What's the deal with Arkansas' radioactive snow?

The levels of radiation detected are lower by a factor of 10 for material to be released.
Minute amounts of radiation exposure do not effect the immune system.
This guy is just a crackpot.

Dave,
Thanks. What about radiation measured in food in here in the US attributed to Fukushima?

If you have a sensitive enough instrument you can probably detect radiation in almost anything. As far as i know levels detected from Fukushima are not significant.

The effects are a question. Families in Japan who have sent their children abroad may be wise. The results of nuclear tests were concealed for many years - in the US millions of miscarriages, birth defects, still births. The reactors in the US require fuel to be cooled and if the electric grid goes down imagine 50 reactors melting down for lack of fuel. The reactors are vulnerable in other ways and accidents are often not reported. In Japan, the government lied , but so do others.

If you want to live in fantasy land go ahead. Anti-Nuks are the liars, they fabricate all sorts of non-sense without any valid data. The biggest cause of health problems is the fear instilled by the anti-nuke community, they should be ashamed of themselves for the health problems they have caused. parroting blatantly false information doesn't help your credibility.

That doesn't sound sensible to me based on the record and views of scientists who have credibility. Linus Pauling wasn't wrong. Michio Kaku seems informed.

I'm not sure what Michio Kaku is thinking, but he should no better, I suspect that he has the typical ivory tower academic view of the world, and is not bothered by facts because his ego is so big. He is a physicist and a media celebrity with no training in radiation or nuclear.
Fools and fanatics are hard to argue with, I hope you are neither and are willing to do some honest research.

David ,
You seem uninformed of the past history of nuclear effects and events as well as the current situation .

http://coalitionagainstnukes.org/solidarity/
“From the grassroots, change typically occurs. The Coalition Against Nukes is an extraordinary example of an active, vibrant grassroots organization. As the impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster continue, while the nuclear industry and nuclear promoters in government seek to cover up these consequences and, despite Fukushima, push for the construction of more nuclear power plants, the Coalition Against Nukes is there — fighting this deadly, unnecessary energy technology. ”

– Karl Grossman



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Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Dr. Michio Kaku explains us once more in simple words the cause and effects of the nuclear accident after the dreadful earthqueake in Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95C0x3PGOWU&noredirect=1

Uploaded on May 2, 2011

This is a thoroughly irresponsible interview, useless fear mongering, no one has suffered from radiation sickness.
Annual dose limits are a factor of 10 lower for an acute dose at which effects are noticeable.
If anyone is lying it's people like Kaku, how he can lie the way he is in this interview and look himself in the mirror is beyond me.
His statements about Indian Point are false.
Statements about insurance are false. Power stations are in fact insured, Price-Andersen is a secondary insurance pool paid for by the utilities.
The Voltgle plant in Georgia is being built with the utilities money, no government money is being used nor is there i government loan guarantee, statements to the contrary are blatant lies promulgated by the Anti-Nuke movement which is probably backed by the Gas and Coal industries in an attempt to eliminate competition.

Dave,
I don't know if it's your lack of research and experience ,but I think you are being irresponsible.

I'm not the irresponsible one. I think it is quite irresponsible to engage in fear mongering based on faulty statements. More health issues have been caused by the stress of having evacuated from the Fukishima area than would have resulted if the had just stayed indoors. No one in the general public has been harmed by radioactive material being released.
I worked in the nuclear industry for more than 30 years so I know how safe the technology is and the outright lies some of the Anti-Nukes tell.
Call me a shill for the industry if you like, but a great many antis are shills for the carbon industries.

If people feel l fear from what different individuals and studies state, that is not surprising. When governments and corporations lie, people are not stupid. They trust their leaders to act in their interest and accept some information is concealed and lies may be told. In wars, the losses and deaths are rarely disclosed.

The Japanese people know they have been lied to by corrupt leaders serving powerful, self-serving interests.

That you have worked in the industry does not mean that you know what it does and has done. I doubt you know a lot about it.

I beg to differ, I know a gread deal about the industry having been a licensed senior reactor operator, and a Quality Assurance auditor. I am not naive enough to take what people tell me at face value, I double check everything. To use a favorite saying of the AGW crowd, the science on low level radiation exposure is settled, acute doses less than 0.1 Sieverts(10 REM) cause no harm. Put away your tin foil hat, the government(U.S) is not lying, I can't speak about the Japanese.because I don't know their regulatory structure, but I'm reasonably sure that no one in the general public has been harmed and is unlikely to be. harmed.

