Appalling levels of radioativity at Fukushima!

[Barman]

According to the survey, 1.13 becquerels of caesium-134 per litre of urine were found in an eight-year-old girl – the highest reading for that isotope. The highest reading for caesium-137 – 1.30 becquerels – came from a seven-year-old boy, Kyodo news agency said.

Given that no one’s rushed these kids into a lead lined ICU bed I assume that these aren’t in fact very high levels.

And I’ll also admit that I get very lost in these various radiation measurements. Rads, rems, becquerels, sieverts, there’re grays and joules as well aren’t there?

So, could one of you more mathematically inclined readers do me a favour and convert this into the banana equivalnet dose?

Since a typical banana contains about half a gram of potassium,[6] it will have an activity of roughly 15 Bq.

Read the full thing here...

Well worth the read for the discussion on Systeme Internationale des Unites Populaires in the comments... 

I’d say a bag of sugar is a Systeme Internationale des Unites Populaires unit, but even a grain of sugar is too many orders of magnitude heavier to understand. Perhaps a comparable mass to a Escherichia coli bacterium?

[Pirate]

Shouldn't this be in the boring thread...

[Barman]

I thought it was funny... perhaps I should be in the boring thread...?

[Uncle Mort]

I like the idea of Systeme Internationale des Unites Populaires after all the BBC adopted it years ago.

[Barman]

I like the idea of Systeme Internationale des Unites Populaires after all the BBC adopted it years ago.

Yes, it made I larf - we definitely need to adopt it here....