And I vaguely remember an eminent Norwegian professor in the field of radiation said he would buy an extra freezer so he could buy up cheap reindeer meat. The slaughtering was probably unnecessary.
And I vaguely remember an eminent Norwegian professor in the field of radiation said he would buy an extra freezer so he could buy up cheap reindeer meat. The slaughtering was probably unnecessary.
I suspect it’s a matter too of where the radiation accumulates. Looking up the products from Chernobyl:
The body mistakes cesium for potassium, this one I already knew from documentaries about Bikini. Half life of 30 years, but it surprisingly doesn’t bioaccumulate (biological half life of 70 days is not great but isn’t a death sentence). But it does accumulate in soft tissue, so you’re gonna eat it.
Radioactive iodine is a bit scary, but what came from Chernobyl has a half life of 8 days, so I could see how a freezer would be very useful there.
Strontium-90 is the scary one. That is mistaken for calcium. And has an average biological half life of 18 years, but that depends very much on where it got absorbed. Anywhere from 14 days to 49 years. And a 29 year half life, similar to cesium-137. Muscles need calcium to function, but most of it is stored in the bones, so maybe this is what the scientist meant?
Grass contains both calcium and potassium, though the thing about Scandinavian reindeer is that they eat a lot of lichen in the winter. It’s why they are so historically important to the traditional diet. But then Chernobyl happened in the Spring, so the reindeer would be accumulators.
Didn’t quite realize the extra freezer was to wait out the radioactive decay, not that he thought it was overblown and he would be the only buyer.
Well it’s only one product and I’m unclear if it’s even an abundant one?