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this video is sponsored by
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Squarespace and yes if you grow your
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potatoes outside of Chernobyl or
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something they're going to be
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radioactive that is not what this video
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is about I mean that's duh this video is
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about two common foods that are notably
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commonly routinely radioactive modestly
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radioactive not dangerously radioactive
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but like measurably and meaningfully
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radioactive all the time even when
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they're grown under ideal conditions
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those two big foods are the banana might
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have heard about that one and the Brazil
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nut I don't know if you heard about that
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one maybe you did these are radioactive
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am I trying to scare you absolutely not
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in fact I'm trying to do the exact
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opposite see for me learning about just
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how radioactive these foods are has
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helped me to better understand on an
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intuitive level just how little a small
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amount of radiation is compared to like
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a lot of radiation that would actually
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hurt you the spectrum is just so
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incredibly huge it's it's hard to kind
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of think about in human terms but I
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think the food's he so let's talk about
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them you may have heard that bananas
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have a whole lot of potassium and that
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is correct and a small percentage of all
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the naturally occurring potassium found
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in the Earth's surface is radioactive
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it's this one particular isotope called
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potassium 40 what even is an isotope
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well consider an atom of potassium that
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one particular chemical element its
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number is 19 because it has 19 protons
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in its nucleus that's where it gets its
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number from and that's kind of what
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defines it as an element is the number
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of protons in the nucleus the number of
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neutrons in the nucleus determines its
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isotope some Isotopes are particularly
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unstable parts of them could come
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shooting off at any second and that's
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what we generally mean when we talk
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about radiation or at least particle
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radiation it's teeny little subatomic
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bits of stuff that come flying out at
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really really high energy sufficiently
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high energy to ionize that is to
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electrically charge the other um you
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know little tiny things that it comes
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into contact with and also a small
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enough to damage you in meaningful ways
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most notably with humans it it damages
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our DNA which creates you know monster
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zombie cells that we call cancer what
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you're seeing here is the condensation
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Trails being left behind by individual
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particles of radiation in my kitchen
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I've been playing around with a cloud
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chamber a lot lately it's this you very
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old piece of technology where you take a
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fish tank and you uh put it down on
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something that is both metal and dark
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colored dark colored is important for
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the color contrast otherwise it's really
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really hard to see what you need to see
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you put down some dry ice or other sours
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of extreme cold you put the metal on top
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of that and then the fish tank on top of
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that and in the top of the fish tank on
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the inside there's a rag that is soaked
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with isopropyl alcohol you then have to
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seal all the way around and then wait a
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second and then what you get is this
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fine mist of isopropyl alcohol droplets
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that are sort of cascading down over
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that cold dark metal surface and if you
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light it from the side you can
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illuminate trails that are left by
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individual particles and that's what
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we're seeing right there particles of
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radiation passing through those droplets
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that are really really want to condense
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with each other and they do momentarily
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when they are disrupted and kind of
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smashed together by that ionizing
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radiation this footage I've slowed down
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by about half just so you know and and
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all you're seeing here is the background
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radiation in my kitchen there's nothing
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in the box it's just the normal stuff
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that's whizzing around uh in the cosmos
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you know cosmic rays coming down and
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hitting the Earth or uh other things
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bouncing off of you know radioactive um
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things that are in you know my
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countertops stones are often radioactive
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you live in a masonry house you tend to
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get a lot of more radioactivity than
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people who live in a Woodhouse right
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that's just radiation around us
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everywhere and that's all you're seeing
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in the Box here is just normal
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background radiation I wanted to see if
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I could see the actual radiation coming
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off of a banana so I tried putting a
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slice of banana in my cloud chamber and
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uh I think that there might that little
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squiggle that might have been a bit a
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beta particle which is what you would
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expect to come from potassium 40 a beta
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particle that little squiggle there
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might have been a beta particle jumping
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out of the banana it looks like a beta
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particle that's what they do in Cloud
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Chambers they make these little teeny
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curly CES and then they go away because
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they're very low energy yeah I don't
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think we're going to be able to
