http://tinyurl.com/63nmtbe

We have several places that serve afternoon tea. Nothing to write
home about. Just standard finger food fare. I wished fast food
chains would serve a decent cup of hot tea with their value meals.
How many times have I thought the burger and fries would be better
with some Dan Cong or Puer. Its not hard to bring your own tea and
add to hot water in a restaurant. Its usually the second cup refill
that causes the awkward moment at the table. Im often more happy with
the iced tea than not.

Jim

PS Where are the tea plantations in Japan. I havent seen any
indications to the north. Fortunately I have enough sencha, gyokuro,
and matcha for a lifetime or in my case approaching half life.

On Mar 17, 9:45*pm, Space Cowboy > wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/63nmtbe
>
> We have several places that serve afternoon tea. *Nothing to write
> home about. *Just standard finger food fare. *I wished fast food
> chains would serve a decent cup of hot tea with their value meals.
> How many times have I thought the burger and fries would be better
> with some Dan Cong or Puer. *Its not hard to bring your own tea and
> add to hot water in a restaurant. *Its usually the second cup refill
> that causes the awkward moment at the table. *Im often more happy with
> the iced tea than not.
>
> Jim
>
> PS *Where are the tea plantations in Japan. *I havent seen any
> indications to the north. *Fortunately I have enough sencha, gyokuro,
> and matcha for a lifetime or in my case approaching half life.

blame mother nature or us...again we we have messed up the earth, this
time its radiation..
Help, last time it was the gulf oil leak in the earth..

--PS Where are the tea plantations in Japan. I havent seen any
--indications to the north. Fortunately I have enough sencha,
gyokuro,
--and matcha for a lifetime or in my case approaching half life.



blame mother nature or us...again we have messed up the earth,
this time its radiation..
Last time it was the gulf oil leak,
we really need to stop this..
-icetea8

The tea plantations are all more than 200 miles south of Fugashima. They have all been very heavily tested and show NO signs of radiation in air, earth, water and plants. There are none more than perhaps100 miles north of Tokyo, if that far.

Hi Marlena,

> The tea plantations are all more than 200 miles south of Fugashima.
> They have all been very heavily tested and show NO signs of radiation in
> air, earth, water and plants. There are none more than perhaps 100 miles
> north of Tokyo, if that far.

Strange that there are signs of radiation in air, milk, etc. in the USA
and Europe but none in Japan…

http://enenews.com/french-radiation-...-contamination
http://enenews.com/cesium-137-levels...allowed-by-epa
http://enenews.com/new-type-fukushim...pril-25-videos
http://enenews.com/large-spike-radia...h-17-20-charts

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ex nihilo nihil. » (Perse)

> wrote:
>Hi Marlena,
>
>> The tea plantations are all more than 200 miles south of Fugashima.
>> They have all been very heavily tested and show NO signs of radiation in
>> air, earth, water and plants. There are none more than perhaps 100 miles
>> north of Tokyo, if that far.
>
>Strange that there are signs of radiation in air, milk, etc. in the USA
>and Europe but none in Japan…

There are always signs of radiation in the air, just as there is radiation
everywhere.

The bricks your house are made of are full of potassium isotopes, and they
are fairly strong alpha emitters. You can fog a sheet of Tri-X in about
a week with a brick.

Bananas and tomatoes are fairly radioactive because they contain potassium
also. Tobacco pulls heavier elements out of the soil and is very, very
radioactive. A pack of cigarettes will set a geiger counter off pretty
dramatically.

Now, the nifty thing about elements is that we can separate them. We can
take a sample, break it up into individual parts and tell you what is in
those parts. If you take a water sample today, you'll find there is
radioactive potassium in it, whiwhich is a natural product. You'll also
find stuff like strontium isotopes left over from nuclear bomb testing
in the fifties in the water.

Now, the thing about radioactive elements specifically is that when they
give of radiation, they turn into different elements. The more radioactive
an isotope is, the more quickly it turns into something else.

What got released from the plant at fukushima were mostly the primary
breakdown products of uranium: a cesium isotope and an iodine isotope.
The iodine isotope may have been detected in the US, but since it has a
half life of 11 days and turns into something stable, nobody really much
cares about it in the long term. The cesium is more of a big deal and
the problem with that is that there is so much natural Ce-137 left over
from above-ground nuclear testing that we're always seeing big spikes.

