20 Interesting Facts on Radiation

Here are 20 Interesting Facts on Radiation.

1-5 Interesting Facts on Radiation

1. All the American flags placed on the moon are now white due to radiation from the sun. – Source

2. After Radium was discovered by Marie Curie (who died from radiation), people used it in things like condoms, candy, toothpaste, and health tonics. One man drank 1400 bottles of it before his jaw fell off. – Source

3. The Manhattan Project secretly tested the effects of radiation on its own citizens, including injecting pregnant women radioactive mixtures and feeding children radioactive oatmeal. – Source

4. Bananas are slightly radioactive and eating a banana exposes a person to radiation. Recent post-earthquake radiation spikes in Japan measured in bananas have seen levels up to 30 bananas but have dropped down to 1-2 bananas per day. – Source

5. Because of the amount of granite used in its construction, Grand Central Station of the New York City produces more radiation than what is allowable at a nuclear power plant. – Source

6-10 Interesting Facts on Radiation

6. 1% of static on an untuned analog TV is from cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang – Source

7. People in America living near coal-fired power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants. – Source

8. During the Manhattan Project, a man was injected with Plutonium without his knowledge or consent and he survived it for 20 years, eventually surviving the highest radiation dose known for any human – Source

9. Astronauts on the Apollo missions reported seeing flashes and streaks of light when they closed their eyes. This was later confirmed to be caused by cosmic radiation bombarding their retinas while outside of the Earth’s magnetosphere. – Source

10. There is a type fungi inside the Chernobyl reactors that thrives on radiation – Source

11-15 Interesting Facts on Radiation

11. In the 1950s, there was a toy called the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory that came equipped with low-level radiation sources and four Uranium-bearing ore samples. It sold for $49.50. – Source

12. A fireman’s eyes at the Chernobyl disaster are said to have turned from brown to blue because of the intensity of the radiation he received. – Source

13. Flight crews (pilots, flight attendants, etc.) are classified as radiation workers and some are exposed to more radiation annually than nuclear plant workers. – Source

14. Smokers receive a radiation dose equivalent to about 300 chest x-rays annually due to the radioactive isotope Polonium-210 contained in tobacco smoke that comes from the ingredients of the fertilizers that are used in farming tobacco. – Source

15. Crew in an underway nuclear submarine are actually exposed to less radiation than the average person on land, due to reduced background radiation and the shielding effect of the water while being submerged. – Source

16-20 Interesting Facts on Radiation

16. When the binary star system WR 104 goes supernova, within a couple thousand years, it could possibly hit Earth with a gamma ray burst, causing a mass extinction – Source

17. The USA originally denied that atomic bombs caused lingering radioactivity, calling such claims Japanese propaganda. The New York Times ran an article with the headline “No Radioactivity In Hiroshima Ruin,” citing only military sources and ignoring eyewitness accounts of radiation sickness. – Source

18. A handful of raw uranium ore actually only has about as much radiation as 10 bananas. – Source

19. On December 27, 2004, Earth was hit by the largest blast of radiation in recorded history. It came from a “giant flare” on a magnetar 50,000 light-years away. – Source

20. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is still giving off radiation, and that there is a high chance of the containment structure collapsing, causing huge amounts of radiation to spread out. – Source