Re: Stopping Loose Nukes (detection technology)

["J. J. Rozental" <joseroze@netvision.net.il>]

This text is an example to discuss with the press or university's graduate

or post graduate students of Communication courses.  It is simple, no

technical topics, just communication. However I am sure many of our

colleagues have detected this columnist needs to be more oriented about the

facts, just one example:



a) As radioactive substances go, cesium 137 leads a fairly innocuous

existence as a component of industrial instruments such as moisture

gauges. Mishandled, though, it can cause severe burns or genetic

defects, as it did at Chernobyl.

Look the non sense of comparison - Even if the

columnist has chosen Goiania Accident, typical Cs-137 source, the comparison

will

not give the correct public perception, while the activity of a Cs-137

Source used in a Moisture gauge is of the order 40 MBq (10 mCi) and the

Goiania Cs-137 source was 59 TBq (1350 Ci), and of course many aspects that

should be considered in such comparison as, number of people involved,

source's chemical and physical form, internal and external doses, etc.

b) The fundamental point is to get such opportunity to educate and write to

him explaining



Jose Julio Rozental

joseroze@netvision.net.il

Israel



----- Original Message -----

From: Chuck Cooper <cooperc@teleport.com>

To: radsafe <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 4:39 AM

Subject: Stopping Loose Nukes (detection technology)





>From WiReD's November issue now online:



==================================



Stopping Loose Nukes



Prevention is a game of odds, not certainty.



By Steven Johnson



I'm standing near a row of deserted loading docks in Billerica,

Massachusetts, and George Kinsella hands me a vial of cesium 137.

"This," he says, "is the kind of radioactive material you might see in a

dirty bomb."



As radioactive substances go, cesium 137 leads a fairly innocuous

existence as a component of industrial instruments such as moisture

gauges. Mishandled, though, it can cause severe burns or genetic

defects, as it did at Chernobyl. I hand the vial back, fighting the urge

to wash my hands, and Kinsella places it inside the trunk of a Mercedes

sedan.



Then he shows me a black canister the size of a soup can: Wrapped in a

shielding layer of tungsten, it contains cobalt 57. He climbs into a

cargo container on the back of a flatbed truck and puts the canister

down near the center.



The whole exchange looks like the kind of transaction that keeps Tom

Ridge awake at night. As it happens, the loading docks belong to

American Science and Engineering, the company where Kinsella works as

principal software engineer, and he's preparing to demonstrate its

MobileSearch X-ray and radiation sensor technology. For the past decade,

the 44-year-old firm has developed X-ray scanners that help customs

officials detect contraband in the war on drugs; now it's one of a

handful of companies racing to manufacture devices that detect nuclear

and radiological weapons.



=======SNIP========



Continued at:



http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.11/nukes.html



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