-nuke, radiation is some mysterious "boogeyman" that is out to get them.
As you point out, the anti-nuclear community has a problem with their message. As has been showcased here before, the amount of radiation dose one gets from nuclear power is in the noise in comparison to the natural background radiation that everyone receives with no ill effect:
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/radrus.htm
As can be seen from the above, natural background radiation exposure is 3000 times what one receives from nuclear power.
In my discussions with anti-nukes, they sometimes say that we are right on the border line with radiation. Yes - we may receive 360 mrem from natural sources and man-made sources exclusive of nuclear power, but that is our limit and that 0.03% due to nuclear power pushes us over the abyss.
The problem is that the above figures are averages, and there is significant variance in the amount of radiation exposure people receive. If one lives in Denver, one gets about 32 mrem more radiation due to cosmic rays. Most of the USA is at some altitude above sea level whereby the additional radiation exposure due to the higher altitude is greater than the additional amount due to nuclear power. People in Denver are not suffering from dramatically increased cancer rates, hence that additional radiation exposure is not driving up their cancer rates. Hence, the lesser amounts due to nuclear power can't be driving up rates either.
When they see the folly of that tactic, the anti-nukes then promulgate this silliness that "natural radiation" and "man-made radiation" are somehow different in some meaningful way. The natural radiation dose in Denver is OK because that's "natural" radiation. Again, science says otherwise. A high energy electron, or a Megavolt photon is going to do the same amount of damage irrespective of if it was created by something that was naturally radioactive or from a man-made source.
One also has to be cognizant that the anti-nukes are pushing a political agenda usually associated with their opposition to nuclear weapons. They think that opposing nuclear power is the surest way to oppose nuclear weapons and the people and entities that design / build them.
That's where the anti-nukes really fail the intelligence test, because they don't know who designs / builds nuclear weapons. Every nuclear weapon in the US stockpile was designed by a person who drew his or her paycheck from a single entity. The anti-nukes think that paycheck came from some greedy defense contractor like GE, who also builds nuclear reactors.
Nuclear weapons weren't designed by GE, and the employer of the USA's nuclear weapons designers isn't even a company, it's a university. It's the University of California. At the time the USA was designing / building its nuclear stockpile, the nuclear design labs were aided in the design of the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons by Sandia Labs which was then run by AT&T.
I'm always amused thinking about some snot-nosed little Marxist anti-nuke taking classes at the University of California, and talking on his AT&T telephone about boycotting GE because of their role in building nuclear weapons.
My dear friend, the world
My dear friend, the world isn't black and white. We are called individuals because we are, seeing others as yourself is what Jesus taught. The hatred you carry is hard on your soul.
But the laws of physics..
My dear friend, the world isn't black and white.
==============================================
The world may not be black and white; but the laws of physics are.
In physics, as in all the other "hard" sciences, you have the correct answer, and everything else is just plain wrong.
In this case, the laws of physics say there is no difference between a radionuclide that is man made and one that is made by nature. The anti-nukes have been promulgating the fiction that there is a difference because their ill-conceived ideas fall apart, otherwise.
We need to have a public that understands their science, and think with their brains, instead of their politics.
Tritium is a beta
Tritium is a beta emitter.
Where does the majority of the global Tritium inventory come from?
Is the majority of the global Tritium man-made, or does it come Mother Nature?
Mother Nature by FAR
Mother Nature by FAR
Courtesy of Idaho State University:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
The world wide production of tritium from natural sources is 4 x 10^6 curies per year with a steady state inventory of about 70 x 10^6 curies.
Natural tritium production annually is 4 MILLION Curies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
No, even according to your
No, even according to your own sources man-made material accounts for by far the majority of the global Tritium.
In the DOE-HDBK-1129-2008, "Tritium Safe Handling and Storage" handbook
(the first reference given in your own reference of
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm)
cutting and pasting what the DOE states on page G-7:
"Sources of Tritium
Tritium occurs naturally in the environment.
Reactions between cosmic radiation and gases in
the upper atmosphere produce most of the world's natural tritium.
...
Tritium converts into water and reaches the earth's surface as rain.
An estimated production rate of 4 × 10^6 Ci/yr results in a world steady-state natural inventory of ~70 × 10^6 Ci.
In addition, commercial producers of radioluminescent and neutron generator devices release about 1 × 10^6 Ci/yr. Atmospheric nuclear test explosions from 1945 to 1975 added about 8 × 10^9 Ci of tritium to the environment, much of which has since decayed.
