Fukushima's Nuclear Signature Found In California Wine (technologyreview.com) 140
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Is it possible to see the effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in California wines produced at the time? Today we get an answer, thanks to a study carried out by french pharmacologist Philippe Hubert and a couple of colleagues. "In January 2017, we came across a series of Californian wines (Cabernet Sauvignon) from vintage 2009 to 2012," say Hubert and company. This set of wines provides the perfect test. The Fukushima disaster occurred on March 11, 2011. Any wine made before that date should be free of the effects, while any dating from afterward could show them. The team began their study with the conventional measurement of cesium-137 levels in the unopened bottles. That showed levels to be indistinguishable from background noise.
But the team was able to carry out more-sensitive tests by opening the wine and reducing it to ash by evaporation. This involves heating the wine to 100 degrees Celsius for one hour and then increasing the temperature to 500 degrees Celsius for eight hours. In this way, a standard 750-milliliter bottle of wine produces around four grams of ashes. The ashes were then placed in a gamma ray detector to look for signs of cesium-137. Using this method, Hubert and his colleagues found measurable amounts of cesium-137 above background levels in the wine produced after 2011. "It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two," conclude the team.
But the team was able to carry out more-sensitive tests by opening the wine and reducing it to ash by evaporation. This involves heating the wine to 100 degrees Celsius for one hour and then increasing the temperature to 500 degrees Celsius for eight hours. In this way, a standard 750-milliliter bottle of wine produces around four grams of ashes. The ashes were then placed in a gamma ray detector to look for signs of cesium-137. Using this method, Hubert and his colleagues found measurable amounts of cesium-137 above background levels in the wine produced after 2011. "It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two," conclude the team.
Re: (Score:3)
NukaSauvignon, maybe?
Re: (Score:2)
Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about over-hyped headlines. The only important sentence is, "[They] showed levels to be indistinguishable from background noise."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny when I read it I see:
“It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two,” conclude the team."
But.. keep it up.. I can see you enjoy it.
Re: (Score:2)
> “It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two,” conclude the team."
Re: (Score:2)
> "It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two," conclude the team.
...over background noise.
No. The background noise statement was referring to unopened bottles. The "factor of two" statement refers to concentrated samples without water or glass shielding.
It's still "a factor of two" compared to a baseline that is unstated and probably not much above background -- a meaningless statement couched in scientific terms.
If you read TFA, however, it is a bit clearer:
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
too much free time...who pays for them anyway?
The French are still butt-hurt that California wines have become so much better than the tasteless French wines. Now they're resorting to FUD .
Pathetic.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope.
Re: (Score:2)
I still have a hoard of dried kelp, too.
Re: (Score:2)
"The only thing that really concerns me about all of this is the fact that it's still leaking into the ocean."
If I recall correctly, "They" built a barrier to keep water from seeping INTO the Fukushima site and thus increasing the amount of contaminated water they had to deal with. Presumably that also keeps most radioactive material -- predominantly Tritium which is a VERY weak beta emitter and pretty much harmless -- from seeping out.
Typical of most of the unending stream of enviro-crap posted by Slashdo
Re: (Score:3)
Ultimately, the amount of radiation in the leaking water is negligible. The water stored in the containers on site is just twice more radioactive than low-grade nuclear waste that can be legally discharged into sea.
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW, The Register article on this https://www.theregister.co.uk/... [theregister.co.uk] contains some actual data including a chart that shows that levels of Cs137 in 2011 wines are several orders of magnitude BELOW those from the era of atmospheric nuclear tests (1950s/1960s) https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/07... [regmedia.co.uk]
The comments on the Register article are interesting as well. I didn't know that mushrooms and cucumbers (the skins) seem to be effective collectors and concentrators of Cs137.
Re: (Score:2)
-- predominantly Tritium which is a VERY weak beta emitter and pretty much harmless -- ...
Harmless if you don't inhale it.
Tell that a fish living in water
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably that also keeps most radioactive material -- predominantly Tritium which is a VERY weak beta emitter and pretty much harmless -- from seeping out.
Typical of most of the unending stream of enviro-crap posted by Slashdot editors the abstract an the link don't provide any usable quantification of the radioactive material in question.
This may help, a list of some scientific studies on the effects of tritium, with references, in case there is any doubt regarding Triated water's effect on living beings.
Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects. From those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damagin
Re: (Score:2)
The only thing that really concerns me about all of this is the fact that it's still leaking into the ocean...
If you go to a random spot in the ocean, near Japan, near Fukushima, the reason the radiation level is not uniform is that there is a lot more radiation near rocks. Same as everywhere else.
If you swam past naked, there would be little to no difference in your radiation exposure as if you swam past another spot somewhere else in the world with equal proximity to rocks. And it is nothing compared to the level of exposure you get from living in a brick or stone house.
