American Honey Is Radioactive from Decades of Nuclear Bomb Testing | Hacker News Reader

American Honey Is Radioactive from Decades of Nuclear Bomb Testing

vice.com

53 pointsonychomys33 comments

Here's the actual paper described by the Vice article.[1]

For those who aren't familiar with the unit, a becquerel[2] is one nucleus decay per second. The highest level of Cesium radioactivity they measured was 19 becquerel per kilogram of honey. For comparison, natural potassium has around 31,000 Bq/kg.

To put it in more concrete terms: eating a kilogram of the most radioactive honey they found would be equivalent to eating two bananas.[3]

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22081-8

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

As the article notes, a much more important thing to consider is how it influences insects working with pollen and producing that honey rather than how it influences humans who consume it.

As an east coast beekeeper, that was certainly the part that interested me. I've looked into other heavy metal accumulation in honey, namely lead from firing range remediation. In several studies the bees didn't seem to be bothered by collecting lead-rich honey from contaminated plants, though I don't remember the duration over which they were monitored.

One of the interesting things with lead is that there are plants more given to storing it in leaves and stalks than flower/nectar/pollen and you can effectively devise a bio-remediation strategy around a few plants, Sunflowers or mustard for instance, that pull up the lead, but don't pass much if any to the honey. The bees stimulate the growth and seed set of the plants, encouraging self-seeding. Nerd-level me would chop and dry the stalks and leaves and test for lead until it fell below the baseline in a few years. You get to fix the soil, while making a valuable product ( once you test the honey for lead as well )

I wonder if similar could be done to pull up the Cesium with Potassium-hungry plants that don't move the Cesium to their flowers. But then how would you dispose of the silage?

Unlike most heavy metals, cesium doesn't really accumulate in the body. Its biological half-life is around 70 days.[1]

Also it's hard to overstate just how little cesium there is in this honey. The EU limit for cesium in baby food & formula is 370Bq/kg[2], almost 20 times greater than the most radioactive honey the researchers found.

The article is really about how sensitive scientific instruments can be, not about any danger to people or nature.

1. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Nuclear/biohalf.h...

2. See page 2 of https://web.archive.org/web/20140817002948/http://ec.europa....

I just ate 2 bananas a minute ago. You mean I could have eaten a kilo of honey instead? :P

Seriously, though. Everything is radioactive since the 1940s. This doesn't strike me as a huge surprise, although I guess it is good to do this sort of research, if only to get an idea what the levels are.

Seriously, though. Everything is radioactive since the 1940s.

Yeah, steel is a particularly interesting case due to the amount of air used through the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel talks about the problems this cause.

It’s just evolution juice.

I think a lot of people would be surprised, that tests done far away, eight decades ago, should have measurable effects now. If nothing else, it's a very important reminder that resumption of those tests would put even more radioactivity into the atmosphere.

There are other effects as well, like the fact that we've basically ruined carbon dating for new objects. They do dating with a basis of 1950 as "Before Present", half-jokingly calling it "Before Physics". After Physics, carbon dating is unreliable, and will be for many centuries to come.

The health effects are negligible, but it's an opportunity to talk about an process that does have real effects that people aren't aware of. And that has an effect on future decisions: let's not risk making them non-negligible.

From the Wikipedia article you reference:

> Criticism

> Several sources point out that the banana equivalent dose is a flawed concept because consuming a banana does not increase one's exposure to radioactive potassium.[11][12][1]

T> he committed dose in the human body due to bananas is not cumulative because the amount of potassium (and therefore of 40K) in the human body is fairly constant due to homeostasis,[13][14] so that any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination of an equal amount.

I have a memory that experts advised that it would be safest to perform nuclear bomb tests on the east cost because the trade winds tend to move west to east, and that would ensure that radioactive dust would not fall over habitable land, and result in this very thing.

The story being that the west coast was instead chosen because something, something congress.

However I'm struggling to find a source. Is this story familiar to anyone else?

It doesn't have the detail about the trade winds, but there is this article about how the Outer Banks was nearly chosen as a test site, based partly on the input of a meteorologist: https://www.pilotonline.com/life/article_6662e143-8b1c-51b8-...

I think I was confusing trade winds with the gulf stream perhaps : "the waste products of nuclear explosions will move eastward out over the Atlantic Ocean"

In other news, that article was kind of crazy! They onshored nuclear detonations because of, essentially, PR reasons?

> These explosions were tests, shows of force to rival nations, and proof that countries such as Russia, France, and the U.S. had mastered the science of the bomb.

Except for the two that weren't.

Those two were on the other side of the world, and they're talking about US honey.

> Here we show that vegetation thousands of kilometers from testing sites continues to cycle 137Cs because it mimics potassium, and consequently, bees magnify this radionuclide in honey. There were no atmospheric weapons tests in the eastern United States, but most honey here has detectable 137Cs at >0.03 Bq kg−1, and in the southeastern U.S., activities can be >500 times higher.

Sort of depends on how you define “show of force”

That's precisely what they were.

TL;DR, it was becoming apparent that Japan was not going to surrender, and were willing to fight to the last man standing. The nuclear bomb drops were to demonstrate to the Japanese government that they were clearly outmatched by the end of the war.