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conclusively visually isolate radiation
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coming out of a banana in a cloud
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chamber what we need is a Geer counter
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or even better a scintillator which is a
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more sensitive uh instrument to uh
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measure radiation and yes every single
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one of of those little clicks I'll put
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near the microphone so you can hear it
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every one of those clicks is a particle
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of radiation hitting the instrument and
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being registered and uh I see the
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background radiation in my kitchen looks
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to be about like six clicks a second uh
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let's
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see I notice absolutely no difference
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when I hold up to the banana why not
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because there just isn't that much
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potassium in here and you got to think
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of radiation as like a holding a bag of
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tiny tiny bombs right
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um tiny tiny bombs in a bag any single
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one of them could go off at any given
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second but if you don't have that many
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bombs in the bag not many of them are
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going to go off this is a bag of mostly
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other stuff mostly water ugly bag of
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mostly water just like me uh but there's
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a few little teeny bombs in there but
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not that many what we need is like a
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more concentrated bag of bombs and that
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way we can get here with a potassium
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based um salt replacement it's for
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people whose doctors have told them to
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uh you know eat less sodium it's a salt
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of potassium chloride right which tastes
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salty but just has this kind of weird
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bitter aftertaste anyway so this is like
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half potassium the mass of this and so
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this should be radioactive as hell right
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let's try putting it in the cloud
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chamber maybe that was
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one maybe that came out of the
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pottassium salt I really have no idea
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you put the scintillator on it there's
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no apparent immediate difference with
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the background radiation so what we need
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to do is try to measure things uh over
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time right like here I've had the
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scintillator sitting in this bowl in my
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kitchen for about 10 minutes and that's
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what 10 minutes of background radiation
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looks like in my kitchen then we put a
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banana on it and leave it right I'm
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going to tell you right now that's not
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going to get us anything there's just
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not enough potassium here what we need
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is like a concentrated form of banana
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like uh banana chips right these have
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been dried and baked like so there's no
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almost no water in these it's much more
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concentrated dry matter so there's just
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a whole lot more pottassium
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proportionally in this stuff so let's
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try burying the scintillator in banana
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chips and then leaving that for 10
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minutes and seeing if over time we're
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able to notice any kind of difference
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and uh just visually looking at the
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chart there I see I don't nothing no
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bump of all really there let's instead
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let the cator get a baseline reading for
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another 10 minutes and then bury it in
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the potassium salt then look at that for
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10 minutes and there yeah okay now we're
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seeing a little observable bump over the
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background radiation levels in both the
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dose level and the count rate the dose
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level looks at both
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the count rate but also like the energy
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of the particles and what kind of
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particles they are it's a whole thing
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and the dose of radiation that you get
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from eating one banana is actually kind
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of a standardized thing in the radiation
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studying world it's known as the banana
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dose and it's that and this chart by the
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way is one of my favorite data
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visualizations of all time it's by this
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guy named Randall Monroe who uh is a
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cartoonist you know him from his
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cartoons called XKCD sort of from the
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good old days of the internet just
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absolutely rad stuff rad guy I met him
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once when we both lived in Boston years
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ago go but anyway he uh made this
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radiation dose chart around the time of
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the Fukushima disaster to help people
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contextualize how much radiation is a
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lot and there two of these little blue
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squares there represent the radiation
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dose you get from eating one banana as
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compared to uh this many squares which
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is like a dental X-ray and everything in
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this entire area of the chart here is
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down here like all of that equals three
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green squares right and what is three
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green squares oh it's about uh the extra
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radiation dose you get from living in a
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stone brick or concrete building for a
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year right this many green bricks is the
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dose you get from spending like an hour
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on the grounds of Chernobyl today which
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is something that you really don't want
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to do that said it's still a relatively
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minor amount of radiation because this
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is the maximum amount of radiation that
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a worker in the United States is legally
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allowed to uh get above their Baseline
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quantity in the course of doing their
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job right and then everything that's
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green here fits into what is it uh looks
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like seven of these red squares and this
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is where we start to get to really
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really serious dosages okay so this is