The risks mostly impact people who breathed
Re:Congratulations! (Score:5, Funny)
You have proven we can detect previously unmeasurably small amounts of radiation. Seriouslly? You had to boil down an entire bottle of wine to 4 grams of solids, then put that into the core of a gamma ray detector, just so you can determine that instead of one atom of Cesium-137, there were two. Talk about over-hyped headlines. The only important sentence is, "[They] showed levels to be indistinguishable from background noise."
Yeah, its ridiculous, but /. doesn't discriminate when you can say Fukushima or radiation. Makes for a headline. Selectively of content that has credibility is long gone.
The ability to detect incredibly small trace amounts of anything could be a good story. This would be the equivalent of me farting in Kansas and someone smelling it on Uluru.
Re: (Score:1)
You have proven we can detect previously unmeasurably small amounts of radiation. Seriouslly? You had to boil down an entire bottle of wine to 4 grams of solids, then put that into the core of a gamma ray detector, just so you can determine that instead of one atom of Cesium-137, there were two.
Talk about over-hyped headlines. The only important sentence is, "[They] showed levels to be indistinguishable from background noise."
Yeah, its ridiculous, but /. doesn't discriminate when you can say Fukushima or radiation. Makes for a headline. Selectively of content that has credibility is long gone.
The ability to detect incredibly small trace amounts of anything could be a good story. This would be the equivalent of me farting in Kansas and someone smelling it on Uluru.
Add to that the sampling has no statistical significance at all. They have proven they can find a one bottle of wine with a tiny bit more than another.
At least we can sit back and see how many weak minds soak this up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Nope, nothing to do with any of that.
Cesium detection is used to non-invasively date wines to prevent fraud. Vintage wine is worth more so of course people try to counterfeit it.
Older wines show much higher levels due to the fallout from nuclear weapon testing.
This is interesting because while it's obviously not non-invasive it does show that it is possible to use Cesium levels to date wine around the time of the accident.
Slashdot is full of nuclear fanboys who get terribly offended when anyone mentions any
Re: (Score:1)
>>Slashdot is full of nuclear fanboys who get terribly offended when anyone mentions any kind of emissions from their beloved reactors.
No we just get irritated by people who knee-jerk to any mention of radioactivity without understanding that we are constantly exposed to radiation, and that bananas and coal combustion are significantly larger sources than nuclear power generation.
fyi, the word is spelled fanboi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like the fanboys have mod points. "-1 Flamebait help mah nooclear!" is a rather lame mod.
Re: (Score:2)
>>Slashdot is full of nuclear fanboys who get terribly offended when anyone mentions any kind of emissions from their beloved reactors.
No we just get irritated by people who knee-jerk to any mention of radioactivity without understanding that we are constantly exposed to radiation, and that bananas and coal combustion are significantly larger sources than nuclear power generation.
fyi, the word is spelled fanboi
Yes, the AC is a fanboi [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:1)
The ability to detect incredibly small trace amounts of anything could be a good story. This would be the equivalent of me farting in Kansas and someone smelling it on Uluru.
It's a good analogy, an atomic fart. It's the one the Japanese made with Nuclear Boi [youtube.com] and just like a silent but deadly fart it traveled across the pacific to find a home in American wine. Unlike the cartoon whilst the poop was to heavy to travel in the air it would seem from the evidence though that Nuclear Boi did poop and the poop can float. The pu in the diaper is way to stinky for anyone to handle.
Yeah, its ridiculous, but /. doesn't discriminate when you can say Fukushima or radiation. Makes for a headline. Selectively of content that has credibility is long gone.
Fortunately the wall of nuclear idealism that we see on /. prevented radioactive isotopes from Fukushima
Re: Congratulations! (Score:2)
Dude. You just had a brainfart that can be smelled around the world.
Re: (Score:1)
Dude. You just had a brainfart that can be smelled around the world.
Thanks c6gunner - that must be scat foreplay, I'm flattered but not into it personally.
Re: (Score:2)
Now the downmod makes it that awkward funny kind of moment, the uncomfortable truth kind of downmod. That uncomfortable moment at dinner when everybody realizes that Nuclear Boi farted and the jet stream carried the stink down wind to the US. oooopppsss.
Nuclear Idealists, I'm never sure if they're punchline or the joke.
Re: (Score:2)
your use of 'bathed in fissile products' is a great example of your use of hyperbole and intellectual dishonesty with pure intend to spread FUD.
Of course if you'd read the article you would see that statement was used three times, once under the headline:
The Japanese nuclear disaster bathed north America in a radioactive cloud.
The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 bathed much of Europe, and other parts of the world, in a radioactive cloud that increased atmospheric levels of cesium-137 again.
