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 Atom – radiation – positive and negative.  

Fatema Miah:

There are some good uses of radioactivity and also its a health concern issue.

Atom is an existential element that the world is made up of tiny building  blocks of atoms I wrote before. There are many different types of Atoms among them more natural elements and some chemical elements. There are  electron. I explained in the previous article last year. Also i wrote about Alpha, Beta and Gamma isotopes particles. Unstable nucleus emits particles and energy and such called radioactive. The emitted particles are called ionising radiation. The useful radiations are:

Americium-241 is used in smoke detectors. It is an alpha emitter and the alpha particles ionise the air molecules in a chamber open to the air, so that the air molecules now carry a charge. The charged ions allow a tiny current to flow. If smoke particles enter the chamber this current is disrupted and an alarm sounds.

Carbon exists in the organic molecules that make up the cells of living organisms and some of this carbon will be radioactive carbon-14, a beta emitter. Plants can fix carbon from the air so that the amount of carbon-14 in living organisms is roughly constant throughout their lifetime and reflects the amount of C-14 the atmosphere at the time. Once an organism dies, the C-14 will start to decay – the rate of this decay is known. If you measure the amount of C-14 in a sample today it is possible to trace back and work out how old the sample is. This has been very useful in archaeology and palaeontology.

Iodine-131 emits beta and gamma radiation and can be used to treat thyroid problems, such as thyroid cancer or an overactive thyroid, where treatment requires destruction of some of the cells within the thyroid.

When a capsule of I-131 is swallowed, it is absorbed into the bloodstream before concentrating in the thyroid gland. The radiation from the I-131 will destroy the cells locally – which, in this case, is the desired effect.

technetium-99 is introduced into the body it can be used as a tracer. For example, it can show the blood flow through the heart or the brain. The Tc-99 will flow with the blood and emit gamma radiation that can be detected and imaged. This can build up a picture of how the blood is flowing and into what areas. The Tc-99 decays at a good rate for this use and only lasts in the body for a day, with a very low risk of damage.

Tc-99 is produced from the decay of molybdenum-99. In turn, this Mo-99 is usually created commercially by fission of uranium in nuclear reactors. Smoking  every day emits 13mSv, one chest CT scan 12mSv, cooking with natural gas 10mSv, living in Cornwall ,7.8mSv, working for an airline 3 to 9mSv, working in nuclear power 0.18mSv, eating a banana a day 0.036mSv, one dental X-ray 0.014mSv units of radiations.  Radioactive materials are all around us. You are radioactive yourself! Radioactive carbon-14 is decaying within you, as is potassium-40.

Radiation emmission means  we are subject to a constant bombardment of alpha, beta and gamma particles. This is called background radiation. There is no avoiding background radiation and we have evolved within it. The amount of background radiation that we experience is generally so low that it is highly unlikely to do us any harm.

The amount of background radiation at a given place is called the background count. This is due, mainly, to the radioactive elements in the sources. The amount of radiation you experience is called the dose of radiation and is based on both the radiation present and on you and the tissue (bones, organs) involved, the unit is the mSv (milliSievert). The average annual dose from background radiation in the UK is 2.7 mSv.

If the radiation locally is raised above the background count then you may receive a bigger dose. For instance, some medical procedures involve the use of radiation and flying increases your exposure to cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are composed of radiation from the Sun and other sources.

Smoking is deadly killing. Cooking gas is another factor was talked about risk to health. It said to be cancerous. Smoking and gas emitting radiation causing us cancer. CTA scan can be put aside as it’s only used occartionally as for health examination purpose . Should we not take steps to usage of gas and stop smoking ?

The largest emitted particles are  positively charged. The emmission can be stopped by paper and clothes. This was  named Alpha, They compose two protons and two neutrons and it makes massive radioactive emmission and it becomes a different element.  This turns into helium and is harmful to biological tissue.

The 2nd particles named Beta and it’s a negative charged and emits to transform into barium. It’s emmission cannot be stopped by clothe or paper, it’s emission can be stopped by water.   The 3rd particles type are high energy electromagnetic radiation named Gemma and its emmission cannot be stopped by paper, clothes or water. It’s emmission can be stopped only by aluminium.  These are non natural, chemical types. All three radiation types can damage human cells  and leads to cancer.

Radiation is a concern issue and the excess amount is risk to our health.  Our health experts and worlds politicians must implant policy to stop smoking. And bar gas use for cooking.  A plan must be for people of Cornwall to relocate them. Corn wall must be made into a working region, people shouldn’t be living there for long time. People should go there to work, stay for a short period of time for work and must go out back, like the Antarctic region where only the scientists and weather observers go there to research, study and work.  Fatema Miah, Solihull, uk. fatemamiah@mail.com