Chemotherapy Patients Set Off Subway Alarms 538
dave writes "Recently, cities such as New York and elsewhere have been installing radiation detectors in subways as an anti-terror precaution. However, as reported in New Scientist, patients who are undergoing radiation treatment are setting off the alarms. From the article, "a 34-year-old patient who had been treated with radioactive iodine for Graves disease, a thyroid disorder, returned to their clinic three weeks later complaining he had been strip-searched twice in Manhattan subway stations.""
Al Queda's new weapon (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Al Queda's new weapon (Score:4, Informative)
Don't fire alarms use radiological material?
Not fire alarms, but smoke detectors. They use a small amount of Americium [webelements.com] in smoke detectors as well as some of those nifty advanced smoke/vapor detectors you might find in data centers. Still, I see the number of cases of people carrying smoke detectors through the subways in New York as rather small.
Re:Al Queda's new weapon (Score:3, Informative)
Most new mantles are yttrium and are non-radioactive, but from all accounts the older thorium mantles were superior.
Thorium emits alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. It does this regardless of whether it is heated or not.
On a sidenote, tritium can't be detected by a geiger counter even when bare because the radioactivity in it is that weak (you have to use a scintillation counter over time), and smoke detectors exclusively emit alpha radiation and can't be detected by a geiger counter beyond about 1 cm from the GM tube.
I have a geiger counter I made and it's a lot of fun to play around with. A family member recieved a thyroid test using iodine-131 and I could detect the radioactivity from over two feet away.
Re:Al Queda's new weapon (Score:3, Informative)
Tritium gives off beta particles, I believe (either that or it's alpha particles). They cannot penetrate the glass or plastic face of the watch, nor the bezel. They stay within the watch, and so pose no risk. But that's somewhat irrelevant given the rarified particle count and the nature of beta particles.
As for your gunsight, the tiny dot of tritium gives off next to no radiation, but in any case the particles only travel a few inches at most. You'd have to practically touch it to the radiation detector to set it off, if even that would do it.
I have a Vaseline glass bead I use to test my Geiger counters with, and it has to be taken out of its paper sleeve and placed next to the detector tube to be measurable. Within a centimeter or two it puts off 20 times the normal background radiation, but 10 centimeters away you can barely tell the difference. It's the uranium in the green tint that exudes radioactive particles, but the quantity of radiation and the nature of beta particles make it effectively undetectible at any range. My guess is that your tritium sight is even less radioactive.
Re:Al Queda's new weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
> Too low? I'd say the detectors are working just
> right. Yeah it sucks for these patients, but they
> can work this out.
Those patients have rights! They should not be stripped searched because they are receiving treatment for a terminal illness. They should not have to carry papers to prove to the police that they are not terrorists. And they should not be barred from using public transportation.
> I'd much rather have a few false positives than
> possibly miss a dirty bomb shielded in lead.
If a dirty bomb was properly shielded, it wouldn't give a true positive (though there are far easier nukes to shield). The police would be busy strip searching cancer patients while the terrorists walked on through. I'm actually surprised with all the pollution from nuclear testing in the fifties and sixties that any detector could work reliably without giving off tons of false positives.
Perhaps everyone should just ride the subways (fly in airplanes, etc.) in their birthday suits. But that might violate your rights, which might induce you to care.
As for the mean terrorists: if they play with nuclear fire, they are gonna get burned, big time. That's what the Red Bamboo found out in 1966, the hard way.
"Once we wake Godzilla, he'll take care of those guys."
Ichiro "Godzilla, Ebira, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Sea" (Japanese version, 1966)
As it was before, may it be again. Grant us this, Godzilla! ("Godzilla March")
huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Radioactive iodine isotope (Score:4, Informative)
Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, it is.
Graves disease is a form of hyperthyroidism, in which the thyroid secretes excessive amounts of certain hormones. The treatment of Graves disease involves removal of part or all of the thyroid, chemical supression of hormone production, or destruction of the thyroid using radiation.
In the latter treatment, doctors take advantage of the fact that iodine is concentrated by the body in the thyroid gland. After dosing a patient with radioactive iodine-131 (in this case, 20 millicuries--a nontrivial amount) the iodine will accumulate rapidly in the thyroid. While it decays, it kills off most or all thyroid tissue without doing serious damage to the rest of the body. With a half-life of about eight days, the stuff remains detectable for quite a while.
