Readings (and quiz info) for October 7

Right now in class we're talking about radiation health risks, "risk" in general, and beginning to develop a better understanding of nuclear reactors.  Readings for this week pick up on a couple of those threads. 

1)  The American Nuclear Society Dose Chart.  Go through this and find out your own average yearly ionizing radiation dose.  I won't expect you to know any of the actual numbers for the purposes of the quiz in class, but I'd like you to have some sense of which contributions are large and which are small.  It is also worth looking at this critically:  this is put together by a pro-nuclear organization.  Can you tell?

2) A primer on the health effects of ionizing radiation, used for training workers at Princeton University who handle radioactive materials.  This is an online version of the type of training manual used anywhere that scientists or technicians have to work with or around ionizing radiation.  Things to pay attention to:  types of prompt vs. delayed effects, why children and fetuses are more susceptible to radiation damage, and which body organs are most and least sensitive.  (Note - your brain is a part of your nervous system.  Is it extra sensitive to radiation, or not so much?)

3) An opinion piece by (pro-nuclear) risk expert David Ropeik in Scientific American last Spring.  This article was in response to the reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe.  As you're reading it, pay particular attention to his explanation of why nuclear risks are particularly scary to people.  Also pay attention to the idea of "confirmation bias," and his comparison of estimated deaths from nuclear accidents compared to deaths from fossil fuel burning.