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A little help here?

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 5:46 pm
by VonVulcan
http://opendata.socrata.com/Government/ ... /e2xy-undq

This website reports on radiation in rain water. Specifically in Olympia Washington it looks like there is an elevated level of Iodine 131. Is it a lot? How do you read this data?

Thanks

Re: A little help here?

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:13 am
by Top Gun
The units being used there appear to be picocuries per liter; pico is the prefix for 10^(-12) in the SI (metric) system. That's such a small value that it's essentially insignificant.

Re: A little help here?

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:32 am
by callmeslick
Further hot Iodine breaks down very quickly. On the other hand, it has been shown that ongoing exposure to radioactive Iodine is pretty dangerous to small children, and can be directly linked to thyroid cancers.