[ RadSafe ] Secret research by U.S. Navy revealed effects of nuclear radiation on animals?

[Cowie, Michael I]

Classification: Saudi Aramco: Company General Use


I found this on amazon.com:

About James A. Mahaffey

Dr. James Mahaffey (Jim) holds a bachelor of science in physics and master of science and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. During a 25-year career at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), he directed or worked on projects for the U. S. Defense Nuclear Agency, the U. S. National Ground Intelligence Center, the U. S. Air Force Air Logistics Center, Georgia Power Company, and other government and private industrial organizations, in such areas as nuclear power, non-linear analysis, digital systems design, and cold fusion. He directed a multi-million-dollar project at Georgia Power's Plant Hatch to design and install a safety system after TMI. He left Georgia Tech to work in nanotechnology as Head of Advanced Research at Nanoventions Inc. in Roswell, Georgia, and later as Director of Technology for AIR2, a company with headquarters in Maryland. He is now a full-time writer and consultant. He has appeared on PBS NewsHour, on Georgia Public Broadcasting's "Georgia Weekly," and on numerous radio talk shows. Having lectured in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Ireland on various scientific topics related to his research, he is considered to be a skilled public speaker and is easy to understand, as well as entertaining.

Dr. Mahaffey's first book, ATOMIC AWAKENING: A NEW LOOK AT THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER (Pegasus Books, New York, July 2009), received wide critical acclaim. It has enjoyed worldwide sales, and is also available in Chinese translation (Shanghai Science and Technology Literature Publishing House, 2011).

In 2011, Facts on File published Dr. Mahaffey's six-volume reference set for high schools and colleges, on nuclear energy.

His second trade book, ATOMIC ACCIDENTS (Pegasus Books, New York) was released in February 2014, and received Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, positive reviews from Booklist and Nuclear Street, and was the lead book in a feature review in Nature. Both Scientific American Book Club and The History Book Club purchased rights to include the book as one of their selections.

His latest trade book, and the third in the nuclear series, ATOMIC ADVENTURES (Pegasus Books, New York) was released in June 2017. All three books have been translated into Japanese and are available as e-books. ADVENTURES received a favorable review in the Wall Street Journal as well as in other publications worldwide

https://www.amazon.com/James-A.-Mahaffey/e/B004AOQX7G%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Mike


This email has been classified as Saudi Aramco: Company General Use on 2/20/2020 1:29 PM

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Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2020 1:15 PM
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Subject: [ RadSafe ] Secret research by U.S. Navy revealed effects of nuclear radiation on animals?

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From  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.dawsonnews.com_local_what-2Dhappened-2Dinside-2Dgeorgia-2Dnuclear-2Daircraft-2Dlab-2Dfinding-2Dfacts-2Dforest-2Ddr-2Djames-2Dmahaffey_&d=DwIGaQ&c=XDi0NGHKWaFsyGO0a76KdsYW3GipXk4IhGJftP0Q2yc&r=DNv1GanK4PoKvZTlPGo5xEJdwihwTZda0-xqEsWIiVQ&m=-M-hiNOVznfX8_bwcIqR9DJbNMrVBO8v3e2Q8IBljwM&s=P5A3nSsUIMiehxFKTB3nKWxn0KcSrIIUg_HnA6vtxGQ&e=
- this is local newspaper in Dawson County, Georgia .  Do any of you know the "researcher" Dr James Mahaffey,

Roger Helbig


New post on nuclear-news

Secret research by U.S. Navy revealed effects of nuclear radiation on animals

by Christina MacPherson
What happened inside the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Lab? Finding the facts in the forest with Dr. James Mahaffey  Jessica Taylor Dawson News jtaylor at dawsonnews.com Feb. 19, 2020, Over half a century later, rumors still swirl around Dawson Forest and the mysterious remnants of Dawson County’s past in the Cold War.

Though the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Facility has been out of commission for nearly 50 years, local residents can still be heard whispering about two-headed deer and oak leaves the size of elephant ears spotted around the nuclear facility’s remains.

For nuclear engineer and author, Dr. James Mahaffey, the task of unraveling the history behind Dawson County’s top-secret nuclear test site and separating facts from the fiction has led to decades of research and hard work. .........

