0:04

Three men dead. The steaming

0:06

radioactive wreckage of a reactor

0:08

and

0:09

a mess that extended far beyond the confines

0:11

of SL1 and the boundaries of

0:13

the testing station. You'll

0:15

remember that as part of its basic design,

0:17

SL1 had no containment building, no

0:20

structure, that could withstand the force of a steam

0:23

explosion and keep radioactive materials

0:25

from escaping. All it had

0:27

was a metal wall structure,

0:29

almost like a which

0:31

give circumstances held together

0:33

remarkably well in fact it

0:35

kept lot of the contaminated materials

0:37

from launching out into desert that

0:40

would not airtight not by any me

0:43

and radioactive particles the evil

0:45

we flipped through the cracks and out the exhaust

0:47

vents into the cold night air and

0:49

made their way across southeastern idaho

0:52

todd packer author of atomic america

0:54

explains one of reasons reactor

0:57

, laboratory was where it was was because

0:59

it was super remote so i

1:01

mean if you haven't been there it's hard

1:03

to appreciate connor how how

1:06

much space you're talking about but like

1:08

the the the

1:10

when the alarm went off wrestle on the

1:12

on site fired uppermost

1:15

way

1:16

i have been there and it is a lot

1:18

of space definitely isolated

1:20

but it's not empty so the three

1:23

operators of sl one were not the only

1:25

ones at risk when it exploded that

1:27

night ever other people working in different

1:30

parts of the testing station then

1:32

there were the emergency personnel that responded

1:34

first a were then followed by hundreds

1:36

more doctors nurses scientists

1:39

government officials plus

1:41

, the residents of the towns peppered

1:43

throughout idaho's snake river playing including

1:46

the appropriately named atomic city located

1:48

only five miles away with a population

1:50

of one hundred and forty forty town of arco

1:52

sixteen miles away with about three thousand

1:56

three , falls which that fifty miles

1:58

to the east and had roughly sir the three

2:00

thousand reddit the

2:02

although the explosion didn't happen in a

2:04

major urban area like say chicago

2:07

a large number of people were still at risk

2:09

radiation exposure not to mention

2:11

all the animals and plants that also called

2:13

this desert the atomic

2:16

energy commission and other government officials

2:18

did not want people to freak out so

2:20

they may have downplayed the level of risk

2:22

at least publicly and there was

2:25

definite downplaying of

2:27

the amount of radiation contamination

2:30

that had the , escaped

2:32

the official press releases were like nothing to

2:34

worry about but the first

2:36

responders absorbed

2:38

enormous amounts radiation the firefighters

2:41

that were the first scene

2:43

behind the scenes the ain't easy

2:45

and the scientists at the national reactor

2:47

testing station knew they needed

2:49

to figure out how much radiation had escaped

2:52

how far it had spread who had been exposed

2:55

and what effects that exposure might cause

2:57

both now and years down the road the

3:00

bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki

3:02

highlighted the immediate effects that big

3:05

dose radiation had on but

3:07

we didn't yet understand what smaller dogs

3:09

could dogs especially long term this

3:12

is something we're still trying to understand

3:14

today while certain effects

3:16

of radiation of radiation body are more immediate

3:18

and obvious others like cancer

3:20

or more subtle the links less clear

3:23

how much radiation is say just

3:26

how much of threat as opposed when it comes

3:28

to our health i'm

3:30

laura trance and this is wild

3:32

thing going nuclear theories

3:35

about power of the universe contained

3:37

in the tiny little package of the

3:40

you and i are living in the atomic

3:43

age the endless debate over harnessing

3:45

the power the mystery that the universe

3:48

and whether we humans are responsible

3:50

enough mess with a benefit

3:52

try this

3:55

good the

3:57

the understand what radiation does to us

3:59

we should start quick recap on how

4:01

radiation works

4:03

back in episode two we learned about unstable

4:05

adams if you recall the nucleus

4:07

of an atom is made of protons and neutrons

4:10

the protons are positively charged

4:12

and will try to push away from each other

4:15

while the neutrons have no charge and

4:17

serve as the glue that holds all the parts

4:19

together adams

4:21

with roughly the same number of protons

4:23

and neutrons tend to be more stable

4:26

the too many or not enough neutrons

4:28

can't hold together as well these

4:31

unstable atoms are sometimes called radionuclides

4:34

because they are radioactive and

4:36