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the lowest dose that's clearly linked to
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an increased risk of cancer this is the
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amount of radiation that is uh could
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kill you and here's the amount that
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definitely will kill you okay that's the
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difference in scale when we talk about
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eating a banana vers versus dying and
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then of course the other common food
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that is always a little bit radioactive
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is the Brazil nut I tried putting a
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Brazil nut into the uh Cloud chamber
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that might have been a particle coming
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off of that so Brazil nuts are
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radioactive for a really really
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different reason Brazil nuts grow um
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well in Brazil and South America in
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these uh jungle trees that are
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absolutely gargantuan like the big some
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of the biggest trees in the world and
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Incredibly deep root systems that go so
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far into the ground that they actually
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access a lot of naturally occurring radi
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radium being a naturally occurring
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radioactive metal that's just in the
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soil when it decays into a particle
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radiation it's known as radon which you
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might have heard as being a problem in
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in houses that have uh certain
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conditions but how much radiation well I
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tried burying the scintillator in Brazil
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nuts for 10 minutes and uh I see no
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difference there over background and uh
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the thing I thought to do was maybe bash
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the Brazil nuts into teeny little bits
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to massively increase their surface area
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make it more likely that uh particles
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that are uh being spit out of the tiny
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little bombs in this object and more
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likely to make it out to the surface
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bury the scintillator in pulverized
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Brazil nuts and yeah there we go now we
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can see a little bit of thing happening
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over the course of 10 minutes a little
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bump there you know one thing I noticed
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is that these pulverized Brazil nuts
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flues under the black light under uh
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ultraviolet light they are excited and
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they emit light as fluorescent objects
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do and that's probably because of the
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selenium that is particularly high in
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certain Brazil knuts that's my best bet
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it has nothing to do with with the
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radiation just because something is
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fluorescent doesn't mean it's
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radioactive uranium is both fluorescent
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and radioactive and this is a piece of
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uranium glass antique uranium dyed glass
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or stained glass which we talked about
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in a recent video there's Linked In the
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description and let's see what some real
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radiation looks like let's put the
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scintillator on this and oh my God
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that's what we call a bump good Lord
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that's a lot of radiation even that
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isn't anywhere close to the amount of
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radiation that would be concerning to
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anyone's Health you have to have so so
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so much radiation so so many tiny bombs
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going off around you to to have the odds
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raised meaningfully that you're going to
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get cancer right all right here's one
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more demonstration that I hope will put
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your mind at ease okay so here's the
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background radiation in my kitchen right
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now it looks like it's like between four
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and five clicks per second remember that
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when we held this up to a banana there
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was no immediate apparent change in the
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clicks per second that we were getting
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let's go in my basement instead
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between seven and eight clicks a second
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the background radiation almost doubled
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by going from the kitchen to the
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basement whereas before we got
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absolutely no immediate apparent
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difference on this thing exposing it to
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all manner of radioactive bananas in
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Brazil nuts instead it immediately
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doubled when we went from the upstairs
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to the downstairs because we're suddenly
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surrounded by a whole lot more rock and
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dirt which contains radioactive material
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so if you're not scared to go down into
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your basement for radiation reasons at
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least um you shouldn't be scared to eat
00:12:03
bananas or Brazil nuts it's all good nor
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should you be scared to start your own
00:12:07
website with Squarespace sponsor of this
00:12:09
video especially with social media
00:12:11
companies becoming so shall we say uh
00:12:13
volatile lately you definitely want to
00:12:15
have your own place on the internet that
00:12:17
you own and control and doesn't
00:12:19
necessarily associate you with somebody
00:12:21
else and that's what a website does for
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you say you're a photographer and you
00:12:25
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if you want or you can design one
00:12:32
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00:12:34
make one for you which I'm going to do
00:12:36
my site title is radioactive photography
00:12:40
guess my brand personality is going to
00:12:41
be quirky guess I'm going to need an
00:12:43
intro section and a Services
00:12:46
section maybe some forms if I want
00:12:49
people to inquire about my services that
00:12:51
seems like a good color palette for
00:12:53
discussing nuclear food choose a font
00:12:55
you know a serif I've not used serifs in
00:12:57
a long time I think I'll use them kind
00:12:59
of ironically here and now immediately I
00:13:01
have something to build on I can just
00:13:02
start replacing computer generated stuff
00:13:05
with me generated stuff like this photo
00:13:07
that I got of the fluorescing Brazil
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nuts let's see
00:13:12
radiating Talent isn't that what I'm
00:13:15
doing all the darn time and from this
00:13:17
it's really easy to uh change how it's
00:13:19
going to display in Mobile versus
00:13:21
desktop which is really important I
00:13:22
don't need to tell you that and if I
00:13:24
need to add something I might have
00:13:25
forgotten I just hit add section and I
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can go down I can add a a thing where I
00:13:30
can autogenerate invoices or accept
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servers or if you need to pay for a
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Squarespace and thanks to the Nerds who
00:14:00
used this kind of Technology about a
00:14:02
hundred years ago to prove the existence
00:14:04
of invisible radiation that can kill you
00:14:06
it's really nice that everybody at least
00:14:07
believes in that now right right