It released a radioactive cloud that bathed North America in fissile by-products.
What about North America was suffused, imbued, showered, soaked, steeped,
Re: (Score:2)
I see you are a useful idiot, nothing useful to say except more idiocracy. All you are doing is demonstrating you never read the article. You're boring.
Re: (Score:2)
A predictable response from a FUD monger.
You've always been too stupid to figure out the risks even when I explained them to you ad nauseam. You can't even explain your point and your pathetic linguistic take down failed. Your bathed in ignorance so why would I waste my time.
You haven't yet posted your 'scary stuff' list.
To start Plutonium Chloride and Plutonium Oxide are the two most obvious. Whenever we get a list of other decay products from an unbiased source we'll know the rest.
You're welcome to keep proving your ignorance however it is clear you have nothing of value to add.
Re: (Score:3)
The fact is that this is interesting, but not in the way that Slashdot presented it. This is effectively a negative result, and knowing this IS important. You have to check to make sure, but now that you have checked, the result appears less than overwhelming. Great. Move on, and know it isn't an issue. What we don't have to do is make it known in the popular press, only in agricultural circles would this be an important (but negative) result.
Re: (Score:2)
The most important sentence is TFS headline.
This is a science article and it's what I signed up for.
News for nerds, stuff that matters.
It matters to me.
Re: (Score:2)
You had to boil down an entire bottle of wine to 4 grams of solids, then put that into the core of a gamma ray detector ...
Yes, but it really highlights the fruity notes and tannins [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the headline should have been, "French win snobs use physics to prove they hate California."
Also, the editors screwed up the flag; the French flag is vertical bars of blue, white, and red.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Talk about over-hyped headlines.
"Fukushima's Nuclear Signature Found In California Wine"
Is it a true statement? TFA says "yes", found by a researcher that's done type of thing since 2000 to audit wines. The only hype I see after a quick scan of the threads are from commenters.
"The only important sentence..." that you detailed is directly contradicted by the conclusion of the summary.
I noticed that the only prediction that the scientist made is that "That probably won’t be very useful for fraud detection in California wine—the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you are missing the point. The idea was to discover if a disaster thousands of miles away could become part of a land based ecosystem at that distance. You are assuming this is about safety of wine, it isn't. And it is valuable to know if, for some reason, someone proposes to build 100 fukushima type plants (with all the poor choices that would entail).
Re: (Score:2)
French wine is enjoyed at perfect temperature.
With the correct use of online memes wine users will be returning to French and EU quality and food standards.
Fishing for that result? (Score:4, Insightful)
"It seems there is an increase in activity in 2011 by a factor of two," conclude the team.
No...
The team began their study with the conventional measurement of cesium-137 levels in the unopened bottles. That showed levels to be indistinguishable from background noise.
What I conclude is that this testing method, removing the 99.5% water mass, simply makes it possible to detect otherwise undetectable amounts of cesium-137.
Sounds more like a French "researcher" wants to scare people off California wine so they will buy more French wine. OMG! DOUBLE the radiation as before! And if that "double dose" of radioactivity is still 4 orders of magnitude less than, say, standing out in direct sunlight, then it's a bit dishonest to publish this "conclusion" and pretend it's very significant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, it was the French analyzing California wine. What did you expect?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it was the French analyzing California wine. What did you expect?
One wonders if they also looked at French wine using the same process/rigour?
Re: (Score:2)
One wonders if they also looked at French wine using the same process/rigour?
During/after the Chernobyl incident? No. France simply declared that the radioactive cloud would not pass over the french border. (That is not a joke).
Re: (Score:2)
One wonders if they also looked at French wine using the same process/rigour?
During/after the Chernobyl incident? No. France simply declared that the radioactive cloud would not pass over the french border. (That is not a joke).
What, because of some kind of force field?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, here are some facts:
1. Nobody is claiming that this is a health risk, or that the Cs-137 in the wine is a problem.
2. The question posed by Dr. Hubert is simple - can he detect the presence of the Fukushima disaster in post-Fukushima California wine? The answer is yes.
3. Dr. Hubert is perhaps the world expert on low-background radiation measurements.
4. Similar work has put people in jail. Wine fraud is big business, but Dr. Hubert can tell that that "1923" Chateau Whatever was produced after the nuclear
Re: (Score:2)
What I conclude is that this testing method, removing the 99.5% water mass, simply makes it possible to detect otherwise undetectable amounts of cesium-137.
Then you would be wrong. "Background" and "undetectable" are not synonyms. "Background" can be quite a bit higher than the detection limit.
What removing the water and ashing the remainder does is concentrate the sample and bring the level above background, which is what you would expect if you concentrate anything. Doing the same thing to a pre-Fuk wine of recent vintage results in a reading of X. Post-Fuk you get 2*X. In both cases X is detectable and above background. Unconcentrated wines don't measure
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, a "spectrometer" measures the radiation "spectrum".
