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i_wish_i_was_smart
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if the army make rounds with depleted uranium, wouldt the radioactivity emmited be enough to cause cancer after a while?
"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.i_wish_i_was_smart said:if the army make rounds with depleted uranium, wouldt the radioactivity emmited be enough to cause cancer after a while?
russ_watters said:"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.
That said, Uranium has chemical properties that are worse than lead (which is itself pretty bad, as Njorl said).
russ_watters said:"Depleted" means 'no longer significantly radioactive.' For some reason the hippies can say that word without even noticing they said it.
That said, Urainium has chemical properties that are worse than lead (which is itself pretty bad, as Njorl said).
swansont said:Depleted means depleted of significant amounts of U-235. If it's uranium it's radioactive, with the corresponding half-life. You can't "deplete" the radioactivity of a substance other than turning it into a stable substance - in that sense, you'd have to call it "Lead."
And on the topic of lead, I don't think lead is the alternative to DU in artillery shells, because lead doesn't have the mechanical properties you want.
There are designs, and there are possibly tested prototypes, but no weapon system using DU with an explosive warhead has ever been aknowledged to be in use, or found to have been used.Dayle Record said:This very hard metal, is used on the tips of cruise missles, and armour piercing shells, on the exterior of tanks. Yes it is used on explosive rounds.
It is not correct to say the missiles vaporize on contact. It is actually a bit worse, environmentally speaking. High velocity shells, on contact, generate sufficient heat to support cumbustion of the metal, causing it to oxidise. However, it requires a hard target for this to occur, so misses do not lead to this process. Even hits burn away only about 1/3 of the material. If someone is near a hit, and manages to survive, they might receive a large dose of uranium. Others, receiving doses dispersed by high winds receive a less severe dose.Dayle Record said:It is highly toxic, and these missles vaporize on contact, and the DU is thrown into the air, and carried on high winds.
You can read a lot of things. It doesn't mean they happened. While gulf war syndrome, unlike the other things you mentioned, is a prevalent reality, its cause is unknown. I find it much more likely that it is related to the toxins from the oil well fires than DU. The smoke from the oil well fires is known to be much more toxic, much more easily incorporated into the body, and was more abundant by many orders of magnitude.Dayle Record said:I have read that Greek soldiers in Kosovo went home and died from sudden kidney failure associated with DU use. Iraqi doctors have stated that there is a 48% cancer rate in areas that were bombed with DU weapons in the first gulf war, and there is a strong association between the use of DU and gulf war syndrome. Inhaled it is causative in lung cancer, ingested in every form of cancer of the digestive tract. Aside from the radiation, it is toxic.
After all, it is important to avoid thinking. One must always react from emotion and never think. We should blacklist and fire people, and not do any research to see if they are right.Dayle Record said:I recently had a long winded discussion with a Nuclear Physicist in real time, who works with this stuff, and with underground testing. He just can't get over the idea that DU is indepensible. My thoughts on this are considerably more cynical. My thoughts are that instead of disposing of this nuclear waste, they actually sold it to the military instead with claims of its wonderous properties. There is considerable solid science to prove that this form of nuclear war is deadly, and spreading indiscriminately. Now the local nuclear waste storage people are boasting about how they will build a dump in Iraq, for the leavings from this technology. Well, if they used bunker busters in downtown Bagdad, there will be no removing this from that environment. They should be more concerned with the DU all over the area just 30 miles north of them.
I live 75 miles east of a bombing range where this stuff has been repeatedly used. You can be sure that the wind blows that stuff around. Toole, Utah, home of the big chemical weapons burner, has the highest rate of cancer in the nation. They do 3 things there, that put them at risk.
1. They are near Dugway Proving Ground.
2. They spray endlessly for locusts.
3. they are directly downwind from that bombing range.
It is obvious that no one is behaving sensibly in regards to this technology.
When the "scientist" first walked up with this hideous plan to utilize nuclear waste as weaponry, radioactive pollution be damned; he should have been blacklisted and fired.