So--what we've done is use the chemical properties of a material (I-131) to deliver radiation therapy. Presto! Chemotherapy that is also radiotherapy. Actually, I'd probably lean towards describing it as brachytherapy, just to make everyone happy.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Radioiodine therapy is a form of radioisotope therapy.
there is also radioimmunotherapy, which uses monoclonal antibodies usually labelled with a beta emitter to deliver targeted radiation to a specific antigen expressing tumour.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Informative)
You're using the most popular--but also narrowest--definition of chemo. Pull out your Merriam-Webster (online at www.m-w.com) and the first definition is a literal interpretation of the term:
Brachytherapy is the implantation of radioactive sources into a tumour to kill them.
Brachytherapy is a blanket term is radiotherapy that covers a range of techniques to place radioactive sources in close proximity to a target volume within the body. It may include the use of sealed seeds (iodine-131 sealed in a casing is often used for prostate cancer) than can be permanently implanted. It also includes high dose rate therapies where wires within catheters or needles tipped with potent radioactive sources (ie iridium-192), are inserted into the body for a few minutes at a time, again to precisely deliver radiation to a controlled volume. The other broad branch of radiotherapy is teletherapy--external beam radiotherapy--which obviously doesn't apply in this case.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Informative)
That said, not all radiation therapy has acutely painful side effects. Radiotherapy for localized skin lesions is often very quick and causes only mild discomfort.
Prostate cancer can be treated using conventional external beam radiotherapy with all its attendant side effects. One alternative involves inserting anywhere up to about a hundred metal-encased 'seeds' of iodine-131 into the prostate to deliver radiation in situ. The patient can return home after the one inpatient procedure.
Although I appreciate the misery of what you went through, deciding whether or not something counts as radiotherapy, or chemotherapy, or both based on how bad its side effects are doesn't hold water.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Funny)
My question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is that the detectors are set to "go off" even if the tiniest amount of radiation is found. That way, any attempt by terrorists to try to hide the radiation (thick lead, etc) will be thwarted.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Funny)
No, it won't. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, all those false positives will make it easier to sneak in a nuclear or radiological device. When the alarms are going off every day you tend not to be as attentive as you would be otherwise, and the personnel involved won't exactly give a thorough search.
How did 12/7/41 and 9/11/01 happen? Too much information gathering, not enough information interpretation. And from the looks of this, we're setting ourselves up for more of the same.
Just stay out of the subway (Score:4, Insightful)
Duh.
Re:No, it won't. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming they don't treat each radioactive case with the utmost care. It sounds like they are. I'm sorry, when someone comes through and sets off radioactive alarms, I just doubt the subway workers are going to get all ho-hum about it. "Aww, you look like a cancer patient, go ahead."
It's human nature - if there are anough false positives, an alarm will be disregarded, radiation or no.
How to smuggle U235 /P238 in the subway (Score:4, Insightful)
When the alarm sound have some faked paper about a cancer treatment by radiation. When the guy come to you jsut show the paper. Chance are that in a year or so after so much false alarm they let you thru after seeing you (now really bad looking and not looking like a terrorist).
Think the scenario is far etched ? Think again. Human can also be pavlov trained to ignore false alarm if they come too often. That is why setting a detection level in an alarm is a science in itself.
Re:No, it won't. (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, to whomever modded me down on this...it's supposed to be sarcastic (sorry I forgot my <sarcasm/> tags, but take a look at the context)....
The dose makes the poison (Score:5, Informative)
Alpha particles are helium nucleii without electrons; beta particles are electrons; gamma radiation is electromagnetic radiation similar to X-Rays. Alpha and beta radiation are mostly stopped by inches to feet of air; gamma is more or less unaffected. Harmful doses are more complicated to assess, but basically, alpha and beta emitters are typically harmful when they get into your body and emit particles right next to cells, where they cause ionizing damage. Inserting alpha and beta emitters within a tumor is, essentially, what one form of radiotherapy does; put deadly ionizing radiation into a tumor to kill it. Radium has been an effective treatment for breast cancer (one of the first reasonably successful ones) since the 1920's.
Gamma radiation, although it passes through many feet of air and well into tissue, is not as damaging because it is not ionizing. However, high exposures have significant impacts. Gamma will pass through metals more or less unaffected.
The detectors are likely designed to pick up gamma radiation characteristic of enriched fissionable materials, because gamma passes through several feet of air. However, certain types of radiotheraputic isotopes (e.g. radium) also emit a heck of a lot of gamma.
Thus, the dilema of false positives for radiotherapy patients. If you want to pick up enriched radioisotopes, you will pick up gamma from legitimate theraputic uses. We should provide radiotherapy patients with a hospital-issued ID so they do not have to suffer through security checks. It would not be much more difficult than issuing a driver's license.
Re:The dose makes the poison (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though some of the chemotheraputic agents we use these days are related to chemical warfare agents, it's the dose that makes or breaks you.
