Radiobanana. When you hear the term “Radioactive Decay”, it may trigger alarm bells, but

Radiobanana.When you hear the term “Radioactive Decay”, it may trigger alarm bells, but don’t worry, it’s actually a fascinating property of our universe.Though it sounds scary, radioactive decay is important for internal geological processes, and has numerous industrial, medical and scientific applications – including Clair Patterson’s computations for the concentration of lead present in the Earth from decaying uranium-238/235 contained within meteorites, which ‘lead’ to the accurate figure of 4.5byo for the age of the Earth (But that’s another story for another post).However, fascinatingly, did you know that banana you ate this morning was radioactive? The Banana equivalent dose (BED) is a light-hearted and informal way of measuring your dose of radiation using bananas, where the average daily dose of radiation is around 100 bananas. So that means the banana (or two) you ate this morning is about 1-2% of your usual daily dose of radiation.A banana is radioactive due to the potassium it contains – about 0.01% of all potassium isotopes are radioactive. The radioactive compound – an isotope dubbed potassium-40 – ranks as the third most abundant source of radiogenic heat in the Earth’s core, as well as the primary source for endogenous radioactive decay within animal and plant life. Plants take in the potassium, which we then ourselves ingest, absorbing the potassium in the process. Approximately 5,000 atoms of potassium decay every second in the human body. For a human that weighs 70kg, they would have roughly 140g of potassium in their system at any given time.But don’t worry, this is not at all dangerous in anyway. Your body not only needs potassium as an important electrolyte for plasma membrane potential (the charge across your cell walls) but also in homeostasis of pH, your acid base balance, and bone mineral density and health. Because of this your body maintains very tight control of those levels and excretes any excess within a few hours, so you’ll only ever be ‘glowing’ for a while after eating that banana.-ABImage credit to Martijn vdS : https://www.flickr.com/photos/treenaks/5869671221References (in order of appearance)‘Age of Meteorites and the Earth’ (Patterson, C 1956) available at: http://www.colorado.edu/geolsci/courses/GEOL5700-9/pdf/Fall07/Patterson.pdfRadioactivity in Nature: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htmGizmodo Banana Radioactivity: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5783811/why-are-bananas-radioactiveRadiogenic heat of the earth http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/22737/1/0507162Potassium homeostasis http://blogs.nejm.org/now/index.php/potassium-homeostasis/2015/07/02/ -- source link

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