One high school student using a $600 geiger counter with unknown calibration coming up with some samples of kelp at 15% higher than the recommended maximum does not speak to me of a definite problem. I would expect at least to see the average and perhaps some sort of graph distribution of the measurements. If you test 100 samples of kelp, and five of them come up 1700, and 95 of them come up 700, the average is 750. In fact, if she won the science fair, she certainly did this math and produced this graph. If the AVERAGE was over 1450, she - and the article - would have led with that. Finally, she did not collect the kelp from the ocean, she bought it from a grocery store, and the kelp came from different sources (New Brunswick, British Columbia, California, Washington, China and Japan). I would want to see a graph of the radiation relative to those locations... But since she bought it from a grocery store, theres no telling what sort of processing might have added radiation. In fact, irradiation is a common way to preserve foods found all over the world. Especially revealing, in a second and perhaps more reliable source that doesnt tangent into the power of positive intention (ahem. Will link in comments), we find this: Delacruz said the samples that “lit up” the most were products from China that she bought in local grocery stores. I would expect, if the hypothesis were true, the ones from Japan would light up the most, right? Sounds to me way more likely that some kelp processor in China is irradiating his product, I think quite legally, before shipping it to the USA. Not saying theres no problem (though I personally suspect there isnt) but this is irrelevant. The moral of the story is thus not OMG TEH RADEEASHUNZ R GUNNA KILL YER BABIES!!! but rather watch out for food from china, because, well, google it...
Posted on: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:11:57 +0000
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