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Environmental Radioactivity and Radioecology
Published in Gaetano Licitra, Giovanni d'Amore, Mauro Magnoni, Physical Agents in the Environment and Workplace, 2018
By contrast, it can be easily calculated that the inventory of the all the natural radionuclides, considering only a thin layer of the Earth's crust, exceeds these values by an order of magnitude. This fact is confirmed by the estimation of the exposure to ionising radiation of the world population: The natural contribution largely dominates the total effective dose released to human beings (Section 11.1). A more detailed discussion of the characteristics of the two main components of environmental radioactivity, the natural and the artificial ones, will be made in the next two subsections.
Some Geomedical Phenomena and Relationships in The Western Hemisphere: The Americas
Published in Jul Låg, Geomedicine, 2017
Some materials that constitute threats to human life are products of human activity, yet their distribution may be largely by natural processes, including movement of substances in food chains. Environmental radioactivity is well known.30 Hydrogen-bomb tests in the Pacific region under the auspices of the U.S. Government in 1954 released 90Sr, 137Cs and 131I into circumglobal air streams. The radioactive substances moved to the tundra of northern Canada where the caribou became contaminated, and to the U.S. where children’s teeth became measurably radioactive with 90Sr. 131I was detected in mother’s milk.31 In 1982 scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee were developing ways to seal the surface of a body of radioactive waste buried in soil, to prevent the spread of radioactive materials by water during rain storms.32 Monitoring of levels of concentration of radionuclides in soil continues.33,34
Radiation Detection Methods
Published in Michael Pöschl, Leo M. L. Nollet, Radionuclide Concentrations in Food and the Environment, 2006
The backbone of studying environmental radioactivity and radioecology is radiation detection and radioactivity analysis. The radiation detectors are one of the main components of radiation detection and measurement systems, which include the detector, the signal processing unit, and the output display device, such as a counter or spectrometer. Radiation detectors basically depend on the interaction of incident radiation with the detector material, which produces a detectable output signal. For each type of radiation, there is one or more suitable type of detector or detection system; each has advantages and disadvantages.
A review of studies of childhood cancer and natural background radiation
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2021
Gerald M. Kendall, Mark P. Little, Richard Wakeford
In the years after the Second World War, there was both professional and public concern about possible effects of environmental radioactivity, largely driven by anxiety about fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons (Commoner 1958; Arnold 2001). The Castle Bravo test in 1954 in the Marshall Islands attracted particular attention (Simon 1997; Arnold 2001; Simon et al. 2010). The yield, ∼15 megatons, was two or three times that expected and the fallout was much more extensive. Both the crew of the ‘Lucky Dragon’, a Japanese fishing vessel, and the inhabitants of Rongelap and Utirik atolls suffered acute radiation effects. But at least as important as concerns about the acute effects of local fallout were anxieties about global fallout and about its genetic and somatic consequences.
Combined action of gamma radiation and exposure to copper ions on Lemna minor L
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Irina S. Bodnar, Evgenia V. Cheban
The effects of ionizing radiation on plants, animals, and bacteria are being actively studied, however, data on the radiosensitivity of species obtained at laboratory conditions most often differs from what is observed in nature. Changes in stability of biological systems of different levels in response to an increased level of environmental radioactivity in the wild may be caused by a complex of other stressors acting in addition to ionizing radiation. (Beresford et al. 2020). This study made it possible to expand the existing understanding of the responses of irradiated plants to Cu stress. In this work, we analyzed the changes in morphological and biochemical parameters under separate and combined action of stressors and quantitatively determined the nature of their interaction.
Association of telomere length with chronic exposure to ionizing radiation among inhabitants of natural high background radiation areas of Ramsar, Iran
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2019
Anahita Movahedi, Mojtaba Mostajaboddavati, Masoumeh Rajabibazl, Reza Mirfakhraie, Milad Enferadi
Naturally occurring radon-222 is a gas produced by the radioactive decay of the element radium-226. Radon is an important source of environmental radioactivity and a major contributor to IR dose received by the general population (Bersimbaev and Bulgakova 2015). There is some evidence that radon and its progeny are carcinogenic to humans. Exposure to radon is considered to be the second leading environmental cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoke and a potential risk factor for hematologic malignancies (Copes and Scott 2007; Environmental Protection Agency 2009; Teras et al. 2016).