It worked.

There was no need to burn two cities. The head honchos could have been taken to the test(s); with the possibility of surrendering earlier with less territory lost to Soviets.

The reasoning I have heard is that USA wanted to show it just wasn't a one-off or all-or-nothing attempt. By showing they could do this multiple times, it was a more effective weapon.

Could have just done two demonstrations/tests...

> There was no need to burn two cities.

If you think the US only burned two Japanese cities, you should look at the history of the US's bombing campaign. Firebombs were used a lot.

As for "taking the head honchos to the tests", let me propose a few counterfactuals:

1. Japanese leadership sees bomb, changes air defense priorities to target small groups of planes and not mass attacks. Enola Gay is shot down. Invasion happens starting in October; 500k+ die at minimum.

2. Japanese leadership thinks the US is soft and lacks will to victory, holds out even after bombs are dropped. Invasion happens starting in October; 500k+ die at minimum.

3. Japanese realize this isn't really worse than the existing mass firebombs, distributes more production and population away from cities. Invasion happens starting in October; 500k+ die at minimum.

Considering how close the surrender seems to have been in our timeline (personal decision of the Emperor, overriding advisors and military leadership) I would not assume that a softer path would work.

1. How would Japan know if the bombs would be delivered in small or large groups of planes?

2. If they do not surrender after demo, then drop on Japan. Invasion would never happen as U.S. was ramping up nuclear production: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/...

3. Where would Japan move all those people and production? Why did they not move them given the existing firebombing? https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/deadliest-air-raid-...

Japan was confined to a fossil fuel poor mountainous island at the end of the war. Japan could only prepare for a last ditch defense of the home.

1. Presumably, your "we have a superweapon" talk would say that it can be carried on a single plane. That is literally the main/only advantage of first-gen nukes.

Also, the maneuvers that a B-29 needed to do to escape the blast of one of those weapons was really extreme - and Japanese engineers would likely be able to figure this out too. Those maneuvers mean that you can't fly in close formation. (Or really any sort of formation with separations not measured in miles)

2. "But we should have tried more!" is always something that can be said. I'm really not sure this changes the overall moral calculus.

3. You're linking to something saying "other US bombing raids were worse than the nukes" and using it to argue that the nukes weren't necessary. I can't really understand this either. (I'm not sure that Japan could have actually retooled to move more productive capacity out of the cities than they were already doing. But when you're trying for a psychological outcome - surrender - "we knew this was coming and planned for it" is a lot easier to handle than "what the hell just happened")

Finally, yes - Japan was confined to a series of islands with little besides coal and people. They were never going to win, not so long as the US had the will to continue the fight. But surrendering 6 months later would mean huge casualties for the invaders, massive losses for the defenders, and unimaginable horrors for the civilian population. We should all be happy for the millions of people that didn't starve to death, and for the millions who didn't have to walk their children off of cliffs or have the family hug a grenade.

> We should all be happy for the millions of people that didn't starve to death, and for the millions who didn't have to walk their children off of cliffs or have the family hug a grenade.

Before we thank ourselves for all the lives we "saved", we should remember all of those that died in the name of an unnecessary exercise in human greed and cruelty.

While I'll be the first to admit that the US's current foreign wars are unnecessary, far fewer people would say so about ww2's Pacific campaign. (Unless you're placing the blame on the US's prewar trade embargo?)

It was to create the impression there was an indefinite supply of bombs, but to who?

I believe there is an opinion of some that part of the motivation was to prevent the Soviet Union from moving in after Japan's defeat, like they did in Europe.

This is often asserted as if it were a shocking revelation and a moral indictment of the decision.

However, it seems to me both a plausible motivation (I haven't bothered to read up on the evidence or don't remember if I have) and potentially morally defensible, particularly in hindsight.

Actually they had already lost the war on the chinese front and would have surrendered anyway...

That's the popular narrative, yes. I've seldom heard a historian endorse it. Rather, the evidence suggests that the surrender was primarily triggered by the Soviet Union's declaration of war.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap...

Note that it's in the interests of both countries to promote the Bomb narrative - America to justify the financial and moral cost, and Japan to justify the loss of the war (a black-swan wonder-weapon being a less shameful reason for defeat than military incompetence). But in truth, Japan's cities had already been firebombed to smithereens - in that context the Bomb wasn't really all that shocking.

Odd, no mention of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

No bomb cloud that dispersed heavy elements.

If you watch videos of the incident you can see the core exploded. It sent material up over the Pacific ocean. They are also planning to dump millions of gallons of water into the ocean. This in addition to all the current leaks.

The main concern is salt water was used to cool the meltdown. This creates very large amounts of isotopes.

Ill take the down votes, guess it was the US.

I remember a few years ago, there was a lot of concern that much of the honey sold in American supermarkets was of unknown origin, and possibly from Asia where safety regulations are more lax.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/11/25/142659547/re...

Well, I guess there's now there's an easy way to tell if your honey is really from America or not: grab a Geiger counter.

Uranium glows under UV light so I guess you could try that.

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