How to check if the radioactivity is normal ?

Lots of information about radiation levels are available. But at first glance, these data seem incomprehensible to anyone who didn’t have an advanced degree in nuclear physics [1]. Here is a simple tutorial to calculate the biological impact of a given radiation exposure.

1. Pick up your radiation measurement source :
   – Ibaraki
   – Tsukuba 1
   – Tsukuba 2
   – Tokyo (Hongo, Komaba, Kashiwa)
   – Tokyo (Shinjuku)
   – Average Japan by area
   – Kashiwa
   – Crowd-sourced from all over Japan
2. If the measure is in microsievert per hour (uSv/h), divide by 1000. You obtain a value in millisievert per hour (mSv/h).
3. Multiply by the time of exposure in hour. You obtain a value in millisievert (mSv).
4. Calculate the biological impact of the exposition to the radiation with the chart below.

Example

1. We take average value for Tokyo area (line 13) given by Japanese government on March 17th : 0.05 uSv/h.
2. We divide by 1000 : 0.05/1000 = 0.00005 mSv/h.
3. The time of exposure is 24 hours so we multiply by 24. 0.00005*24 = 0.0012 mSv. If we multiply this value by 365 to compare it with annual values, we obtain : 0.0012*365 = 0.438 mSv.
4. Following the chart, the radiation dose received for an annual exposition to this radiation level is equivalent to the one received for an annual exposition to the natural background (~0.48 mSv). There is no need to take any emergency measure.

Biological impact of radiation exposition

 

Notes

[1] “As foreigners flee, Japanese lament lack of info“, Megan Towey, CBS News
[2] Pdf here : Radiation levels

Please send me your other radiation level sources. Please translate this post into Japanese. Please broadcast !

[UPDATE: 05/14/2011]

Online volunteering

I recently posted this on The Internet Wishlist,

I wish there was a website where NGO could ask for what they need (report, program…) and people could work for them from home #theiwl

— ths1104 (@Ths1104) February 25, 2011

I got some interesting feedbacks. Here is the summary:

• Onlinevolunteering.org – This is exactly what I was looking for. It is powered by the UNDP which is a guarantee of seriousness. The interface is rather classical but clear.  I really wonder why NGOs are not taking more advantages of this website. I even could find some technical projects I would be able to volunteer.
• Catchafire – It could be what I was searching for but it only serves organizations in the Greater New York City area. Moreover I couldn’t find any technical project.
• Nabuur – It focuses on helping communities by putting them directly in contact with specialists. The projects proposed are not necessarily supervised by a NGO so volunteers should take care when applying.
• Social actions – This is a kind of search engine for online volunteering. Nevertheless, the interface is not clear, a lot of results are linking to donation websites and it is difficult to find concrete projects.
• If I ran the world – The concept behind this site is to connect people who need something and people who want to help. It doesn’t seem that there are projects proposed by NGOs but the way they connect people is interesting. “If I ran the world, I would…”
• Sparked – Similar to Aardvark in the way they identify common interests of people to connect them. They just need more projects/people. Great interface. Have a look !