What we saw in the press were mostly reports of wide-spectrum radiation
detectors.... which are effectively not very useful because there is
so much natural radiation floating around out there. There are always
big peaks and dips all the time.

Anyway, so what you care about as far as environmental contamination of
crops is specifically cesium, and you need to find that with a chemical
test, not just with a geiger counter. If you put a geiger counter on
tea, you'll find that it, like all living things, is somewhat radioactive
and that's just fine and isn't a worry. If you do a chemical test and
find cesium, that's bad. But, it doesn't mean the cesium came from
Fukushima either.... since it's so long-lived, there is plenty of it left
from other sources.

If you do a test and find iodine-131, you just put it in a box and wait
a couple months until it goes away.

But just looking with a geiger counter will show up lots of normal
natural radiation, lots of radiation left over from above-ground
nuclear testing, and a lot of other confounding stuff which is far
stronger than any recent leakage.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Hi Scott,

> There are always signs of radiation in the air, just as there is radiation
> everywhere.

Yes, of course.



> The bricks your house are made of are full of potassium isotopes, and they
> are fairly strong alpha emitters. You can fog a sheet of Tri-X in about
> a week with a brick.

I do not mind at all such "natural" potassium isotopes. Why do you
speak about alpha emitters? As far as I know, the isotopes contained in
the bricks of my house are beta emitters. Beta emitters are less nocive
for health than alpha ones.

Anyway, our body naturally has potassium isotopes. As well as other
radioactive elements. Radioactivity of a human body is about 8 000 Bq.



> Bananas and tomatoes are fairly radioactive because they contain potassium
> also.

We're not speaking about the same level of radioactivity.
If bananas are "fairly radioactive", I wonder what is the adjective you
would put for a scintigraphy (in MBq-GBq) and daily releases in
Fukushima (in trillions Bq).



> Tobacco pulls heavier elements out of the soil and is very, very
> radioactive. A pack of cigarettes will set a geiger counter off pretty
> dramatically.

I would be very interested in seeing a geiger counter measuring the
radioactivity of a pack of cigarettes.
Could you please tell me what is the radioactive element that will be
detected by the geiger counter in these cigarettes?

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ex nihilo nihil. » (Perse)

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julien_=C9LIE?= > wrote:
>
>We're not speaking about the same level of radioactivity.
>If bananas are "fairly radioactive", I wonder what is the adjective you
>would put for a scintigraphy (in MBq-GBq) and daily releases in
>Fukushima (in trillions Bq).

They are very, very radioactive.

But, the thing about radioactive materials is that very radioactive ones
can be diluted and made less radioactive. And less radioactive ones can be
concentrated and made more radioactive.

>> Tobacco pulls heavier elements out of the soil and is very, very
>> radioactive. A pack of cigarettes will set a geiger counter off pretty
>> dramatically.
>
>I would be very interested in seeing a geiger counter measuring the
>radioactivity of a pack of cigarettes.
>Could you please tell me what is the radioactive element that will be
>detected by the geiger counter in these cigarettes?

Po-210 is a big one if it's Virginia tobacco. There's a calcium
isotope in there there too as I recall.

My 7th grade science teacher did a very fine demonstration, smoking cigarettes
and blowing the smoke at a geiger counter.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Hi Scott,

>> I would be very interested in seeing a geiger counter measuring the
>> radioactivity of a pack of cigarettes.
>> Could you please tell me what is the radioactive element that will be
>> detected by the geiger counter in these cigarettes?
>
> Po-210 is a big one if it's Virginia tobacco. There's a calcium
> isotope in there there too as I recall.

Maybe the calcium phosphate fertilizer used on tobacco.


> My 7th grade science teacher did a very fine demonstration, smoking cigarettes
> and blowing the smoke at a geiger counter.

OK, thanks for the explanation. You're right; an alpha particle
detector can show the presence of polonium 210.

Have a nice day,

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ex nihilo nihil. » (Perse)

Anyone seen the tea spoon made of gallium trick. Radium was long
promoted as a health cure.

Jim

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julien_=C9LIE?= > wrote:
>
>> My 7th grade science teacher did a very fine demonstration, smoking cigarettes
>> and blowing the smoke at a geiger counter.
>
>OK, thanks for the explanation. You're right; an alpha particle
>detector can show the presence of polonium 210.

And like most alpha emitters, this is okay in the environment but
not such a good thing to have in your body. Which brings us back to
tea contamination.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."