Low Radiation May Not Be as Harmful

[ElecMan]

I just happened to see this article (it's about a month old).

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 122011.php

If the findings in this report are true, it may change the way the public looks at radiation danger and eventually nuclear power. It really would undo the LNT theory that has been used as the guide to setting limits, alarms, action levels, etc.

Does anyone have any additional information?

[MikeTil]

That's not news to most of us in the field. I think that it's just getting to the point where new scientific data may prove that once and for all.

There is a lot of work in the literature - as far as back in the 50's, suggesting that not only is the response not linear, but at low levels radiation may even have beneficial effects - "radiation hormesis".

Does anyone have the link to the actual report/paper of this new work?

I would be very interested in seeing that.

[KimChin]

Does anyone have the link to the actual report/paper of this new work?

MikeTil, here it is. Enjoy

[HarrisonJ]

There is a lot of work in the literature - as far as back in the 50's, suggesting that not only is the response not linear, but at low levels radiation may even have beneficial effects - "radiation hormesis".

It would be very interesting to have someone in the know help us reconcile this with the report that was made available by Hellen 22 in the other thread, viewtopic.php?f=7&t=32 where claims are US cancers are already up, because of the Fukushima accident. Wouldn't any doses received in the US be in the low range, described in this new paper?

This may be the start of gathering the science to answer some of these debates once-and-for-all. In one hand you have some scientist observing some cancers. They don't know what caused them, but looking around for a cause they see that Fukushima appears to be the only "new" agent, so they correlate the cancers to the releases from the accident, come up with a mathematical prediction model, the dates appear to match up, it all fits together nicely, so there it it. Fukushima caused the cancers. Of course, since cancers can't tell us what caused them, they can't prove that single one was caused by Fukushima, it's all by statistical inference (a powerful tool, if nothing else is available and it's used appropriately). This new report, on the other hand, is not relying only on statistics and inference. They actually see the cellular response to low levels of ration and they can see what happens and if the cell becomes de-differentiated, or not.

I think this is really exciting news, or am I missing something?