as they decay as they try to get back

4:38

to a level of stability they kick

4:40

of protons neutrons electrons

4:43

or other excess energy that

4:45

process is what we call radiation

4:47

and radiation comes in different types

4:50

like alpha beta and gamma depending

4:52

on what kind of particle or re

4:54

shoots off the decaying adam and we

4:56

found that there were some particles which

4:59

seem like they moved really slowly

5:02

that had huge momentum and when smacked into

5:04

something they could the

5:06

a decent job disrupting the stuff

5:08

they smacked into we also found out

5:10

that they were easy to stop

5:12

because they liked it spec the south we

5:15

called them alpha particles

5:17

alpha particles are made up of to protons

5:19

and to neutral so they're generally

5:21

considered pretty big and heavy they

5:24

come from the decay the breakdown of

5:26

the heaviest radioactive elements

5:28

like uranium and radio and

5:31

because they are so big a thin

5:33

layer of cloth can stop or even

5:35

just a piece of paper

5:36

you're welcome to the ventilator of your step

5:38

which i , some millimeters

5:41

deep deep is it stops

5:43

very easily as short range is it hair

5:46

were for com the hazards of you have

5:49

to turn away that

5:50

said cantor he's a radiological

5:52

engineer as the idaho national laboratory

5:55

and he explains that it's hard for alpha

5:57

particles to travel very far from the

5:59

adam that amidst and meaning

6:01

it's not easy for the particles to get

6:03

into your body on their own that

6:06

if you were to swallow or more dangerously

6:09

inhale alpha emitting adams

6:11

like from uranium or get them

6:13

into an open wound then not

6:15

alpha particles are right there and

6:17

can severely damaged living tissue

6:19

and dna alpha particles

6:21

are often associated with lung cancer

6:24

which affected many of the navajo uranium

6:26

miners i mentioned in last episode now

6:29

beta particles are similar to electrons

6:32

their much faster and lighter and

6:34

they can get through paper and in some cases

6:37

through your skin of what had happened

6:39

with status at high levels

6:41

is it constricts

6:44

what does temporary and

6:47

calls because destroyed of destroyed

6:49

of was surface of like read it

6:52

for fear of fame

6:53

they are less harmful than alpha particles

6:56

but you still don't want inhale or swallow

6:58

them depending on how energetic

7:00

beta particle is how fast it's moving

7:02

you'd need piece of plastic or a thin sheet

7:05

metal like aluminum to block which

7:07

is yet another good use for tinfoil hats

7:10

and then there are gain race

7:12

where alpha and beta particles have mass

7:15

meaning game made up of protons and neutrons

7:17

and electrons gamma rays

7:19

are just pure energy think

7:22

of anything similar to visible light for

7:24

with a shorter wavelength and a higher frequency

7:27

the quick break the of light and ways

7:29

than the electromagnetic spectrum check

7:31

out season two episode three of wild

7:34

gamma rays can easily pass through skin

7:36

and clothes in fact it takes several

7:39

inches of dense metal the exit or

7:41

few feet of concrete the

7:44

gamma rays interacted yourself they

7:46

can affect all of your tissue from

7:48

your skin to the men with your both

7:51

now in all of these cases the amount of damage

7:53

depends on how much radiation you're

7:55

exposed you for how long

7:58

and how much gets absorbed there's

8:00

an entire system of units to measure radiation

8:03

that i'm not going delve into things like

8:05

juri rent again gray seabirds

8:07

and will the will hear the term

8:09

at know ram often enough that

8:11

wanted the phone no a

8:13

ram is one one than ever

8:16

and measures the amount of radiation

8:18

absorbed based on the type of radiation

8:21

and the effect has on your order basically

8:24

it's the dose according

8:26

to the united states nuclear regulatory

8:28

commission the average american gets

8:30

a dose of about six hundred twenty milligram

8:32

of radiation per year from

8:34

sun from food from the environment

8:37

that says another way to think about radiation

8:40

is in terms of speed and miles

8:42

per hour traveled

8:43

right about going sixty mph

8:45

is what our privacy but the

8:48

woman area where those

8:51

rate is sixty milligrams per hour

8:53

in what our i'm just sixty milligrams

8:56

when whatever it is somewhat

8:58

race 100

9:01

mph for how

9:03

are you go? 100 miles but if

9:05

you're only did that for a minute to

9:09

miles per

9:11

hour if you stood in that spot for

9:13

an hour, you get about 10%

9:15

of that 620 mg dose,

9:17

you receive annually in

9:19

2 minutes. You get about to millirem a

9:22

pretty small amount. So time exposed

9:24

