"Dark Lightning" Could Expose Airline Passengers To Radiation 263
mbstone writes "Lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology claims that thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays which could cause airline passengers to receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body. Dwyer hopes his sensor aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, will provide more data."
Why haven't we seen the effects then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
Re:No Dosometers on Board (Score:5, Insightful)
If they do not carry dosimeters, why not?
It's an avoidable business expense. As most airlines are either bankrupt or teetering on the edge, they don't spend a red cent more than they absolutely have to.
Plus why carry something that could only give your airline bad publicity, and open up the possibility of being sued for "not taking sufficient evasive measures".
Re: Hrmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally I would say Whoosh.
In your case I have to say Douche.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, if you have to looking for symptoms, it can't be that bad.
The symptoms, in the form of radiation damage, don't appear until many years afterwards. Like the damage cigarettes cause, for example.
How do you associate your cancer to the airplane rides you took 20 years previously?
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, to make it a million to one chance he'd need to have one pilot blindfolded while a stewardess dances a waltz down the center, with the airplane going directly through a thunderstorm.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Well this should be easy enough -- there are tens of thousands of retired lifetime commercial pilots already. Do they have increased cancer risks?
Stop blathering and look into it. I would think such would have been discovered already, in fact.
Re: Hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Gamma rays are stopped by 1/4 inches of aluminum? I can see it messing with radio waves, but gamma radiation? Requiring all passenger planes to include a radiation dosimeter for a while (include it with the black box recorder) and we would have a practical answer.