Virtually all chemo agents have one thing in common... they are some kind of metabolic poison. They are nucleoside analogues, directly denature DNA or proteins... whatever. Because of this, they are quite useful in cancer treatments, primarily because cancer cells divide at an abnormally fast rate, and are very metabolically active... ergo, these drugs will affect such cells to a great extent than normal tissues. Keep in mind, however, that some of your normal tissues are also rapidly dividing: bone marrow, hair follicles, intestinal lining. Ever wonder why cancer patients lose their hair and need blood transfusions? That's why, in a nutshell.
Don't let anyone tell you that chemo is bad/evil... that's bullshit. Unpleasant? Yes. Evil/bad/drug-company-conspiracy? No. Because of chemo, we have very high cure rates on some kinds of cancer... testicular cancer is a good example; very treatable with chemotherapy. But, like anything else, it doesn't work on every cancer, or every person... that's the other edge of the biological diversity sword.
Also, there are some chemo drugs that have a lifetime maximum dose... you get amount X and NO MORE... ever.
The dose really does make the poison, and that's not theory... that's real world.
Chemo? Gamma not ionizing? (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the grandparent post... if you really think gamma radiation is not ionizing, and want to go telling the world that, go hang out with some gamma emitters for a while first, THEN come tell us how it passes harmlessly through things.
Alpha & Beta radiation, outside the body, cause radiation damage primarily in the skin. The higher the energy, the further they penetrate, of course. Gamma radiation, however, will pass right through you, causing damage to your internal organs along the way.
What is ionizing radiation? [ohio-state.edu]
Gamma radiation is VERY ionizing. Why do you think it causes cancer? Why do you think it casues radiation poisoning in high doses? What do you think radiation poisoning is?
Re:The dose makes the poison (Score:3, Interesting)
It's funny that you should bring this up. I was just at the state legislature on Wednesday watching the discussion on the concealed weapon system, and I gave testimony saying that the permit should not be a photogrph based permit, and should instead be non-photo based, because it would be very likely that the photo based permit would be counterfeited for reasons other than carrying a concealed weapon, and would add a new front in ID theft.
Though this isn't so much the same reason, making up new reasons for photo ID's is a very bad idea...I've always said myself that photograph based drivers' licenses haven't solved the problems that they themselves caused when they appeared on the scene. More photo ID's cards are not a solution to anything except how to create spiffier forms of identity fraud.
Issuing driver's licenses are incidentally a pain in the ass, especially in New York, which no longer accepts a birth certificate as proof of identity (see the NY DMV website for more info. It's kinna interesting.) Funny, New York never made the photograph mandatory on their licenses--no point, since many of the states residents will never have had licenses in the first place, so the photo ID advantages were lost. (The NY DMV commmissioner has had, since 1994, the ability to issue licenses with photos at his discretion, but is not required to.)
And naturally, I am extremely bothered by the idea that someone has to be given a photo ID card because something about them is different. That's the whole situation here...type A citizens don't need photo ID card, type B citizens who radiate gamma level radiation, for reasons that aren't entirely our business, need photo ID card explaining that. That can't be good precedence.
While I hate making the comparison, the Nazi's did have a fucking photo ID card for just about everything...I think they had some sorta odd philosophy that the more photo ID cards a person had, the more difficult they were to fake an identity. Fortunately, underground counterfeiters sent many people to freedom by faking all those documents that the Nazi's made. Frankly, all it achieved was a lot of inconvenience for everyone.
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe IHBT, but all these "evil terrorists" have used are just conventional explosives, are there even any equivalent technologies in use now that detect these?
So far it hasn't been demonstrated or even claimed that they even HAVE nuclear explosives, and I bet if they did they'd want to use amounts that would peg the meter, not be mistakable for cancer patients.
The best I've read they can do is just make a "dirty" bomb, which can be a conventional bomb that merely spreads radioactive material rather than megaton destruction, and the only way to make a dirty bomb any sort of a threat is to put in enough material to peg any standard meter.
So it sounds like another case where the people "protecting" us are simply building more roadblocks that prevent normal living.
Re:My question is... (Score:2)
Re:My question is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently, the doctors don't live there either:
From the article: But even in the best-case scenario, a patient will have to wait while the contents of the letter are verified, say the doctors. "They may choose not to use public transportation to avoid this inconvenience," they write.
Try navigating Manhattan efficiently without public transportation.
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My question is... (Score:3, Insightful)
And if they did make a "dirty" bomb, why the fuck would they set it off in the subway? It seems that if you're going to wreak havoc in a subway, you want to take advantage of the fact that it is a closed space, which would imply a biological attack (consider how many people touch the poles in the car, or at least brush them as they walk in) or a gas attack (ala Aum cult in Tokyo). Setting off a dirty bomb in a subway would just be stupid, the tunnel collapses and then where is your radiation? Underground.