is important how it gets

9:26

absorbed and where it gets absorbed. Are

9:28

other important factors to consider because

9:31

certain tissues will be more affected than If

9:36

if look at the body, basically the blood

9:38

for me or you seen your truck from

9:40

the gonads up

9:42

to you back. the your

9:44

arms we have sober of their the war

9:46

ratio sensitive parts of hot

9:49

the let's look at the absolute worst

9:51

case scenario like say what

9:53

might have happened to the men of us are one we

9:56

know that richard mckinley was the only one

9:58

who survived the explosion but

10:00

he absorbed radiation directly from

10:02

the exposed core for at least two

10:04

hour it for being left those

10:07

wouldn't be measured and miller and but in actual

10:10

ram hundreds of that

10:12

he is were not killed him he likely

10:14

would have suffered from something called acute

10:16

radiation syndrome also known

10:18

as radiation sickness or radiation

10:21

poisoning acute radiation

10:23

syndrome doesn't necessarily kill you

10:25

all on it's own it's all dependent on

10:27

amount assess told me most

10:29

people generally wouldn't have a problem

10:31

until they get about twenty five ram

10:33

in short period of time that's

10:35

twenty five thousand milligrams which

10:37

a whole lot that , likely

10:40

cause suppression of your white blood cell

10:42

count this , you can recover

10:44

from what you risk getting a secondary

10:47

infection because your immune system is weekend

10:49

and it also takes longer time for wounds

10:51

to heal when you get up into the

10:53

hundreds of ram it can really

10:55

mess up your g i tracked causing diarrhea

10:58

and vomiting which is what most people

11:00

associate with radiation sickness and

11:02

when you get into the four hundred five hundred

11:04

six hundred ram region it affects

11:06

your blood forming organs like the marrow in your

11:08

bones essentially the

11:10

higher the absorbed radiation dose the

11:13

sooner the effects will appear and

11:15

if you can't get medical treatment the higher the

11:17

likelihood of death especially

11:19

if you get a truly whopping don't what

11:22

typically over thousand rounds

11:25

you're gonna pass so much damage

11:27

across his body the typically

11:29

the your system says care

11:31

for public fast probably

11:34

die of dehydration you're susceptible

11:36

to disease you should get oh yeah

11:40

so anything from a thousand is

11:42

probably goes

11:44

after the as sell one explosion the emergency

11:46

responders who arrived first couldn't

11:48

accurately measure the amount of radioactivity

11:51

because their instruments redline they went

11:53

completely off scale before they even

11:55

got into the reactor the

11:57

keep firefighters and rescue personnel

11:59

from getting the much exposure the doctors

12:01

that the an rts put strict rules

12:04

in place no one can

12:06

be in reactor room for longer than a minute

12:08

meaning there was affectively a conga line

12:10

of emergency workers trying recover

12:12

first the injured richard generally and

12:15

then nobody's of the other two men over the course

12:17

of a series a shifts that lasted nearly

12:20

a week even with

12:22

those precautions by the time they finish

12:24

their work some of them had absorbed

12:26

huge doses radiation as

12:28

much as thirteen thousand miller thirteen

12:31

rounds a little more than half that

12:33

twenty five ram that said cantor told

12:35

me about earlier the point at which

12:37

most people would start having problems or

12:40

less radiation would have escaped the building

12:42

and drifted on the night air to the nearby kids

12:45

i had to examine reactor first

12:48

to be able to roughly calculate how much

12:50

had gotten out

12:51

tucker again they have some idea how

12:54

much real activities contained in the corps

12:57

so , that wasn't there after

12:59

the explosion and had to go somewhere somewhere

13:02

that's you know they knew how much fuel

13:04

how much was in the corps so

13:07

they can make rough calculation of how much was

13:09

expanded the explosion

13:12

but even once they knew how much radiation

13:14

had leaked out there wasn't anything that

13:16

anyone could actually do about once

13:18

the reactor exploded the genie was out

13:21

the bottles the best

13:23

the scientists could do was come up

13:25

with ways to track it

13:26

one was the surveys right using measurements

13:29

of measuring both radiation

13:31

and contamination and

13:33

kind of increasing circles around the planet

13:36

things that dependent on like the prevailing

13:38

winds try to mitigate

13:40

the mitigate the during the

13:42

cleanup operation

13:44

surveys detected radioactive gases

13:46

at least thirty miles to the south of sl