Dayle Record said:This was supremely shoddy thinking and extremely cynical marketing. I know there were radiation tests over the Salt Lake Valley, just before the start of the 2002 Olympics, well at that time I couldn't figure out what they were testing for. Now it is very clear. Again, the powers that be have determined just how much poison Utahans will take. They work day and night to discredit the danger of this substance, and take minds off of this questionable use of nuclear weaponry.
Matt-235 said:Since U-238 is primarily an alpha emitter, cancer would most likely come if it was inhaled or otherwise injested, so gnawing on your magazine isn't terribly suggested. As Njorl said, yeah, one particle can do the trick, but the average person can withstand far more than that (which is good, considering we get a dose just by sitting here).
Thallium said:So I am being granted a certain dose of U-238 as we sit here typing on my keyboard?
Matt-235 said:Sorry, slightly unclear terminology, by dose, I meant dose of radiation from any source, not just Uranium. We get doses from a variety of sources naturally. Dose is measured in energy absorbed per mass (1 J/kg = 1 Gray = 100 rad), and on average per year, we receive about 360 millirad (3.6 mGy)* from sources such as radon, diagnostic x-rays, cosmic rays, and food as well (Bananas, for example are high in Potassium (K). And 0.017 per cent of K is K-40, and is radioactive with a half life of 1.27 billion years, so if you have a banana, you have K-40.).
So what, we naturally have lead in our body as well, does that mean we shouldn't care about lead poisoning?swansont said:Terrestrial living things tend to have C-14 in them, which is radioactive. So just being around people will give you a dose.
I would say of all the people in the world in all of the different professions that it has been my experience that scientists are the hardest to bribe. Politicians, judges, lawyers, teachers, doctors, police, news reporters, clergy - they are all easy to bribe. Virtually every scientist alive could make more money doing something else. How do you bribe people like that?Dayle Record said:When the defense industry wants to use something, they have all the funding they could want to make research turn in their favor.
Common sense showed the Earth was flat and that the sun went around the Earth. Common sense has its limits. It is aften wrong. That is why we have science. Science is why we don't live in caves and wear animal skins.Dayle Record said:Common sense, would have said no to the use of Uranium, for any new weapons. Common sense.
I agree. It is foolish to do this. It is also absolutely irrelevent. It is indicative of your thought process though. You believe using DU ammunition is nuclear warfare.Dayle Record said:Now the government wants to resume nuclear testing in Nevada, because they want to make bunker buster nukes, regardless of the tactical necessity of such weapons. They say it is just fine to do this.
Is this a divine inspiration that you know with certainty? Where did you get this information? Has the information been critically examined? Or, did you just accept it uncritically because the word "uranium" was involved?Dayle Record said:The Iraqi cancer figures, came from Iraqi doctors. New troops in Iraq are being sickened with this DU dust, causing pneumonias. This is just one more thing. I think all the time, not just sometimes, and emotionally I am somewhat flat, the truth be known.
First, I had no idea you were a woman. I never base base my assessment of argument upon the sex of the disputant. Further, it has been my experience on this board that women are considerably more rational than men. Virtually all the total crackpots are male.Dayle Record said:However it is characteristic to call women, or naysayers, emotional.
Dayle Record said:Bunker busting bombs, or DU tipped cruise missiles, they all carry an explosive charge. They do not send a DU tipped dud to make holes in tanks. The DU penetrates armor, and then the weapon explodes. Please this is how this works. Let me google up some DU Toxicity.
The tobacco industry wouldn't have been able to pretend so long cigarets don't cause cancer if it didn't have a bunch of scientists working as mercenaries selling their name and fame. They still do for the effects of passive smoking.Njorl said:I would say of all the people in the world in all of the different professions that it has been my experience that scientists are the hardest to bribe. Politicians, judges, lawyers, teachers, doctors, police, news reporters, clergy - they are all easy to bribe. Virtually every scientist alive could make more money doing something else. How do you bribe people like that?
Why not? Some of the effects are similar: cancers, birth deformations, genetic damage that will last for generations.Njorl said:I agree. It is foolish to do this. It is also absolutely irrelevent. It is indicative of your thought process though. You believe using DU ammunition is nuclear warfare.