Re:My question is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you read it? Try consider it a priority of known threats vs. theoretical threats. Or a case for balance. Or a rearrangeing of order of operations, as a gaping present day vulnerability is apparent.
Conventional bombs are a known threat, so why don't we make sure that the weapons detectors can sniff those out _first_ and _now_, and then once those systems are installed, worry about weapons that these people might, in theory, develop or aquire a few years in the future? So far, all that I have read that they have installed is rad detectors, which is useless against easily made and easily aquired conventional bombs, and the only thing they've managed to do with it is harass cancer patients, when conventional bombs could be passing through there every day.
My case is also for turning down the meter sensitivity just a tad as it sounds like the level it trips at is not that far above natural radiation.
Was your grandfather in charge of Pearl Harbour's defenses by chance?
No, but it's not relevant. The world was very different then, but that was still another interesting case of political bungling of people not having the right priorities and systematically poor foreign policies, it's not a newly developed problem.
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly person, it's not about safety. This last year has simply been a power grab by the police while wafing a safety flag in our faces. The only improvement in actual security occurred on flight 93. Taking off our shoes, having our email read and watching cancer patients get dragged off the streets is just our way of lying to ourselves and giving Ashcroft everything he wants.
Re:My question is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's examine this, shall we? Any terrorist organization with the resources and intelligence to get something like a suitcase-sized nuclear device into the United States quite probably isn't brain-dead enough to tote the thing through a secured installation wired to detect the bomb.
Although it appears some of my more idiotic countrymen think that very thing could happen. Forget the easily-made and easily-transported conventional explosives and poisonous gases - think of those nukes!
9/11 has apparently lobotomized more than a few people.
Max
My uncle... (Score:4, Interesting)
Same thing happened once he got to the border. The border guard let him go, then some guy came running out of the customs building screaming at the top of his lungs. They stopped him and he had to read them the same story all over again. This drug is so powerful he can only take it once every six months.
Re:My uncle... [I CALL BS!] (Score:4, Insightful)
Radioactive stuff is mostly used to follow something you ingest, or an injection.
I really can't see the use of a powerful, radioactive drug taken every 6 months.
Though I might be wrong, I have serious doubt.
Re:My uncle... [I CALL BS!] (Score:2)
Re:My uncle... [I CALL BS!] (Score:2)
There is an upper limit on the amount of radiation you can be exposed to "safely" within a year. I think it's entirely reasonable to suppose that some radiation treatments for cancer would result in a dose of radiation close to half the yearly "safe" amount.
Re:My uncle... [I CALL BS!] (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My uncle... (Score:4, Interesting)
My father is a physician, and I used to hang out in the radiology dep. while he did rounds. One of the techs told me about how they had given a patient an injection of a radioactive isotope for a radioacive imaging of his heart (I can't remember the exact name of this technique). Three weeks later, he walks into the White House on a tour, sets off the alarms, and is pulled out of the crowd and questioned by the Secret Service. This isotope had a half-life of eight hours. Now, I understand the chemomtherapy dose setting off alarms, as that has to have some punch. But eight hours for something that just has to be detected with an insturment three feet away? You do that math, that's some senstive equipment they have in the White House.
Re:My uncle... [doing the math] (Score:3, Informative)
It can't be that sensitive. Suppose they put about 20 millimoles in him (that's a lot, especially just for imaging). About 10^22 atoms (Avogadro, remember him?). After 3*7*3=63 halflives there about 2^63
Radiation levels (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally thyroid cancer patients are told to stay some distance from family members when they return home. After a few days the levels are lower and such precautions aren't necessary.
I don't know if the levels are lower for Grave's disease, or if this person should not have been on crowded subways. But to detect the levels in a shielded device, you would probably want the sensors to be pretty sensitive. Sensitivity also helps to allow fewer detectors to be used.
Should a strip-search be necessary? I doubt it.
Just hold the detector close to the thyroid to verify the guy's story. Maybe hospitals could give out cards, and the security folks could phone the hospital for confirmation.
Or just call a cab for the poor guy.
Re:Radiation levels (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Radiation levels (Score:2, Insightful)
(Just to clarify, I'm from "upstate" (really central NY) )...
Re:Radiation levels (Score:4, Insightful)
NOTE: The 2 minute delay between posting sucks.
Re:Radiation levels (Score:5, Insightful)
Soon as the news hits that the New York subway system is contaminated with radioactive material, there will be panic, regardless of amount. And it wouldn't take a very big container of material to do it, either.
Tremendous amounts of fear; no bomb required. Remember when there was anthrax in the mail? You can scare a lot of people without any explosions.
Easy to accomplish without entering. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, maybe they've changed things, but the last time I was in New York, the Subways were open. IE: you could freely pour particulate matter into air vents and other areas that honeycomb the streets under Manhattan. It's nice in winter to get the warm breeze of a passing Subway train, but it also means it's very easy to contaminate. There's no reason a terrorist would go through the gateway, when there are so many other entry methods they can use.
Reactionist, rather than rational, security measures are not secure.
Re:Radiation levels (Score:2, Interesting)
Dumb question: How long does it take to die without a thyroid? How big is a thyroid anyways... I'm willing to guess you could fit a few ounces of radioactive material there.
Remember, Taliban members would be more than willing to die if it means they could bring in some of that stuff.
Not that I think all this is a particularly good idea anyways, but hey, if that's what they're all worried about...
Re:Radiation levels (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you mean al Qaeda. The Taliban was just another batch of thuggish warriors in Afghanistan. Yet somehow you fear them attacking you here, halfway around the world.
Depends on what they are using (Score:5, Informative)
Usually Iodine-131 is given as ablation therapy for hyperthyroidism... the thyroid gland takes up the radioactive iodine (just like it takes up regular iodine) and literally burns itself out. The damage is localized because I-131 is a beta emitter. You can get the gland surgically removed as an alternative, but most people go for the pill... it's just easier. There may be specific indications for surgical removal (discrete mass, need pathology input, etc), but I could not name them.
There are other radioactive treatments for cancers... radioactive "seed" implants in prostate cancer for instance. I have never seen anyone walking around in public with them, but scanning someone being treated in that fashion might be interesting (to say the least). If airline security goons are making new mothers drink their own breastmilk (yes, I said "goons," there's no other name for someone who would do something that stupid) I can see some overzealous security folks doing a body cavity search to find the source of that "rectal radiation." I shudder at the thought of the lawsuit amount after something like that.
People undergoing chemotherapy will not set off any radiation alarms. However, from a theoretical standpoint, I can see the possibility of them setting off chemical warfare agent detectors. Please note the detectors would have to be outrageously sensitive (I don't know if it's even possible to make them that sensitive)... almost all of the chemotheraputic agents in common use are metabolic poisons of one type or another, including drugs like the nitrogen mustards (related to mustard gas). I could see someone getting some chemo solution spilled on their sleeve, and setting of somebody's chemical warfare sniffer. Someone with a little more chemical warfare experience want to comment?
Re:Breastmilk? (Score:4, Informative)
Snopes.com [snopes.com]
It happened to a friend of mine (Score:5, Interesting)
They gave him the rest of the day off.
I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
On a rather serious note, it is interesting to see that someone even had the thought that someone carrying a dirty bomb strapped to them would "pose" (and I use the word here literally, so do not flame me here) as a cancer patient. Perfect way to disguise it, very clever. And to think that security noticed it at least commendable.
how about... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just searched for explosives, stopped in the next line, questioned as to why I had prescription blood pressure medicine, and why I had a car stereo in my bag.
I don't know if it is the beard or what, but I should not be picked for the random searches over 80% of the times I board a plane.
Re:how about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Keep some good logs over the next year, and you would have a VERY interesting case. Oh, and make the person searching you sign the ticket page you log it on in journal and on your ticket stub.
(thu preeveeus ehnttree wus not spehl ckekd)
"NEVER bluff with super-weapons!" Dr. Evil
Re:how about... (Score:2)
I wouldn't exactly call it racial profiling...
Re:how about... (Score:2, Insightful)
You have a beard, you have glasses, you fit the profile of what someone has said to look for. That fits under the the Supream Courts ruling for racial profiling.
Besides, half of the middle east can look white easily, and I can look like I am from there after twoo weeks in Florida.
Re:how about... (Score:3, Funny)
Might want to consider a shave, or a geographic location change.
Re:how about... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how about... (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that the Transportation Safety folks now keep a list of people to subject to intense search bothers me not at all.
The idea that one can get on that list simply for being politically distasteful to the Bush Administration is appalling.
The idea that nobody is willing to admit how this list is compiled or how one disputes being on it is terrifying.
When government declares that it is no longer accountable to the people it governs, then it has lost the legitimacy of that office.
I would compare this to McCarthy but McCarthy and his cronies weren't anywhere near this effective.