13:48

once and readings continued to

13:50

climb over the following weeks reaching

13:52

twice the amount that would normally be found

13:54

in the environment the atomic

13:56

energy commission also sent small planes

13:59

up to collect air i just

14:01

adding a local sagebrush daily

14:03

to test the radiation

14:04

those yeah they were doing things

14:06

like measuring the milk

14:08

of cows and the surrounding areas

14:11

they found elevated levels radioactivity

14:13

in milk several cows they also

14:15

captured and killed wildlife to examine

14:17

it

14:18

they want to see what you know what was injustice

14:20

by the while like some

14:23

that could get very close you know there

14:25

could be there were rabbits the were you know

14:27

right now reactors the some of those

14:29

it was it was worse

14:31

rabbits had high levels of radioactive

14:33

iodine and their thyroid glands no

14:35

doubt some of the humans would have to if

14:37

scientists had been able to dissect but

14:40

despite oldest despite doesn't appear that

14:42

officials issued any warnings to the public

14:45

i don't think this is out of negligence or

14:47

an attempt to hide things based

14:49

on the knowledge at the time they didn't think

14:51

that the radiation levels were all that high

14:53

and so they saw no need to worried of

14:57

course if you're living in the community where

14:59

plume of radioactive gas just came

15:01

through you might actually want

15:03

to know how much radiation is safe

15:05

in certain amount be okay where's

15:07

the line because the initial

15:10

understandable reaction is that despair

15:13

very bad there lot of people

15:15

just the word waiting it conjures

15:17

up images of mutations cancer

15:19

and painful death and those

15:21

fears are unfounded significant

15:23

exposure to radiation can cause

15:25

real health problem radiation

15:28

isn't visible you can't smell taste

15:31

or feel it so the damage that it

15:33

does is not always obvious the

15:35

mean because

15:37

, can see it and we don't don't

15:40

subjective i go stand there mccain and

15:42

goes down here i'm that okay like okay we

15:44

don't know unless we're carrying around a little geiger

15:47

counters in the the intentional

15:51

me doctor dave med i am

15:53

a nuclear engineer turned

15:55

geophysicist and

15:57

i'm a research scientist said universe intolerable

16:00

after and director

16:02

of the napa which is napa national science

16:04

foundation returns

16:07

we are in canyon near cavern

16:09

at someone elses previously excavated

16:11

mind

16:12

so we're on the year when the front range of colorado

16:14

you know right where the mountains come up and there's lot

16:16

of exposed sedimentation

16:19

, and were in an area area

16:21

there's lot of were actually an

16:23

old yellowcake minefield uranium mine

16:26

hear about two

16:28

miles from where the mound starts

16:30

west of golden i

16:32

drag dave up here in the mountains on oh

16:34

really warm and sunny november morning just

16:36

couple days before thanksgiving

16:38

the holiday week so his eleven year old

16:40

son henry is with us to assert

16:43

any sort of wait

16:48

hard

16:50

small enough to see canyon speeding past

16:53

decrepit old minor sack and

16:55

at the hillside where we're standing or

16:57

the remnants of the wouldn't tower that the former

16:59

minor used to hoist uranium

17:01

up to the surface i brought

17:04

along geiger counter because i want to learn

17:06

about background radiation the radiation

17:08

that's just around us in well

17:10

the background background

17:13

radiation is a funny term they were used

17:15

as a

17:16

everything that you're not intending measure so

17:18

like here were saying we're interested

17:20

we're interested coming from this

17:23

minds and we have to go walk over there

17:25

he points to spot around and outcropping

17:27

of rocks and measure the background

17:29

because we have our own environmental cosmic

17:32

ray background this raskin as and background

17:35

radiation and then we go

17:37

compared to their

17:38

the background radiation comes from completely

17:40

natural sources like space also

17:43

called cosmic

17:44

radiation generated , stars

17:46

and and then although space does

17:48

out there that became from

17:52

stars yeah it all comes from

17:54

stars in beginning all these heavy elements

17:56

and so just disperse the

17:58

sun is a big nuclear reactor

18:01

is generate giant fields

18:03

of the ama waved and

18:06

and whatnot and words bathe in this radius

18:08

and carson you'll be

18:10

bathing and more of that cosmic radiation

18:12

if you're at a higher elevation

18:14

because atmosphere is your protection

18:16

year so that more atmosphere

