OMG We're All Gonna Die, Part 4632

Despair is a sin. It’s bhavatrishna. But sometimes …

Here a story that’s being pushed as a Facebook thing now. It apparently started as a story in

Edmonton, Alberta. Here’s the money quote:

“Some of the kelp that I found was higher than what the International Atomic Energy Agency sets as radioactive contamination, which is 1,450 counts over a 10-minute period,” she said. “Some of my samples came up as 1,700 or 1,800.”

Can’t blame the poor little girl, who is probably having glow-in-the-dark nightmares now. But one would hope someone, like say her science teacher, would do a little research. (If you want to do a little research, you can do worse than my piece “Understanding Radation” about 3 years ago. But here’s the tl;dr version.)

So, 1700 counts in 10 minutes. Here is the part in which we divide. 1700 counts in 10 minutes is about 170 counts a minute, which is a little less than 3 counts a second.

The Potassium-40 in a 150g banana? Around 20 counts a second.

Good thing this kid didn’t go to the produce section.

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