Acquired Radioactivity

Sampling for Airborne Radioactivity

This report examines how to sample airborne radioactivity with minimal complexity and time expenditure, using conventional high-volume samplers in combination with alpha-particle spectrometry. The use of alpha spectrometry provides compensation for radon/thoron decay products collected on the filter paper of the sampler, leading to a seven-fold improvement in measurement sensitivity of artifici...

An Introduction to Radioactivity

Radioactivity in human tissues

The radioactivity in human tissues (lungs) obtained from the dead body of people who died by lung cancer in the region of Ptolemais, Northern Greece, where 16 units of 4 major coal-fired power plants are in operation, was studied. The specific activities of radioactive nuclides searched for in human tissues were not remarkable. The syndrome of lung cancer deaths at that area which showed an inc...

Radioactivity and thyroid cancer.

There is no evidence that natural radiation (cosmic radiation or from natural radioiosotopes) increases the risk for thyroid diseases. Moreover, while it has been proven that exposure to external medical radiation or to external and internal radiation by atomic bomb explosions leads to an increased risk for thyroid cancer, the medical use of radioiodine, namely diagnostic and therapeutic applic...

Sampling For Airborne Radioactivity

As the nation's industrial complex grows, one of its attendant evils—environmental pollution—grows apace. Perhaps no segment of this complex grows more rapidly at present than the atomic energy industry. Responsible officials are gradually becoming aware of the potential for pollution of this new giant. The problem is complicated by security requirements and by virtue of the inability to sense ...