I agree, the writer of the article appears not to have a clue what (s)he is writing about. The author does not appear to understand the difference between Bq/kg and Sv.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pierre Abbat Sent: 08 April 2013 06:50 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:52625] Unclear use of radiation units http://www.naturalnews.com/039828_Fukushima_radiation_media_blackout.html He gives a distance in only miles and messes up the capitalization, but that's not the point. The amount of radiation in food is given in becquerels per kilogram. Two paragraphs later, the maximum exposure is given in millisieverts per year. A becquerel is one random event per second; I can imagine putting a kilogram of tangerines in a Geiger counter and hearing about four clicks a second. A sievert is a joule per kilogram, adjusted for how much damage it does to a body. The amount of damage done by a particle emitted by a radioactive atom depends on the kind of particle and the energy with which it's thrown out. Not being a nuclear scientist, I have no idea how much this is for any nuclide, and the author doesn't state it. Also submitted on the web form. Pierre -- li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa
