Yet another weird SF fan


I'm a mathematician, a libertarian, and a science-fiction fan. Common sense? What's that?

Go to first entry


 

Archives

<< current
 
E-mail address:
jhertzli AT ix DOT netcom DOT com


My Earthlink/Netcom Site

My Tweets

My other blogs
Small Sample Watch
XBM Graphics


The Former Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse:
Someone who used to be sane (formerly War)
Someone who used to be serious (formerly Plague)
Rally 'round the President (formerly Famine)
Dr. Yes (formerly Death)

Interesting weblogs:
Back Off Government!
Bad Science
Blogblivion
Boing Boing
Debunkers Discussion Forum
Deep Space Bombardment
Depleted Cranium
Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine.
EconLog
Foreign Dispatches
Good Math, Bad Math
Greenie Watch
The Hand Of Munger
Howard Lovy's NanoBot
Hyscience
Liberty's Torch
The Long View
My sister's blog
Neo Warmonger
Next Big Future
Out of Step Jew
Overcoming Bias
The Passing Parade
Peter Watts Newscrawl
Physics Geek
Pictures of Math
Poor Medical Student
Prolifeguy's take
The Raving Theist
RealityCarnival
Respectful Insolence
Sedenion
Seriously Science
Shtetl-Optimized
Slate Star Codex
The Speculist
The Technoptimist
TJIC
Tools of Renewal
XBM Graphics
Zoe Brain

Other interesting web sites:
Aspies For Freedom
Crank Dot Net
Day By Day
Dihydrogen Monoxide - DHMO Homepage
Fourmilab
Jewish Pro-Life Foundation
Libertarians for Life
The Mad Revisionist
Piled Higher and Deeper
Science, Pseudoscience, and Irrationalism
Sustainability of Human Progress


























Yet another weird SF fan
 

Friday, July 01, 2005

The Linear No Threshold Model

I'm sure that my fellow technically-oriented reactionary crackpots have heard of the report from The National Academy of Sciences purporting to show there is no safe dose of radiation. I'm more than a bit dubious.

First, any organization that puts out press releases should be suspected of selecting data. Given that the effect they predict is barely noticeable (the variation in the expected effect is only slightly less than the effect), it's possible that the minute effect didn't take much selection.

Second, they based most of their conclusions on studies of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In other words, this was based on the effects of a single dose per patient. Studies on the effects of chronic doses (for example, studies of the residents of a radioactive building or the residents of high-radon areas) indicate that a dose of 50 mSv per year can lower mortality rates. (The atomic-bomb survivor studies mentioned earlier indicate that single doses of 100 mSv can raise mortality rates.)

It's worth noting that the radiation people are worried about (from nuclear waste or “dirty” bomb) is a matter of chronic doses. (On the other hand, the report from The National Academy of Sciences might possibly have some relevance to judging appropriate x-ray doses.)

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

 
Profiles
My Blogger Profile
eXTReMe Tracker X-treme Tracker


The Atom Feed This page is powered by Blogger.