I think anything remotely radioactive would cause it to become suspect, but you have a point.Njorl said:If some other metal with the exact properties of DU were used, but it did not have the name "uranium" it would cause no objections. It is the whole "nuclear magnetic resonance" vs "magnetic resonance imaging" fiasco all over again.
No, all I was doing was pointing out a radiation source not mentioned in the other post. Did you have a point?Simon666 said:So what, we naturally have lead in our body as well, does that mean we shouldn't care about lead poisoning?
Though I may have understated the radioactivity a little, this is the reason why: people see the word "uranium" and after that, there is no reasoning with them. But with a 4.5 billion year half life, its radioactivity is extremely small.Njorl said:This is a very good example of irrational fear-mongering. It shows how many people think. Because it is uranium, all rational thought goes out the window, and all bad things that happen in its vicinity are blamed on it. Because there is a convenient boogeyman, all sorts of obviously false stories pop up around it (the 48% cancer claims are just made up stories). It may very well be the case that DU is not fit to be used in weaponry, but it should be subject to no more prohibition or fear than any other ordnance. It is actually less toxic than lead, and its greater effectiveness means less of it gets used. Its environmental effects are probably less deleterious than the diesel fuel exhaust of the many large vehicles used in any army.
That's not really true. The evidence that has gotten out has shown that even the studies comissioned by the tobacco companies showed the dangers: the tobacco companies and their lawyers squashed the studies.The tobacco industry wouldn't have been able to pretend so long cigarets don't cause cancer if it didn't have a bunch of scientists working as mercenaries selling their name and fame. They still do for the effects of passive smoking.
Those effects are also similar to inhaling diesel fumes. Njorl's right: its not correct to characterize it as nuclear warfare. Nuclear warfare has a specific meaning: the energy that binds the nucleus of the atom together is the energy utilized in the explosion.Why not? Some of the effects are similar: cancers, birth deformations, genetic damage that will last for generations.
Indeed, its pretty irrational how people panick at the sight of an "NMR" machine and don't think twice about an X-ray. And thank goodness most people don't know how much exposure you get from a plane ride. "anything remotely radioactive" includes you. Even if you wore lead lined clothes, you'd still be subject to nuclear radiation. Hence, it is important to quantify and weigh the risks.I think anything remotely radioactive would cause it to become suspect, but you have a point.
Putting words in quotes that I didn't say and attributing them to me is called a lie. Don't do it again.Simon666 said:Depleted uranium is mainly an alfa emitter, and produces low levels of it, yet that doesn't mean it is "no longer radioactive" judging from the BS post emitter russ_watters.
That is not true since it is unsufficiently studied. The amount of radioactivity may be low, but when they are stuck pretty permanently in your lungs even low levels of radiation can eventually kill you. Besides, as I already said, there are indications that nuclear waste was mixed with DU, pretending that low level alfa radiation is the only thing that is emitted is only true in case of "pure" depleted uranium.russ_watters said:When I said that depleted uranium was not significantly radioactive, my point was that its radioactivity is an insignificant health risk compared to its chemical properties. This is true.
Who says it saves soldiers lives? Would they be unable to destroy the Iraqi tanks if they didn't use it? I very much doubt so, there are alternative, the Iraqi tanks are pretty old and if necessary they just have to shoot at it twice. It is not like any of the tanks the Iraqis came up with posed any threat. Saying "it saved soldiers lives" is completely unbased and used as a convenient excuse to avoid further debate.Kojac said:Getting worked up about something that's directly helping save the lives of the soldiers who have it on their side is just stupid. But hey, that's just my opinion.
Victims are by far the worst source of good information on real risks. Not only are they not doctors/scientists (even those that are - doctors do not diagnose their own illnesses, for this very reason), but their judgement is clouded by their personal experience.Dayle Record said:Read what the victims have to say, about their illness. Children in the war zones are sickened to death from this, adults fare better with the DU it is the other micro fragments of metal that do them in. Read about this, not just what the guys who profit from it have to say. Look at what the world thinks of it.
Dayle Record said:In many cases the victims are truly a bad source of information, as they are dead. There were a number of deaths from the Balkan conflict, where young people came home and died of leukemia, in groups. The only common factor in their lives was exposure to DU rounds.