However, about 5 × 10^8 Ci remain in the environment, mostly diluted in the oceans. Underground nuclear tests appear to add little tritium to the atmosphere.
The nuclear power and defense industries now release 12 × 10^6 Ci/yr,
a small fraction of which comes from light-water reactors.
Tritium is also a by-product of light-water and heavy-water nuclear reactor operation.
In their coolants, these reactors produce about 500 to 1,000 and 2 × 10^6 Ci/yr, respectively, for every 1,000 MW(e) of power."
Your Wikipedia page reference even states: "Naturally occurring tritium is extremely rare on Earth, where trace amounts are formed by the interaction of the atmosphere with cosmic rays.",
also "Before these nuclear tests, there were only about 3 to 4 kilograms of tritium on the Earth's surface; but these amounts rose by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude during the post-test period."
Summarizing what the DOE states:
The steady-state natural Tritium inventory is ~70 million Ci,
but man-made Tritium amounting to an estimated ~400 to 500 million Ci still remains from atmospheric nuclear testing.
Mother Nature adds ~4 million Ci a year,
but currently man is adding ~13 million Ci a year.
Then, but not now
The steady-state natural Tritium inventory is ~70 million Ci,
but man-made Tritium amounting to an estimated ~400 to 500 million Ci still remains from atmospheric nuclear testing.
Mother Nature adds ~4 million Ci a year,
but currently man is adding ~13 million Ci a year.
========================================
The large amount of tritium released by the defense was in testing and production of nuclear weapons.
We are no longer testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, which was the big source of tritium. That practice was stopped in 1962 with the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty. As pointed out, underground testing self-contained the radionuclides produced. However, up until 1988, the US was still producing tritium at the Savannah River plant for use in nuclear weapons. The last of those reactors was shut down in 1988.
Man has cut back on the release of tritium in recent years. Yes - the majority of the inventory in the environment was produced by man, but that ship has sailed; there's nothing we can do about that now.
At present, the source of new tritium to the environment is mostly Mother Nature.
13 is bigger than 4. The DOE
13 is bigger than 4.
The DOE are stating in DOE-HDBK-1129-2008
that the ongoing man-made release is ~13 million Ci/Year,
which dominates the ~4 million Ci/Year that Mother Nature makes from cosmic rays.
Man-made Tritium is therefore still the majority of the Tritium release into the environment each year.
Although the Savanna River Site (SRS) reactors for weapons Tritium production were shut down as you say,
what has happened since then is a transfer of weapons Tritium production over to the nuclear power industry.
Since 2003 the Watts Bar nuclear plant in Tennessee is a nuclear power plant
that been making Tritium for the US government weapons program
specifically for re-charging nuclear bombs.
http://www.srs.gov/general/news/factsheets/srs.pdf
The Tritium is made at Watts Bar in modified reactor control rods (TPBARs) that contain Lithium,
the TPBARs are then sent to SRS for Tritium extraction.
This use of TPBARs is also something the Watts Bar plant was presumably not designed for.
There is an unsolved leak problem from these TPBARs too,
a so-called permeation problem,
where more Tritium than expected is leaking from the TPBARs into the surrounding reactor coolant.
This is causing a problem with making enough Tritium for subsequent extraction
without exceeding the NRC's allowed limits to the
regular Tritium coolant releases from these reactors.
The Government Accounting Office found in October 2010 that:
"NNSA has been unable to solve the technical challenges it has been
experiencing producing tritium. Specifically, tritium is permeating from
the TPBARs at higher-than-expected rates into the water used to cool the
reactor core at TVA’s Watts Bar 1 nuclear plant rather than being captured
in the TPBARs as designed."
and:
" scientists and engineers charged with investigating the
issue and identifying solutions have not been able to identify the root
cause of the permeation problem."
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11100.pdf
There are things we can do to limit the ongoing man-made releases of Tritium and
prevent the already artificially elevated Tritium levels in the environment going even higher.
For example aren't there just simpler, better, and safer alternatives than putting Tritium everywhere in public places in luminous Exit signs, is it sensible to distribute toxic material in the environment like that when alternatives exist?
We should also investigate the alarmingly high 12 million Ci of Tritium a year the nuclear power and defense industries now release, and find ways to greatly reduce and even eliminate that release.
Tell me about it
Tell me about it!
I DESIGNED the Watts Bar lithium targets.