Bananas Are Radioactive (So Are Many Ordinary Objects)

Bananas Are Radioactive (So Are Many Ordinary Objects) You may have read about everyday objects setting off radiation alarms at border crossings between the US and Canada and Mexico. Newsweek has an article describing how medical radiation treatments (e.g., bone scans) may lead to traveling delays when they trigger radiation sensors. When the sensors are tripped, border officials conduct more intensive inspections to make sure you arent carrying nuclear weapons. There are other ways to set off the alarms. Do you carry kitty litter in your car to help provide traction in icy weather or to absorb oil? Its slightly radioactive. Do you have tile or granite in your vehicle for a home improvement project? It has a relatively high radiation signature. Do you have a lot of bananas? They are also slightly radioactive. Key Takeaways: Bananas Are Radioactive Bananas are slightly radioactive due to the presence of a natural isotope of potassium. Potassium is a key mineral in the fruit.Many other common materials are also radioactive, including potatoes, bricks, and cat litter.For the most part, these substances do not present a health risk. However, they can set off radiation sensors at ports of entry and their radioactivity is detectable using a Geiger counter. Its pretty easy to understand why tile, granite, and kitty litter are radioactive. They contain low levels of minerals that naturally decay. Bananas are radioactive for a similar reason. The fruit contains high levels of potassium. Radioactive K-40 has an isotopic abundance of 0.01% and a half-life of 1.25 billion years. The average banana contains around 450 mg of potassium and will experience about 14 decays each second. Its no big deal. You already have potassium in your body, 0.01% as K-40. You are fine. Your body can handle low levels of radioactivity. The element is essential for proper nutrition. If you have a banana in your car for your lunch you arent going to set off a Geiger counter. If you carry a produce truck full of them, you might encounter some problems. Ditto for a truck of potatoes or potassium fertilizer.The point here is that radiation is all around you. If you do an internet search, youll note significant concern (panic?) over bananas being radioactive. Are they radioactive? Barely. If you set a banana on a detector you wont hear mad clicking. It wont glow in the dark when you turn out the lights. There is a perception that radiation is bad, bad, bad. Its just a part of life. Bricks are radioactive. Anything containing carbon (you) is slightly radioactive. Bananas are radioactive and its no big thing. Well... except maybe to Homeland Security.

Big Bang or Creationism essays

Big Bang or Creationism essays Our Universe: Big Bang or Creationism Talking about our universe as a whole brings up a great question that theologians and scientist have been debating for years. So much so that it has involved boards of education and trials in court. Was God the creator of the universe as many of us are taught in Sunday school? After all it does say in the Book of Genesis that God created the Earth and the Heavens in six days and rested on the seventh. Or did the universe just happen as a chance occurrence as the Big Bang suggest? Scientist Stephen Hawking suggests that the origins of the universe always has been and continues to be a chicken-and-egg question (Hawking, 2002). In a nutshell, Hawking notes, what agency created the universe (Hawking 2002)? By the same token, what created that agency (Hawking 2002)? Hawkins also notes that; . . . in the last few years, it has emerged that the Laws of Science may hold even at the beginning of the universe. In that case, the universe could be self contained and determined complet ely by the Laws of Science (Hawking 2002). The problem with this is Christians who whole-heartedly follow what is written in the Bible believe the total opposite. This one sided type of thinking is nothing new however. The origins of the universe have been debated for years and continue to be debated today. The debate has been an either-or situation; either God was the Creator of the universe or he was not (Sluder, 2002). Either the universe was a spontaneous creation or it was not (Sluder, 2002). Trying to clear those two questions never easy. Trying to give a direct dictionary definition of creationism is a little more complex than it seems. First we have to start by saying that the belief in the creation of the universe as the Bible tells it is literally true. Creationism can then be considered a belief based solely up ...

Outsourcing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Outsourcing - Essay Example In addition, rapid changes in technological advancements force the healthcare organizations pace with the latest changes. Outsourcing is a better way to minimize risk factors in terms of technology evaluation and result accuracy. Many healthcare professionals believe that the outsourcing approach in the healthcare sector would deliver quality services to beneficiaries and thereby improve patient safety. This paper will discuss several aspects of the outsourcing practice in healthcare industry and suggest best practices that can make outsourcing effort successful. Prevalence and Trends The practice of outsourcing is extremely prevalent in the healthcare industry and admittedly, this trend is growing dramatically. US healthcare system is the most expensive in the world. As Pear (2004) reports, the US’ healthcare spending accounts for nearly 15% of its GDP whereas most other developed nations spend only 7-10% of their GDP in healthcare. The increased healthcare expenditure forces the country to adopt low cost and efficient options like outsourcing in order to cut down its spending. An aging population in the US not only increases the demand for healthcare but also leads to a paucity of available experts. In addition, the medical transcription (MT) industry has undergone tremendous changes over the past few years. As a result, the scope of MT jobs has increased and MT professional are expected to undertake additional tasks such as editing, checking, and supervision in the near future. Therefore, the US healthcare organizations increasingly and extensively follow the outsourcing approach so as to reduce healthcare expenses and to deliver better services to clients. Today, it is widely seen that healthcare firms outsource their administrative processes that require high degree of expertise and huge resources. By practicing this approach, healthcare organizations can focus more on service quality and patient safety. The services such as billing, coding, staffin g, and information technology are greatly outsourced by hospitals and other healthcare institutions. â€Å"Modern Healthcare’s annual Outsourcing Survey found that the top 20 outsourcing firms, based on the number of national healthcare clients, reported 13.1% growth between 2010 and 2011† (Expertise on call, n. d.). Staff shortage is growing to be an immense challenge in the modern healthcare environment because of a number of socio-economic factors. As staff recruitment is an expensive and time consuming task, today many of the healthcare organizations outsource this task to external agencies (American Healthcare Outsourcing, n. d.). Since this approach would assist the health organizations to enhance staff retention, more and more firms tend to outsource staff recruiting and training activities to outside agencies. Health care technologies and practices are advancing everyday and firms perceive outsourcing as a better way to take advantages of the potential innovati ons and to reduce unproductive work time. It is found that the outsourcing practice is more common in large sized health organizations because those firms need to manage troublesome administrative and operational activities. Successes and Failures While evaluating the experience of healthcare organizations that have tried outsourcing, it seems that majority of those firms could attain competitive advantages while some others failed to achieve the desired benefits. Generally, the