Rustin
Re:how about... (Score:3, Funny)
100% and counting... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:how about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Answers to general questions... (Score:3, Informative)
All round trip. All booked well in advance. Beard is neatly trimmed, hair is short and combed, prescription medicine is in my name, car stereo should have been questioned at the security entrance after going through the X-ray (not at the gate), I wear clean clothes, and nothing to suggest that I am a member of any small minority faction...
These trips were from SMALL airports to SMALL airports. Connecting flights were at large airports but generally at the large airports is where the 20% of skipping came in.
Toledo -> Pittsburgh -> Scranton
Minneapolis -> Philadelphia -> Scranton
Dayton -> Charolette -> Savannah
Much more detailed article in the NYT (Score:5, Informative)
Of particular note is that the NYT was *not* able to verify that anyone said they carrying a note from a doctor would be useful; rather, it said the police would not accept such a letter as "sole proof" that the person was not trying to pull a fast one on them, and would still conduct a full investigation.
The White House, too (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think he was strip-searched (he didn't work there but was a VIP of some sort).
United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:5, Interesting)
--
Trade it on Trodo!
http://trodo.com [trodo.com]
Re:United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:3, Interesting)
--
Trade it on Trodo!
http://trodo.com
Re:United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:2)
Re:United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:3, Informative)
The short answer is, yes!
Depending on the size of the sample, you can look at its spectrum of gamma radiation. Different radioisotopes emit gammas at different frequencies when they decay, providing a distinctive fingerprint.
High resolution mass spectrometry will also do it for you. I know a chemist who has tricks for detecting femtograms (1E-15) of an element (though his mass resolution isn't very good, you could see a very tiny amount of a transuranic element like plutonium.)
Really, all you need is to be able to quickly identify areas that are worth further investigation. If you find something that seems suspicious--even if it isn't conclusive--that tells you where to bring in the analytical big guns. Actually, that usually means a lot more cotton swabs. ;)
Re:United Nations -- Iraq -- Weapons Inspections (Score:2)
Homer Simpson (Score:2, Funny)
Just in Homer's path....
IN the subway station? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe there's another reason he got strip searched.
And he was strip searched IN THE SUBWAY STATION? Dude, I hate to break the news, but those weren't cops that were doing the strip searching.
Geeze... (Score:2, Funny)
It's hard to check for dirty bombs (Score:5, Interesting)
When the material is spread by an explosion, a fire or some other way, people will inhale it and it will stick in their lungs, giving them a huge dose of radiation.
Radioactive Cat Crap (could it be more toxic?) (Score:5, Funny)
http://wcbs880.com/water/watercooler_story_2980
I never thought cat shit could be more offensive, but add radiation and we take it to a whole new level.
From the Article "Oct 25, 2002 9:04 am US/Eastern
(AP) (WHITMAN, Mass. ) A man who ignored a veterinarian's order to flush his cat's radioactive waste down the toilet was hit with a $2,800 bill.
And Bill Jenness said he's happy to pay it.
"I don't feel I was mistreated," Jenness told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy. "It's my cat, my responsibility and I did not abide by the directions I was given."
Jenness' cat, Mitzi, an 11-year-old shorthair, was treated with an injection of radioiodine after developing hyperthyroidism, which is common in cats her age.
The treatment makes the cat radioactive for weeks, so special care is required, including limiting snuggling time, keeping the cat away from children and pregnant women and using protective gloves when flushing the cat litter.
Jenness said he decided to throw the litter in the trash after the waste hardened into abnormally large clumps.
"I was afraid of my septic system being clogged," he said.
Mitzi's mess was discovered at an incinerator in Rochester when alarms detected radioactivity. Workers traced the waste to Jenness after finding mail with his name on it nearby.
The radiation treatment by Radiocat in Waltham and cost of disposing the waste totaled about $5,000. Jenness said it was worth it because Mitzi is doing well.
Radiocat's Web site says the amount of radiation from a radioiodine shot is probably less than the amount a person receives on a long plane flight or a day at the beach.
But Thomas Burnett, a Whitman public works commissioner, said any radiation in trash is too much.
This is too funny.
Puto
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Strip search? (Score:2)
Of course, if he had a green glowing trouser snake once they searched him, this would probably tip them off too.
Um, sorry sir. wow - can you use that thing as, like, a night-lite or something
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Bush/Ashcroft War On Constitutional Rights (Score:2)
I bet Bush could get approval to perform personal in-home inspections so long as it would prevent errant airplane collisions, cha'know?
Re:The Bush/Ashcroft War On Constitutional Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of high schools with a "zero tolerance" policy aganst knifes. They'll suspend a student has a kitchen knife in thier bookbag... but they'll forget that if the student puts 3 10 pound textbooks in their bag, and then throws it from the top of a staircase, that becomes a 30 pound dead weight which can cause serious injury. Bookbags don't kill people, people kill people.
