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I find it fascinating that there is enough human introduced radioactivity in our atmosphere that it's measurable in steel and even problematic for the creation of some medical devices et al.

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The presence of Cesium–137 and Strontium–90 can also be used to identify art forgeries[0].

[0] http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/jul/04/nuclear...

I was wondering the same thing. If ambient levels of radiation have been raised so much since the dawn of nuclear testing, could that be partially to blame for the corresponding rise in cancer about that time?

There is definitely an effect, but the numbers are relatively small compared to the overall risk of cancer. This article discusses it extensively:

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/fallout-from-nuc...

The overall picture seems to be that thousands of people will get cancer as a result of fallout from nuclear testing, but millions of people get cancer for other reasons, so it's not a major effect.

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