A is for alpha particles

     It would be good if A was mainly for apple, a round, red, wholesome flavourful, juicy organic apple. Right now it's for alpha particles. Why? Well you can't identify them easily with every Geiger counter...  You can make a reasonable assumption, I have read, from spikes in Geiger counter readings from other radioactive sources, that they are present.... or you need a Geiger counter that you can specifically measure them with.
     What is so special about them? I was taught at A level that they couldn't get through a thin sheet of paper...bumbling, heavy kind of things in an atomic kind of way.  Oh how little we knew then!  I reckon that when you thought you knew it all, then... when you realise that you know very, very little, in fact almost nothing at all.... this is the beginning of true learning.
     Actually, alpha particles emitted from plutonium or uranium which has been inhaled or ingested can very definitely cause you problems in the long term. It isn't just alpha particle emitters, some of the other radionuclides aren't too people friendly either.
     This is why, when people in the Tokyo region reported that they have swollen lymph nodes and sores in their nostrils, it is concerning.
      The website, which I, personally, am very grateful to be able to use at the moment is that of the Low Level Radiation Campaign.  It has always been at the forefront of exposing uncomfortable truths and right now, people are beginning to value its content more than ever. If you want to find out more, you can look up alpha particles and cancer for yourselves and I seriously recommend a visit to http://www.llrc.org/ if you want to find out about Japan right now and see what practical steps the Japanese people can take.
     I don't blame anybody... we can all make mistakes... let's just learn from them.  We are possibly at a cross roads in the future of mankind... whether, frankly,  we are going to survive or not .. and I am here only looking at the whole nuclear scenario.... Don't think we haven't had scares in the U.K. because we have.  Belarus or Britain, it can happen anywhere.
     We still have time.... some of us.
   
             
  

Before you say "But it couldn't happen in England,,,.. It nearly did"

Reports have been coming in about the fire in the nuclear reactor storage pond in Japan and the fact that the liquid in one is now reported to be boiling.  Along with the news that one of the affected reactors uses MOX which is far more dangerous in this situation, than ordinary nuclear fuel, it is a dreadful  situation to be in.  What troubles people in the reports I have read is that they can't see the radiation, so they don't know what's happening... If they are being affected or not.
In a report published in 2004, eighteen years after Chornobyl blew, cancer rates in Belarus are 40 per cent higher than they were before the accident. Anyone who heard the "experts" saying that only forty or so people died as a result and was puzzled, is quite right!

   

In November 2004 The Swiss Medical Weekly published findings by workers at the Clinical Institute of Radiation Medicine and Endocrinology Research in Minsk, Belarus. It shows that between 1990 and 2000 cancer rates have risen by 40% overall, compared with rates before the catastrophe in April 1986.

Belarus has had a national Cancer Registry as long as anywhere in Britain, keeping a computer database of all new cases of malignant tumours.  This comes from the Low Level Radiation Campaign's website,   llrc,  http://www.llrc.org/

How many of you knew about the leak at Sizewell A on January 7th 2007, reported in the Guardian  in June 2009....Quite a long time later    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/11/nuclear-waste-nuclearpower
"A nuclear leak, which could have caused a major disaster, was only averted by a chance decision to wash some dirty clothes, according to a newly obtained official report."