Talk:Banana equivalent dose

Calculation in "Source of Radioactivity" section
This is currently stated as: 5.02 nSv/Bq × 31 Bq/g × 0.5 g ≈ 78 nSv = 0.078 μSv

Where are these numbers sourced from? The 0.5 g number for the mass of a banana seems particularly egregiously wrong.

When I performed a similar calculation I arrived at 13.62 Bq for a banana, which at 750 g (Source Google search suggestion) for an average banana gives 0.01816 Bq/g.

Calculation details for the 13.62 Bq value are:

0.422 g/banana (Source Google search suggestion), 122 ppm natural abundance K-40 (Source Wikipedia article), Half-life K-40 1.251e9 years (Source Wikipedia article)

0.422 (grams K/banana) * 122 ppm (grams K-40/grams K) / 40 (grams K-40/mol) * 6.022e23 (atoms/mol) * (ln(2)/1.251e9) decays/(year atom) / 31536000 (seconds / year) = 13.62 decays/second = 13.62 Bq

128.61.144.222 (talk) 19:04, 20 April 2018 (UTC) (A Nuclear Engineering Student)

Doses in sieverts
There was a paragraph about doses in Sv from different isotopes have different health effects. This is wrong - Sv is an unit of the equivalent dose, so the same number of sieverts should cause similarly severe health effects. The real issue here is that the conversion from Sv to Bq is very complicated and needs to take into account many factors, including the age of the exposed person, route of exposure, and others. I removed this paragraph, because it appeared agenda-driven and not related to the rest of the text. To keep the article focused, I will also remove the TMI / Chrnobyl comparison section, as the banana dose is used in explaining the risks from normally operating power stations or from small leaks rather than from severe accidents.

I also clarified the explanation of why the dose is too high. The previous explanation sounded like the original poster considered 100% of potassium to be potassium-40, whereas the true cause is ignoring the mitigating effect of potassium-39. --Tweenk (talk) 02:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Wrong huh? Since 2002, the default Sv ceased attempting to account for susceptibility of different tissue types. It is dose equivalent (comparing different types of radiation) as contrasted with effective dose. (Incidentally, if this wasn't the case, we'd probably have to mention an adjustment for the heigher weighting that used to be given to digestive organs.) You also need to start discriminating these with committed dose equivalent and committed effective dose equivalent.


 * I think you also removed mention of nonlinearity; do be aware that if a fatal acute radiation dose is instead taken just a little at a time (over a longer period) then the total harm is greatly lessened, in fact it may even have a beneficial and/or protective effects. Can you see how this importantly undermines the implicit concept of relating possibly serious radiation exposures to large multiples of unconcerning doses (like BED or BRET)? Cesiumfrog (talk) 11:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The sievert is a unit of both "effective dose" and "equivalent dose" (see for example the Glossary of ICRP 103). I don't know what is meant by "default Sv".  In my experience, when sieverts are used it is almost always in the context of "effective dose" - for example in the recommended dose limits of ICRP - with "equivalent dose" generally only being used for specialist purposes.  "Effective dose" does include the susceptibility of different organs and tissues.  The original statement by Twenk that "the same number of sieverts should cause similarly severe health effects" is partly correct, but the "severity" of health effects us not the issue, it is the probability of that health effect (eg cancer) occurring.


 * I suggest that there is also a bit of confusion in the discussion of non-linearity. A "fatal acute radiation dose" is around 3-5 Sv, and certainly if this is spread out in a number of small doses over a long period, then it will no longer be fatal.  But the concept of beneficial or protective effects of small doses is not generally related to the effect of large ("fatal") doses, it refers to the supposed lesser risk of cancer from low dose-rate, protracted exposures.  Baska436 (talk) 01:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I have put text in to indicate that dose would be effective dose, and that although a whimsical unit, it can still confuse due to incorrect use of "equivalent". I have pointed people to the revised article on the sievert which now explains the SI dose quantities and their nomenclature Dougsim (talk) 05:23, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Let's measure radiation doses in Banana's per hour!
I wish I was joking. I just wanted to say that this (as with many articles dealing with radiation) has too much jargon as far as varying comparatives of radiation doses. Can we just pick a measurement and run with it and link to the article explaining the comparison or at least be consistent with which unit of measurement is outside of the parentheticals in the article? It probably would be easier if you just told me how many banana's per hour I was exposed to (speaking of, it's not explained in much detail how banana radiation works or what affects working at a banana plantation would have if any and what such a measurement would be on a rad counter), but I somehow doubt that will ever happen, just as my suggestion of speed being measured in 'running really fast' multiplier units. >_>

Comedic attempts aside, be consistent, and keep it simple! BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 21:33, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

What about other lay persons units of radioactivity!
I think the BEQ is an excellent concept. I wonder about other simple equivalents to help people understand that even under the worst of circumstances, nuclear events produce only a tiny amount of radioactivity compared with background.

Examples: Sydney Harbour Equivalent Uranium When the Kursk went down it contained 1.2 tonnes of Uranium. Wacky anti-nuclear groups say wacky anti-nuclear things. See http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/1000/102k04.htm "estimated 1200 kg of highly enriched uranium, .... huge quantities of the radioisotope will continue to menace the marine environment and humans for millions of generations to come." But the KURSK has less Uranium in it than Sydney Harbour. Based on Wikipedia figures that Sydney Harbour is 500,000,000 m3, and that seawater is 3.3 ppb Uranium, Sydney Harbour contains 1650 kg of Uranium.

So we could say that the Kursk contain 0.73 Sydney Harbour Equivalents (SHE) of Uranium.

Washington Monument Equivalent Becquerels http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/08/5-billion-bq-strontium-90-flows-sea-every-single-day/ "5 Billion Bq of Strontium-90 flows to the sea every single day" It never occurs to them to ask, How much is that? Based on the size and composition of the Washington Monument, I calculate that the Washington Monument radiates about 5 billion becquerels. "5 Billion Bq/0.13 Curies/1 Washington Monument Equivalent of Strontium-90 flows to the sea every single day" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graemem56 (talk • contribs) 08:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Millimetres of Iraqi Soil Depleted Uranium Equivalent. The US and allied military forces are said to have left 300-400 tonnes of depleted Uranium lying on the ground in Iraq. How does this compare with the Uranium in the soil? Based again on Wikipedia figures, that soil is 1.3 gm/cc, and 6 ppm Uranium, and that Iraq is 450,000 km2. I calculate that each millimetre of Iraqi soil contains about 300 tonnes of Uranium. The US and its allies thus left behing 0.1 Millimetres of Iraqi Soil Depleted Uranium Equivalent — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graemem56 (talk • contribs) 09:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

equivalent of eating two bananas each day for a year
The lede tells us that radiation from bananas is "not cumulative". That suggests that the closing sentence of the lede: is misleading/erroneous. The slug of all-at-once radiation from TMI might have some physical impact. Eating bananas slowly over a long time maintains an internal equilibrium that has lessened impact? So the end of this sentence is wrong and should be deleted?-71.174.175.150 (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
 * " A person living 10 miles from the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor received 700 BED of exposure to radiation, the equivalent of eating two bananas each day for a year."
 * That's, um, not how radiation works. Bones Jones (talk) 03:25, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * BJ, "thanks but no thanks": that's not how objective information works, any more than is "And so's yer old man!" I dunno if I'll find time to come back and give you a lesson in manners  that you won't forget, but I don't rule it out. --JerzyA (talk) 06:48, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

"Banana for scale" applied to radioactivity
And before it was cool, no less! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.249.145.186 (talk) 10:48, 16 February 2020 (UTC)