There is no doubt that the huge earthquake on 11 March 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, and subsequent tsunami is one of the largest natural disasters in modern history. Unexpected radiation leakage from quake-hit and inundated nuclear power reactors has worsened the crisis. Appropriate management of the situation is paramount but the question is, ‘What is to be done and how to do i...

Radon is a natural gas known to be the main contributor to natural background radiation exposure and second to smoking, a major leading cause of lung cancer. The main source of radon is the soil, but the gas can enter buildings in many different ways and reach high indoor concentrations. Monitoring surveys have been promoted in many countries in order to assess the exposure of people to radon. ...

All living organisms are exposed to ionizing radiation comprising cosmic rays coming from outer space, terrestrial nuclides occurring in the earth’s crust, building materials, air, water and foods and in the human body itself. The exposures are constant and uniform for all individuals everywhere including the dose from ingestion of 40K in food. Cosmic rays are, more intense at higher alt...

According to the report published by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in 2000, Ramsar city in northern Iran, has some inhabited areas with the highest known natural background radiation levels in the world (1). The annual radiation absorbed dose in high background radiation areas (HBRAs) of Ramsar is extraordinary high, reaching 260 mSv that i...

In this paper, I argue that the ultimate causes of morphological, and hence developmental, evolution are scale independent. In other words, micro- and macroevolutionary patterns show fundamental similarities and therefore are most simply explained as being caused by the same kinds of evolutionary forces. I begin by examining the evolution of single lineages and argue that dynamics of adaptive e...

background: the natural radionuclides are always present in soil and care needs to be taken to minimize the radiation dose to humans. these radionuclides are mostly gamma ray emitting radionuclides which contribute to the radiation dose in long term behavior of radionuclides in soil. health hazards associated with natural radioactivity are of great concern and it is necessary to assess risk due...

Ever since studies on uranium miners established the presence of a positive risk coefficient for the occurrence of lung cancer in miners exposed to elevated levels of 222Rn and its progeny, there was a great upsurge of interest in the measurement of 222Rn in the environment and considerable data is generated on the levels of 222Rn in the environment across the worlds and is periodically ...

in order to study of yield, yield component, plant height, total dry matter and radiation use efficiency with 13 spring varieties of rapeseed ,an experiment was carried out in 2007 growing season at agriculture and natural resources research station of torogh,mashhad. these cultivars were from three rapeseed species belonged to brassica napus, brassica rapa and brassica juncea. experimental des...

background: the effect of low dose radiation on immune system is shown. ionizing radiation can affect cytokine production and polarization of t helper cells. objective: the current study focused on ionizing radiation in ukrainian children residing in a contaminated area with clinical irritable bowel syndrome. method: our study included 75 rural children population aged 4-18 yrs, who lived in a ...