Because we can't think of all the possible ways terrorists can attack, we can only secure against the ones we can think of. The attacks we show we can stop are the ones they won't attempt. There's an unlimited number of unprotected ones they can try.
Re:The Bush/Ashcroft War On Constitutional Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
This BS has been happening for years before 9/11 as well. This is yet another injustice that has done nothing to prevent school violence, and turns innocent students into criminals.
If a high school student is caught with any sort of knife on campus (in some cases a PLASTIC knife or anything that could be mistaken for a knife, gun, or other weapon), for whatever reason, they will be expelled.
It doesn't matter if they accidentally left the knife in the bag from a hunting trip, thought a butter knife was OK, or whatever. It doesn't matter if the student has no record, is a straight A student, or whatnot.
This has extended to other sorts of things. Kids have been expelled for giving a bottle of wine to their teachers as a GIFT, bringing advil to school, being ACCUSED of hacking school comptuer systems without proof, etc.
These kids are then often shipped off to an alternative school that have purposefully been given inferior resources. There they will often will recieve an inferior education to their former peers and have little chance to get into a decent college no matter how they do at that school.
This sort of thing has been in place for over a decade now in most school districts. It didn't prevent incidents like Columbine.
Seriously, being expelled is the LAST thing a student thinks about if they intend to kill people. How is the threat of expulsion a deterrent?
Hold on there turbo (Score:3, Informative)
They give you radioactive iodine (I believe it's I-131, but I could be wrong) in a non-tribial dose. This will then accumulate in your thyroid. Now It has a pretty short half life, around 8 days, so it doesn't stay in you in a significant quantity for all that long. Also, since it accumulates in the thyroid, damage to teh rest of the body is limited.
However, notice that I said non-trivial dose. It's enough that you are warned to limit contact with family members for a week, and enough that you can tell if someone has had it done just by pointing a Giger counter at them.
Along the same lines, my grandma has two metal hips, and is gaurenteed to set off any metal decetor. Well she isn't stupid about it, if she knows she's going through one, she notifies the people that she has metal hips, and they can take the appropriate setps to verify her story.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Bush/Ashcroft War On Constitutional Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
ID Designation (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry. Getting aroud NYC and many big cities without public transit is expensive, and complicated. Also, I would think that perhaps one might be irritated if they can't use the PUBLIC transit system their tax dollars pay for.
What will most likely happen in the end is that you will have a letter designation or something on a drivers license or on your state issued id/passport (everyone who flies knows that you have to have id). Yes, this could be defrauded, but anything can...
Radiation != Chemo (Score:4, Interesting)
2002-12-06 18:34:29 Radiation Treatment Patients Set Off Subway Alarms (articles,tech) (accepted)
The editors changed it, to Chemotherapy... which is obviously not the same... Oh well.
holy shit (Score:5, Funny)
Just Wait for the Radon Fallout (Score:5, Informative)
While the odds are slim, considering the entire length Adirondack and Appalachian mountains range from Georgia to Canada, porions of which contain significant uranium ore veins, there's going to be a considerable amount of radon gas emitted by these veins as they go through the natural process of decay. What does this mean? Inevitably, there will be false positives as well. More people will be detained, more public outcry.
On a momentary tangent, I have difficulty putting too much weight in New Scientist's journalistic integrity. For example, why haven't pacemakers set off the alarms? While they may be shielded to a certain degree for safety, I doubt that they're 100% shielded against detection.
And what of nuclear power plant employees, or students of radiological sciences in college, or radiotherapy doctors in hospitals? All of these pick up marginally higher levels of radiation in their fields, why aren't they setting off alarms either?
To ensure against repeats of that article, the police need to (at least) inform the public of the minimum level of radiation that the sensors will trip on, so that at least innocent people won't be grabbed by police, just because they were picking up an old Radium book they won in an auction online.
Braces and Alarms (Score:5, Insightful)
My family is tired of being asked to "Step back in the store". We don't any more. You want me, call a cop. Going to detain me over 4 rivets made of an alloy that sets of your alarms? Welcome to civil court. Touch me, welcome to criminal court.
When technology fails, as in the case of these poor chemo patients, then the person who trusted/decided on the failed technology needs to pay.
Re:Braces and Alarms (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.hnpp.org/glossary.htm
Second definition from the top reads:
AFO- stands for "Ankle Foot Orthosis" it describes a brace (orthosis) that goes under the foot and up the back of the calf and is used to help with foot drop.