18:19

between you and space the more protection

18:21

it guess what doesn't provide protection

18:24

that airplane you get significant dose radiation

18:26

when go on an airplane ride at thirty thousand feet gamma

18:29

rays slicing through you like hot

18:31

knife better so we're getting it from

18:34

cosmic radiation from space and then

18:36

getting from our natural environment

18:38

which in this case this yellowcake those

18:41

things give up little bit radioactivity your

18:43

, does that the are you drink it's in the water

18:45

you drink and mean that there's ionizing

18:48

radiation ionizing your been produced

18:50

almost everywhere food right

18:53

bananas

18:56

fun fact you'll absorb about point

18:58

one milligram of radiation by eating

19:00

a banana known officially as a

19:02

banana equivalent don't actually

19:04

not very much there's slight

19:07

bit more radiation in brazil nuts and

19:09

butter

19:10

you we exchange with air carbon fourteen

19:12

every again there's some milligrams

19:14

of carbon fourteen and

19:16

your body right now that's radioactive

19:18

part of year

19:21

the human body has radioactive isotopes

19:23

like carbon fourteen and potassium forty

19:26

and it sleeping next year spouse

19:28

actually gives you a tiny dose

19:30

of radioactivity as well this

19:32

is why i sleep unless we

19:35

also get radiation those

19:37

you're from less natural sources would

19:39

you ever contributions here from nuclear

19:41

testing

19:42

all the nuclear weapons tests we did

19:44

here in the us as well as the nuclear weapons

19:46

tests carried out overseas radiation

19:49

from those experiments and from accidents

19:52

ended up in our atmosphere and circle the globe

19:54

so dispersants so becomes less than a decade

19:57

and many gets trapped in the environment yeah

19:59

they're settling in rainfall putting the ground

20:01

and they gets trapped and without exposing

20:04

, to it it billion years

20:06

in future to everyone here is gonna come back and say

20:08

oh say there's this huge spike

20:10

this radiation in

20:12

the geologic record net from our own

20:15

nuclear testing burning coal

20:17

also gives off lot of radiation we

20:19

have significant contribution here let's

20:21

significant from call them

20:23

in them atmosphere when you burn coal

20:26

put out about

20:28

four times radiation that you differently

20:30

about us

20:32

let's radiation exposure inside

20:34

the nuclear power plants and you do standing

20:36

around out the point is

20:38

radiation is everywhere depending

20:40

on your environment you'll be exposed to more

20:43

for instance since i live denver which

20:45

is both high altitude and

20:47

and an area with lot uranium deposits

20:50

i'm exposed more than four times the

20:52

amount of background radiation every year

20:54

than someone who lives in cel and

20:57

i'm probably getting more right now given

20:59

that i'm standing just around the corner from

21:01

former uranium ore mines you

21:03

can actually go when they're not that particularly

21:06

want the mine itself

21:08

and the air shaft up hill above it have been sealed

21:10

off with protective metal great but

21:13

you know what you can do

21:14

cast out your geiger counter were standing

21:16

around the corners were sealed are so the disruption

21:19

in background is point for for

21:22

seen her our proud

21:25

point for millisieverts is about

21:27

forty milligrams about the equivalent

21:29

of chest x ray space and

21:31

now we're going going

21:33

around the corner to the mouth their

21:35

surfaces eight mile and

21:40

rather go into another home at a point

21:51

well did

21:53

have been fun i'm ago

21:59

one point oh for millisieverts

22:01

or one hundred and four milligrams per

22:03

hour if i sat there at

22:05

the mouth of that air shaft for an hour i'd

22:08

be exposed to about a quarter of the amount

22:10

i normally get in full year they're

22:12

not insignificant and i'll admit

22:14

it's little unsaid

22:16

can do something we don't see we can control

22:19

and innovative really skated me unless

22:21

you put yourself a big little lead

22:23

box and live in there and honestly that

22:25

might not be such good idea

22:28

over the years scientists have conducted

22:30

a series of studies that protect single

22:32

celled organisms or colonies of cells

22:35

from background radiation like the kind

22:37

day was talking about there's

22:39

a prize those protected organ

22:41

actually did worse than their unprotected

22:44

brethren in , they were

22:46

pretty stressed as much as single celled

22:48

organisms can be much

22:50

more vulnerable to radiation later radiation

22:52

again these are just single seats so

22:55

we're a ways off from understanding what that means

