Radiation Hormesis challenge to Linear No Threshold theory
I've been following with some interest a discussion which started on Google+ and has spread to PRI's The World and The Economist , of the radiation levels caused by bad engineering and profits-over-people thinking in Japan. The good news is, the radiation levels and types of radiation found outside the plant gate are almost all less dangerous than the natural radiation people face every day in multiple locations on Planet Earth. There are places (such as Ramsar, Iran http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/ramsar-natural-radioactivity/ramsar.html http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull332/33205143638.pdf ; Kerala, India http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19066487 , and Brazilian beaches of monazite sand http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm http://www.jstor.org/pss/3574425 ) where people naturally are exposed to many times the 'safe' radiation limit, often from radium (which is a nasty, nasty bone-seeking ele...