On paper, it seemed feasible as an incredible amount of power could be housed in a very small space, however the findings from the Dawsonville laboratory proved that nuclear aircraft would take more than what was originally thought.

“Any nuclear reactor on this earth has shielding,” Mahaffey explained.
“It’s got lead, concrete, steel, you know, heavy things to keep it from killing everybody, but you put it in an airplane and you can’t have concrete and steel and lead. It’s got to be naked.”

Components for nuclear-powered engines were assembled in a facility in Idaho then brought to Dawsonville for testing inside the reactor. In Mahaffey’s research, he discovered that the facility found that rubber tires either melted or turned to rock when exposed to different radiation. Hydraulic fluids turned into a tacky substance akin to chewing gum. Transistors in the radio system were immediately killed by radiation.

The other aspect of the Dawsonville facility was testing the effects of radiation on the environment and living creatures.

“What does flying over a farm with a nuclear aircraft do to the farm?
Well, it kills everything on the ground. It kills trees, grass, crops, insects, birds, anything. It might even kill the farmer if he’s out looking at it so what are you going to do about that? And also, what happens when one of these things crashes,” Mahaffey said. “If a jet plane crashes you clean it up and you pay the people for the house that it destroyed and all that, but what if it’s a nuclear aircraft?
Nuclear aircraft - when it crashes - it makes a five mile radius area contaminated with long lasting radionuclides and you have to fence it off so nobody can go there. Are you really willing to have that as part of your Air Force operations?”

The effects of radiation were tested through controlled experimentation but also through observation of what Mahaffey describes as “instant taxidermy” of animals caught inside the kill zone around the outside of the operational reactor.

“Any animal like a toad frog that happened to be hopping around on the ground when the reactor was turned on, he died and interestingly it also killed all the bacteria in and around the frog,” Mahaffey said.

“When those [bacteria] die, it doesn’t deteriorate so you have this dead frog that you can put on your mantle and it’ll just stay there.”

According to Mahaffey, the scientists conducted many experiments with animals including releasing rats and studying the effects of radiation on them.

“I heard a rumor that the largest animal they ever irradiated was a mule and the mule died of course, and like a toad frog it would not deteriorate in a normal way,” Mahaffey said.

Billions of dollars were poured into the Nuclear Aircraft Project that GNAL was part of during the 1960s, but funding was cut in the John F.
Kennedy administration. The GNAL was closed in pieces and shut its completely in 1971.

The GNAL buildings inside Dawson Forest were dismantled and hauled away. The hot cell building, the only remaining structure still standing, was boarded up with stainless steel to keep intruders from entering the radioactive building. To this day, the building remains radioactive with particulates of Cobalt 60.  ......

What makes Dawsonville’s secret nuclear facility stand out from other nuclear facilities for Mahaffey is the very detailed extent to which they dug into the dangers of nuclear fission products.

“An enormous amount of work was done to find out how having this reactor affects the environment. I’ll give them that,” Mahaffey said.
“They wanted to find out how groundwater would transport radiation and they dug wells all over the facility, and they would have monitors monitoring what type of radiation, how much radiation and knew how fast radiation could transport in the environment.”

Great care went into studying radiation in the Etowah River including the construction of rafts to track and map the flow of radiation as well as the atmospheric effects of radiation.

“This was all unknown,” Mahaffey said. “You have to build a facility that’ll test it in real ways, not just computer simulations and it has to be somewhere where you’re not potentially going to wipe out a city.”  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.dawsonnews.com_local_what-2Dhappened-2Dinside-2Dgeorgia-2Dnuclear-2Daircraft-2Dlab-2Dfinding-2Dfacts-2Dforest-2Ddr-2Djames-2Dmahaffey_&d=DwIGaQ&c=XDi0NGHKWaFsyGO0a76KdsYW3GipXk4IhGJftP0Q2yc&r=DNv1GanK4PoKvZTlPGo5xEJdwihwTZda0-xqEsWIiVQ&m=-M-hiNOVznfX8_bwcIqR9DJbNMrVBO8v3e2Q8IBljwM&s=P5A3nSsUIMiehxFKTB3nKWxn0KcSrIIUg_HnA6vtxGQ&e=
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