The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed a way to more efficiently calibrate the detectors to ignore low-level and nature radiation bought by international cargo when they pass the US ports. Because of the false alarm, the agents from Customs and Border Protection need to reinspect the cargo. However, the new system has reduced the alarm rates dramatically by an average of 78 percent at seaports and an average of 44 percent at land border crossings. Moreover, the new system also reduced 50% alarm rates on mobile monitors. The reductions on false alarm saves Customs and Border Protection more than 57,000
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Congress faces pressure to help rejected nuclear workers
Even with $12 billion federal program in helping sick nuclear-weapons workers, there are still tens of thousands sick nuclear workers were not able to have the compensation from the U.S. government leading an investigation. Because of the bureaucratic hurdles, many of the sick workers had to fight for their illness and the government in their final years. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program was launched in 2001. Under this program, 53,000 sickened or dead workers got compensated but the money went to surviving relatives in many cases. On the other hand, 7,762 workers did not get any compensation even
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Advances improve radiation therapy
Every year, there are more than 1 million cancer patients receiving radiation therapy for their treatment. Therefore, the advanced treatment technology is needed in order to reduce the amount of radiation exposure to patience’s critical organs as well as the side-effects. With the Active Breath Control (ABC) technology, women would have less likelihood to suffer from harmful exposure of the heart to radiation during the treatment. The external-beam radiation therapy technology has been improved by boosting the speed and precision of treatment leading a shorter treatment times. Similarly, brachytherapy in the external-beam radiation therapy has been dramatically improved allowing higher
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Tokyo food radiation safety: It’s personal
The attitude toward food safety is rather a personal preference among the Tokyo residents after the Fukushima nuclear plant incidence which led to a serious radiation scare. Checking for food labels may be enough for some consumers, but some take it to the next level by going to the radiation monitoring stations to ensure food safety. On the other hand, many of them already went back to the normal as they were before the disaster. Although the government has been setting up radiation monitoring centers for people to check food safety, getting yes-or-no answers is not easy. People still need
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