h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yay to Amy, you always explain Physics so much better than I can. On natural radiation, I believe there is a region in northern India that has the highest incidence of natural radiation. However Cornwall and Aberdeen come a close second. Its the Radium gas that is produced by granite that causes a problem. Its always been there but modern, climate controlled, sealed housing exacerbates the problem because the gas cannot escape from the building. I also seem to remember that living in these two places, provided you leave the windows open occasionally, exposes you to less radiation than being an airline pilot. Pilots spend a lot of their time high enough that they get hit by a lot of cosmic rays that the atmoshpere shields the rest from. Anyway, enough of me wittering. I know of a good cartoon on the web somewhere which pretty much sums up my thoughts on the whole panic thing and if I can find it I'll post it

{[caer csd} concerned about gas escaping.......or not }

Warning: this post contains scenes that most people should find upsetting.

Referring to Mac's earlier point. Neutron bombs do exist as military weapons and should not be confused with dirty bombs.

Neutrons are produced in a nuclear event called fission (not to be confused with radioactivity). This is where a very large nucleus splits into two larger fragments with some spare neutrons left over. Although neutrons are uncharged and interact weakly with matter they have significant mass and are shot out with a lot of kinetic energy.

If a dirty bomb were to contain material nicked from power stations it might produce neutrons but this would not be an important factor. Nuclei like uranium-238 either undergo fission or undergo a chain of radioactive decays including alpha particle emission. Of all the possibilities healthwise, being hit by an alpha particle would be the worst thing but they only travel a few centimetres in air and will make hardly any progress through your skin. Being hit by a neutron likely in such circumstances because they travel many hundreds of metres in air and can get through to your vital organs - but they are more likely to pass through you without losing energy and, hence, without causing damage.

From this it can be deduced, for budding terrorists out there, that the best thing to do is to make a bomb that contains refined alpha-emitting isotopes in a dust form. And then drop it near young people because dna is at greatest risk when it is duplicating itself. A kindergarten would be good - don't even bother with the bomb, just mix it in the sand pit. Or a maternity ward would have excellent terror value.

There are millions of people, like myself and Munchkin, who have the knowledge to figure this out. But we don't have the means and, most importantly, we don't have the inclination.

Correction of important typo:

I meant "This is where a very large nucleus splits into two LARGE fragments..."

not larger

no, we must conserve mass-energy

Here on the top floor of CLI, larger would probably work.

I might hide under the couch soon too. I work with biologist who fills me in on the biological agents that would be more effective than anthrax, and an economist who analyses the economic impact these sorts of attacks would have. Doomsayers everywhere!

I'm going to sit quietly and think of static for a little while.

How amazing life sometimes is!
There's this lebanese singer Azar Habib who had a couple of hits in the late 80ies (in Arabic).

A few years ago some students in Sweden made onomatopoetic 'translations' of the song lyrics, resulting in pretty amusing nonsense allowing you to sing along in Swedish - some of the titles are 'Ansiktsburk' (Face Tin), 'Hatten är din' (The Hat Is Yours) and 'Fiskpinnar' (Fish Fingers) accompanied by nutty videos

...and then, just the other day, I read in a magazine that Azar Habib, inspired by the attention his songs have received in Sweden, is now planning a come-back!

I also found a new 'translation' by the students - into English! Feel free to sing along...
[Broken link removed by Moderator]

Broken link? Who broke it?
Ah - maybe just as well - I concentrated on the sound and the lyrics the first time I viewed it, but paying more attention to details the second time I realized that - ahem...
If anyone would still want to see it, try searching for 'Oo Lola'...

Well, I haven't been able to find the cartoon I was looking for but here is an interesting story I found along the way about Bush's reorganisation of the US security system http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/25685.html

I've just found out that I definitely didn't get that job in York that I went for . They didn't get round to sending the rejection letters.

*comes out from under couch*

i'm sorry, amy.

*goes back under couch*

*muffled* i wonder if i could exile myself in greenland to escape all this nonsense.... *sigh*

unc

I have it on good authority, Marv, that the movie version of Clancy's "Sum of All Fears" is rather silly because at the beginning a nuclear bomb is detonated in Baltimore. The main action of the movie begins months later, yet Balitmore looks unscathed and the citizens of the area are going about their business, cruising around and having fun as if nothing has happened and thousands of people died.

I know that Hollywood *sometimes* () stretches the truth to arrive at a plot, but that takes the cakebomb.

Tom Clancy's books rarely make excellent movies because of the scope of the books. While we really do not need step by step instructions on how to field strip AK-47s, they do adda bit of realisim to the novels. You cannot get that level of detail in film, so the translation from page to screen is always a shaky one. I have some serious issues with what I have seen of the film and it's total disregard to the book. One funny note about this film is it has spurred sales in Clancy's novels, and Red Storm Rising (his best work IMHO) is in a new jacket on bookstore shelves. Red Storm Rising is one of the few Clancy novels that is not about Jack Ryan, but the cover says that it is a Jack Ryan book. :grin>

Following up from yesterday
I'm pleased to see that a lawyer is challenging the holding of a suspect under military detention.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_2040000/2040602.stm

And in the end (some of)the truth comes out in another case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,735923,00.html
Trouble is it's taken 12 years and its 5 years since Judi Bari died.

And of course theres no chance of the real bombers ever being caught now.

Amy, you don't want to w*rk for a company where they don't even bother about sending out rejection letters - that's extremely nonchalant of them!

I yield to Amy's expertise, as to do otherwise would be just silly. But I have heard the word "dirty" applied to the Neutron bomb, I took it to mean that the weapon is designed to produce lots of radiation. A "clean" bomb would be designed to produce a maximum of explosive force with a minimum of radiation. Well, that's what I thought it meant.

As far as hiding under the couch, well, it's not hard to find something scarey enough to drive you under the couch. But most of us worry about the wrong things. For instance we are all afraid of sharks, but there is a long list of animals who kill more people each year - including hogs and deer.

For some reason I kept reading cakebomb as urine cake...

[c]

I know cakebombs - mom-in-law serves them all the time....
Sorry about the job, Amy. I hope there's a better one for you, just around the corner.

Titania, the "company" was one the the UK's leading universities . Actually I'd still like to work there, the Computing department has a 5 rating.

Munchkin, you could be right there. I'm not an expert on the details of bombs. I'm sure everyone is relieved to hear that .

It's been a tough day. I tried comfort eating but discovered that I no longer like !