When we started developing the website, we read the posts of Rosane regarding Environment & Manking in our orkut community. She reflects the things so nicely that it is understood very easily by all. So, an idea came to our mind to present her knowledge and innovation through blogs by attaching it to our website. In this way, we can help lots of people (that is the mission of our group).

When we sent her a mail discussing this idea, we got a reply in a day. You yourself read her views on writing the blog:

"The peace I have today is different from the peace I’ve dreamed one day.
Only with time, have I learned that peace is to take responsibilities and fulfill them; is to have serenity in the most difficult moments of life.
Today I want to hear and speak words that build. I want to have the courage to cry or to smile whenever I feel like doing it...
I want to accept with humbleness that I don’t know everything, but I want to share the little I know.
I like to remember that nature is so exuberant exactly because the differences it shows in its creatures. Each one of us is special, on Earth, and we have the mission that the Divine Creator has entrusted us.
I want to bring: peace, joy and much news."

Friday, March 18, 2011

Effects of radiation on the environment.

Japan was hit on Friday (11) by a earthquake of magnitude 9. The quake affected the electricity supply, which caused a breakdown in the cooling of the reactors in a atomic plant. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the risk of core melts, the worst accident that can occur in a plant is "great." The radiation in cases of major spills can contaminate water, soil, animals and everything that has life.
If melting occurs, three types of radiation are released into the environment:
Alpha, beta and gamma:



.
Alpha radiation can not penetrate the body; it causes a skin burn; the beta and gamma radiation - mainly gamma - enter the body and cause cellular deformation.
This is the same gamma radiation used in radiotherapy treatments, just to fight cancer. At low doses, it destroys tumors. At high, it can cause cell damage that leads to cancer.
The radioactivity can affect health in two main ways: When is ionizing, means: It is capable of changing the chemical structure of substances. With this, it changes the characteristics of common substances in our body; from the water, for example, it can form free radicals, which, in excess impairs the body's functioning.
Another possibility is that nuclear radiation directly affects the cells. The change in chemical structure of the elements can represent, for example, breaking of the DNA chain.
The modern medicine, still, can not tell if there is a limit amount of radiation to which the body must be exposed to such effects could develop cancer.

Exposure to rays is not the only risk to which the human body is subjected in relation to radioactivity. It is even more important to prevent people incorporate radioactive material. The most common way this happens is by inhalation of gases that mingle with the atmosphere after a leak.
One element that represents a bigger threat in this sense is iodine. The human body needs it to function normally and the thyroid tends to absorb radioactive iodine particles that are suspended in the air. To prevent this, are being given pills non-radioactive iodine to the population. Thus, the body becomes saturated and the element, even if it is inhaled in radioactive form, will not be absorbed.
The meltdown of a nuclear reactor does not kill people like a bomb. What kills even in case of a nuclear bomb is not the radiation, is the shock wave, then the heat wave and finally the radiation. Intensity of radioactive material in a nuclear bomb is much greater because the energy spent is very large and has no barrier. Yet, a reactor has four barriers against the release of nuclear material into the environment.

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