RADIOACTIVITY
AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU
All of us are exposed to nuclear radiation
every day of our lives from naturally occurring minerals within the earth,
traces of radioactive elements within our bodies and cosmic rays from the
sun and stars. These sources are mostly unavoidable. However, you should
be concerned about local concentrations of nuclear radiation from uranium
mine waste, medical waste, dissolved radioactive elements in the underground water supply,
such as radium salts and radon, and wind blown dust and gases from man
made radioactive waste around the hundreds of sites dedicated to nuclear
power plants, nuclear weapons manufacturing plants and nuclear waste landfills that can effect your health. Radioactive elements are unstable and give off highly energetic charged
particles that can damage the genetic blueprint of the living cellyour DNA. Some
of the time the cell can no longer function or repair itself and dies,
but occasionally the cell multiplies uncontrollably and becomes a cancer.
Obviously, the size, energy and penetrating distance of nuclear particles
determine the damage to living matter and the number of breaks and changes
in the genetic code.
Nuclear particles are forcefully
ejected by unstable atomic elements, each with its own preferred method
of releasing the overabundance of energy contained in its nucleus. It first
must vibrate itself into the proper pattern. If you were to shake a coin
out of a piggy bank you would succeed only when the coin and the slot were
aligned and moving in the right direction. Although no one can predict
when an individual unstable nucleus of the radioactive atom will give up
its excess energy, the time it takes for half of a large number of these
atoms to decay can be predicted with statistical accuracy. This is know
as the half life of the radioactive element. After ten half life periods
have passed, less than a tenth of one percent of the radiation will remain.
Some half-life times are long enough to require the radioactive source
to be isolated from public exposure for decades, centuries or even millennia.
METER CONVERSIONS ,INC.
1620 WEST MAIN STREET
HOUSTON, TEXAS 77006-4712
TEL: 800 523-0515
or 713 523-0515 FAX: 206 984 0487
Back
to Table of Contents