22:57

for us humans but it's certainly

22:59

raises interesting questions about radiations

23:01

effect on us and it's worth

23:03

noting that radiation has also been

23:05

an important player in life on earth

23:07

all along those

23:09

are like we we described as reducing

23:11

we're talking about we call it ionizing radiation

23:13

meaning that it will change

23:15

, that the particles interact

23:17

with and so in terms of evolution

23:19

you know where build with dna and so

23:22

and once allow these ionizing radiation particles

23:24

are waves will interact with the dna

23:27

and mutated the

23:29

with radiation has always played a role in life

23:31

on earth likely contributed to

23:33

our evolution through mutations and

23:35

is naturally found inside the human body

23:38

how much of problem is radiation

23:40

exposure is there a safe amount

23:43

well the kind of depends on who you

23:45

talk to

23:50

this season of wild thing

23:52

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24:36

that any early days when we first

24:39

discovered radiation and radioactivity

24:41

the limits of how much exposure person

24:43

to get were based on the effects we

24:45

could see like skin rashes or ulcers

24:47

or vomiting later we learned

24:50

that exposure could cause less visible

24:52

health problems including cancer even

24:54

with smaller doses so the officials

24:56

lower does exposure lynn the not

24:58

limits continue to shift over the next

25:00

several decades as learned more they're

25:03

still debate over how much as safe on

25:06

one side is the linear know

25:08

threshhold camp it's really not great

25:10

name would argue that even the

25:12

smallest exposure is a risk

25:15

the other side is the permissible

25:17

dose often agree a

25:20

certain amount of exposure is okay to

25:23

point a long time the

25:25

atomic energy commission was in the permissible

25:27

those camp after all many of the

25:29

scientists who worked for the manhattan project

25:31

were exposed to radiation and had been fine

25:34

and officials felt that the public shouldn't be treated

25:36

any differently and to make radiation

25:38

from nuclear energy or nuclear testing seamless

25:40

scary historian sarah roby

25:43

said the a easy compared it to the

25:45

chest x rays and their official reports

25:48

or they bring a cosmic radiation

25:50

and terrestrial radio which we just heard

25:52

about that contributed

25:54

to the argument that everybody

25:58

is always constantly

26:00

exposed to some amount

26:02

of radiation and that have been

26:04

a condition of life on earth since

26:06

the very first celled

26:09

organism on ,

26:11

so that is often used as sort

26:13

of away once again to minimize

26:16

the danger of at

26:18

an elevated amount the radiation the

26:20

atmosphere and so

26:24

bananas outer space

26:26

is become devices to

26:28

calm people down and say

26:32

you are familiar with all these other things

26:34

is actually actually familiar threat

26:36

why are you so worried a little bit

26:38

more then

26:40

and nineteen fifty six a group of experts

26:42

at national academy of sciences

26:44

gave report about radioactive fallout

26:47

which looked specifically at it's effect

26:49

on genetics the called the bear report

26:52

biological effects of atomic radiation

26:54

and it questioned the idea that there was an acceptable

26:57

amount of radiation you could receive the

26:59

impact of the bear report

27:02

what is that any bit of

27:04

radiation could potentially

27:06

be a problem so why

27:08

would you accept having any more

27:10

radiation why would you accept

27:12

piling on to that

27:15

full disclosure those initial reports were based

27:17

on experiments with fruit flies although later

27:19

reports did you his mouse and

27:21

human data the bear report

27:23

move the needle toward the linear know

27:25

threshold camp and lead to yet

27:27

another shifted standards limiting

27:30

the recommended annual dose to know

27:32

more than five hundred milligrams per

27:34

year above bankrupt the

27:36

bear report might not have gotten much traction

27:38

outside scientific circles except

27:41

that officials also released also layman's

27:43

version of it making it so anyone

27:45

could understand it's undies suddenly

27:48

radiation seemed a lot scarier

27:50

in fact that idea that radiation

27:52

could cause genetic mutation no

27:54

doubt inspired a lot of science fiction

27:56

at time but the public spheres

27:58

may have been overblown might

28:00

have been blasted with radiation do have

28:02

genetic mutations but we haven't

28:05

seen any evidence of that

28:07

they'll tell you the kid who were born

28:09

to parents that had worked in or

28:11

lived near the noble showed