This is getting ridiculous! (Score:5, Insightful)
McD (Score:5, Funny)
Nuclear Medicine Therapy (Score:3, Informative)
Base rate fallacy (Score:5, Interesting)
The base rate fallacy is trying to interpret the results of a test without considering how common the thing being tested for is in the population being sampled.
For example, suppose there is a medical test for a disease that has a five percent false positive rate. I then grab somebody off the street and administer the test, and he turns out positive. How certain are we that he has the disease? 95%? No, we cannot say without knowing the probability that any individual pulled off the street has the disease.
Suppose one person in a thosuand has the disease. There are two ways we can get positive results from the test. On the one hand he may actually have the disease (p = 0.001). If we sample 1000 people, one person will test positive for this reason. On the other hand he may not have the disease (p =
So, of the 51 positives we'd expect to get, only one person legitimately has the disease. Instead of there being a 95% probability of the disease, there is actually only a 2% probability that a positive test indicates anything at all when applied to a random population. In order to apply the test usefully, I need some independen reason to suspect the person has the disease.
Even a slight reason for suspicion can alter the interpretation dramatically. For example, suppose I'm about 10% certain a person has the disease. If I tested 1000 people who met this criteria, 100 would test positive because they had the disease, 50. So if I'm 10% certain, then a positive test should make me 66% certain. If I'm 50% certain. then a positive test should make me about 90% certain.
A lot of public security measures suffer from the base rate problem. For example random drug testing doesn't tell you with much certainty that a person is doing drugs -- you really ought to test only peple you have independent reason to believe are using drugs. The only time widespread screening makes sense is if the base rate of the thing being tested is very high relative to the false positive probability.
This cancer patient situation is essentially similar. If we have reason to suspect that somebody is a terrorist, if he sets of radioactivity alarms it is very suspicious. If we have no such reason, then whether or not it is suspicious depends on the base rate of nuclear terrorism in the community.
Now it so happens that the false positive rate for this test is rather small: very few people are walking around radioactive for innocent reasons. ON the other hand, the rate of atomic terrorism in the general population is even smaller by several orders of magnitude.
This means that this particular alarm essentially tells us nothing about the people who set it off. It is probably not significantly better than a policy of randomly strip searching people.
However, this is not the only way to look at the problem. Suppose we knew for a fact that there was going to be a suicide dirty bomber somewhere in the city. Screening people in the subway might effectively prevent it from happening in the subway, either by deterring the bomber, or by catching hime, at the price of also catching hundreds of innocent people.
I think the take home message of this is that we should not use such systems on a routine basis; in cases where we have good reason to do so, we should remember that while if there is a terrorist he'll be culled out by the system, any particular individual culled by the system is not significantly more likely to be guilty than any randomly selected person.
Re:Only in the US. (Score:2, Insightful)
We never did it before, we got owned, we beefed it up.
When someone wants to own Canada, you will see your liberties taken away as well.
Re:Only in the US. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:chemotherapy != radiation (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wake Up! Coward (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Cops do whip black ass, and white ass, hispanic ass, all kindsa ass. Course next to Latin America and Russia, I would prefer a US ass whuppin than one of those. Have seen South American and Russian cops tear it up. And people don't sue there.
Hey you know what? I am a Jewish Hispanic. And I look like I should be selling rugs in a bazaar. I look more Arabic than most Arabs. I get searched in airports. Big deal, 5 minutes extra. Makes me feel kinda safe. I have been searched five times this year and the people in the airport were nothing but nice and apologetic to me.
We had a load of hurt come down on our country and we are watching our backs. Nothing wrong with that, and I am happy we are doing it. And you can use the arguement that the methods they are using are not effective. Well please suggest something. Should we do nothing?
I hold citizen ship in the UK,US, and Colombia. Pretty varied huh? Guess I am lucky, gotta pretty good world view IMHO.
The US does some harsh shit sometimes, but we do a lotta good stuff too. Stop trolling, stop being an AC.
I gotta tell you somehing as well. These days more BLACK people have asked me if I was an arab. Trying be a computer geek who is in radioshack buying wire when a big black man says"lookit at ol bin lades kid getting his shit for a bomb, damn, you aint gonna blow me up, just where in the hell or you from"
Man, got me all pissed on a friday night.
Re:Wake Up! Coward (Score:3, Insightful)
So why does the ethnicity of the racist asshole who made this comment matter? Racists exist in all races. Why does this suprise you?
Similar to the issues raised in the disscusion on the spammer who was complaining about too much spam, some people have no empathy. They can't understand that their actions are wrong even if they've gone or are going through the same thing.
Re:What about Cell Phones? (Score:2)
Re:watches? (Score:2)
Why would police have tritium on their guns?