Dave,
I have no reason to deny your expertise and experience or integrity in expressing your what you think. As we know others have disputed similar testimony by others. I do not think we can assert that all are not more qualified in their knowledge than yourself or "fear-mongering", whether they may have partial knowledge.

I'd add to this that based on the "cpm" data he's showing, he's counting the number of "hits" by only two types of decay ("alpha" and "beta"), which isn't a good indicator of effect on the human body. For example, the potassium in a banana would register around 10 "hits" per minute, with another 5 higher-energy decays going un-registered (which, BTW, means you're getting far more of this kind of radiation while in the veggie section of the supermarket).

More informative would be some indication of actual energy potentially absorbed by a body, ideally in "Sieverts." To give a comparison, that banana is around .1 microSeiverts. A TSA "Rapiscan" backscatter machine (the kind now being removed from service) are limited to .25 microSeiverts (2.5 bananas). Dental X-ray - around 7.5 microSieverts (75 bananas). A CT full-body scan - around 20,000 microSieverts (a truckload of bananas).

The highest dosage noted for a Fukushima evacuee was 68,000 microSieverts. The highest dosage allowed for a Fukushima emergency responder was 670,000 microSieverts. And remember that these were rapid exposures from something that decayed quickly, like Iodine 131 (8-day half-life), which is what made it dangerous. But that also means there's only about 2^-45 (about 1/35-trillionth) of the stuff left around after a year. A guy named Albert Stevens holds the record for radiation exposure, having absorbed 64,000,000 microSieverts over 21 years (from injected Plutonium) before dying from a heart attack.

Put it this way, I might not eat the snow, but it wouldn't be due to fear of radiation.

Nice to see a comment from someone who knows what they're talking about.

What is the value in such specialized studies within the acquired body of knowledge ?

Clarke, I assume that you're asking what's the point if there is no predictive value.

There is a predictive value, although it is stochastic (statistical). But it's not so simple as doing a quick particle-strike detection; there needs to be a context. What kind of radiation are you measuring? Are there unmeasured decay vectors? At what energy are they being emitted? What is the decay rate? How much of the material is present? What is the half-life? How much can be absorbed by an organism?

The human body evolved in a naturally radioactive environment, so it must have some mechanisms for dealing with radiation. Calculating when that system is potentially overwhelmed is not so simple as noting a few electrons striking a detector. If you or I received the energy Albert Stevens did in an afternoon... well, it wouldn't be pretty, and NRC officials would be descending upon the neighborhood. But spread over 21 years, even as an old man, cholesterol apparently did far more damage. This is why people who work in radioactive environments wear film-badges that must be evaluated regularly by experts who calculate total exposure of a body to every type of radiation over time ("Sieverts," or sometimes less accurately as "Curies" in the US).

That precipitation might wash a small quantity of what are probably some naturally-occuring byproducts of cosmic ray exposure to the ground isn't particularly concerning. Consider that the planet was bathed in both long and short half-life nuclear fallout in the 50's and 60's (the real thing) from atmospheric tests, and we're still around to discuss this. I think I'd be more worried about a load of bananas coming through town.

Clarke, I assume that you're asking what's the point if there is no predictive value.

Ruta,
What I wrote was,"What is the value in such specialized studies within the acquired body of knowledge ?"

I have worked in science, since the late 60's, mostly at the oldest private cancer institute in the US , now Fox Chase, which merged with the Univ. of Pennsylvania since the expansion of the "war on cancer" and the government's increased involvement in all aspects of cancer research, treatment and so on.

Cancer is an industry, and very profitable for many participants. Awarding Grants, acceptance of papers by journals, the scientific standards of publications, the practice of having corporations edit papers that are published , scientists accepting funders of their studies have the right to not make public the results are all aspects of what the field of science includes today, which is nothing new in history, although the forms and details vary. There is the perennial feature of Science I and Science II as well. Talented scientists are chosen for private projects, often at a young age. Most scientists haven't knowledge or access to that work. The results may not known, perhaps partially, for generations.

When I used the words "specialized studies within the acquired body of knowledge", I spoke from a perspective of some knowledge of possible real effects of radiation short-term and long-term and how to estimate the value of any studies critically and impartially. Science is a human endeavor and their intelligence and character are determining factors throughout history and the rise and fall of civilizations. Contemporary science is a recent phenomenon. The evidence of the possible superiority of ancient arts and sciences in significant ways should not be excluded as part of our general education, not least of those who seek to advance science today .

Interesting story.