[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Monkey Business
Reply to Cathy Knox, U of Mn
Regarding your inquiry about handling lab animals:
Do you mean to say that you are administering DEADLY RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS to
those Poor Harmless lab animals?? Hokie Smokes! We used to feed bananas
to our lab monkeys - until we found out that the bananas contained
potassium-40! Then we stopped for fear that PETA (People for Ethical
Treatment of Amoebas) would be after us.
We also had a "town meeting" with the lab monkeys, and explained to them that
we could calculate a dose of about 0.01 millirem from the ingestion of one
banana, and that we could (if we REALLY wanted to) calculate a "risk"
associated with that dose. Naturally, they all agreed that they never wanted
to touch a banana again, and anyway, are satisfied with our substitute -
Brazil nuts!
Yours for Advancements in ALARA!
DISCLAIMER:
The sage opinions expressed above do not (of course), in any way, reflect the
opinions of:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, Department
of Energy, or
any one else that matters.