28:13

that the rate of mutations with the same

28:15

as for the general public their

28:18

parents for people who had been in the thick of

28:20

things who'd cleaned up debris or been

28:22

evacuated from the nearest town studies

28:25

are still ongoing and we're a long way from saying

28:27

that genetic mutations aren't concerned

28:29

but they might not be a scary and outcome as

28:31

we once thought there

28:34

are also questions about the links between

28:36

radiation and cancer the idaho

28:38

national laboratory has acknowledged that

28:40

over the decades some of it's employees

28:42

became ill with certain types of cancers

28:45

that are specifically attributed to work

28:47

with radioactive material workers

28:50

are eligible to apply for compensation and

28:52

medical benefits but that doesn't

28:54

include all cancer diagnoses

28:56

because the role of radiation exposure isn't

28:59

always as clear cut one of the

29:01

things we have to be careful about when we're talking about

29:03

permissible dose is that if

29:05

talking about low enough level

29:07

that were thinking of cancer

29:09

causing mutations

29:11

that is not something that's going to show up

29:14

next year it might show up sixteen

29:16

years from now or twenty years from now

29:19

and i live in idaho we

29:21

are five thousand feet above sea level

29:23

and because of that we get more

29:25

cosmic radiation than your average person

29:27

at sea level and so you

29:30

are somebody who works at idaho national

29:32

laboratory and you're around the reactors

29:35

summers radius

29:37

in the era the background

29:40

i will they might be from your job it might

29:43

not be it's

29:45

impossible though two

29:47

point a finger at the exact

29:50

cause of cancer

29:52

we can identify trends we can

29:54

see where there might be higher incidence of

29:56

cancer in population but in an

29:58

individual person person based there

30:00

is virtually no way

30:03

two hey why you got cancer

30:06

the the fun where is all out

30:08

there's no doubt that radiation can

30:11

cause cancers but we really don't

30:13

know what the threshold is for them it

30:15

likely varies from person person and

30:17

depends on what type radiation what

30:19

body part was exposed how you

30:21

came into contact with so many variables

30:25

partly why the debate over linear know threshold

30:27

vs permissible dose continues

30:30

we don't have the information that will settle at once

30:32

and for all and it could still be awhile

30:34

before science has concrete answers

30:37

here's the other thing we have to consider radiation

30:40

doesn't just occur in the moment it

30:43

can persist in the environment for a

30:45

very long you've

30:47

probably heard the phrase houses before

30:49

which is the amount of time it takes for half

30:52

the atoms in a radioactive substance

30:54

to decay to change into a different

30:56

type of element for you start

30:58

with a million adams have some substance

31:00

in the span of one half life only

31:02

five hundred thousand will be list another

31:05

half life and there are only two hundred fifty

31:07

thousand and so on the

31:09

half life of some types of uranium is

31:11

four point five billion years

31:14

which is actually kind of interesting because

31:16

that's the exact age of the earth the

31:19

right now we have half the amount that we did

31:21

when earth was formed the

31:24

detainees uranium eventually becomes

31:26

radium which decays into raid

31:28

on which eventually decays and to lead

31:30

a very stable and for

31:32

plutonium which is created

31:34

in certain types of reactors the half

31:37

life is anywhere between eighty two million

31:40

and fourteen point four years the

31:42

might have spread the paper

31:44

to tony i'm closer to fourteen years

31:46

are exponentially more radioactive

31:49

which is why they decay so much more quickly

31:51

but the point is much of this stuff

31:53

sticks around for awhile and we're still

31:55

figuring out the affected has on our health

31:58

and the environs the

32:00

how do we deal with there , four

32:02

generic perhaps leave

32:04

it on or near the surface put

32:07

it deep underground pushes in

32:09

the ocean or put it in the air which

32:11

is outer space that's

32:13

coming up on next episode of wild

32:15

thing

32:17

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32:19

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32:40

thats wild thing podcast all one this

32:43

podcast is production of text [unk] dink

32:45

with generous support from first like capital

32:48

wild thing is edited by alicia lincoln was

32:50

sound mixing and music from louis weeks

32:53

or executive producer is scott carney

32:55

and i'm your hosting creator laura krantz