Re: (Score:2)
Your first claim is factually incorrect. They could not detect any more radiation. They didn't even measure it.
The first sentence of paragraph 2 of the arxiv [arxiv.org] paper: "The technique used is low background gamma spectrometry and measurements are made at the PRISNA facility." Gamma spectrometry is a measurement of the energy spectrum of gamma rays -- in other words, a measurement of radioactivity. (Yes, you have to integrate over all energies to get a total radioactivity, but it's measuring radioactivity just the same.)
What they did was simply to look for presence of any cesium 137 atoms in a spectrometer.
Your claim is factually incorrect. Gamma measurements do not directly measure the number of Cs 137 ato
Re: (Score:2)
Oui oui! You muzt drink zee wine from la France!
You're drinking it wrongly (Score:5, Funny)
Before anyone pushes the panic button (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real use of this research beyond curiosity is authenticating wine (but only if there's enough that destroying a liter of it is worthwhile). Fukushima created a barely detectable bump compared to the few years before the incident.
Looking at the graphs in the actual paper, The signature isn't really even visible compared to the spikes after the '50s nuclear tests.
Re: (Score:2)
Read TFA. They were unable to detect anything outside of the noise without destructive testing.
Using the Wine is not an Emulator topic icon. (Score:2)
Wrong association. (Score:1)
The levels of Cesium-137 are a radioisotopic measure, not a location measure.
"Fukushima's nuclear signature" is a mistake of the research. No citations. No proofs. No relations.
California has many wine's farms.
But California has many nuclear centrals.
The environment of Nevada or New Mexico was polluted by their nuclear detonations in the past. It could affect to the wine's farms of California.
That's alcohol abuse! (Score:4, Funny)
Don't they know that they are supposed to drink the wine? Not reduce it to ash? There's more than one way to abuse alcohol. You can drink too much of it, or waste it by not drinking it at all.
I'm surprised that the California health bored hasn't demanded that there be a warning on the labels that Cesium-137 may be present in the wines and is known to cause cancer.
Re: (Score:2)
I know, right? Those crazy libs. Everybody knows that Cesium-137 is perfectly safe.
Re: (Score:2)
Whooosh!!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure your wooosh got woooshed and you don't even realize it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure your wooosh got woooshed and you don't even realize it.
Blindseer was having a whine. The Whoooooosh our idealistic nuclear friends are experiencing is that this is the first evidence of radio-isotopes bio-accumulating in American produce. Reading the threads here they are in full denial, unable to reason or do anything that conflicts with their nuclear ideology.
They're too willfully ignorant to admit to themselves that this is and has been occurring, blindseer is a great example of willful ignorance. They'd like to believe that it's the only bottle of wine
Re: (Score:2)
First instance? Ignorance must be bliss. You even talk about pro-nucs being willfully ignorant! What delicious (and banana-flavored) irony!
Potassium is only one analogue for bio-accumulation, pu239 analogues Iron - getting enough iron in your diet? getting enough iodine, calcium. Some do, some don't, can you wrap your binary mind around that concept or would you like to continue to demonstrate your idiocracy?
Oh and I wasn't talking about pro-nucs, I was talking about Nuclear Ideologists such as yourself, useful idiots compelled to post their trite empty bullshit.
Thanks for demonstrating everything in my post. Do come back and prove it s
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it's boring. Or was. Now it's just bored....
BFD (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Natural isotopes in coal are not enriched isotopes from nuclear.
Re: (Score:2)
Caesium 137 is not an "enriched" isotope, it is a decay product.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for pointing that out. My point is that the stuff coming out of coal are natural isotopes and whilst they should be collected the stuff coming out of the Nuclear are artificial products and generally much more toxic.
If there is going to be issue about natural isotopes being released then they should not be released from Nuclear Industry processes either.
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, not all coals are contaminated with radioactive materials. It simply depends which kind of rock or sediments are around the coal.
Radioactivity comes mainly from Radon, Uranium, Thorium and some Lead isotopes.
As ash is collected and the typical "fly ash" no longer exists in industrialized countries, not much is escaping.
The numbers one can find are that worst case the ash is as concentrated as yellow cake uranium ore from pit mines.
Yes, I fully agree that isotopes where every they come from sho
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, not all coals are contaminated with radioactive materials. It simply depends which kind of rock or sediments are around the coal.
Yes agreed, ore quality.
Radioactivity comes mainly from Radon, Uranium, Thorium and some Lead isotopes.
Seems like what you would expect.
As ash is collected and the typical "fly ash" no longer exists in industrialized countries, not much is escaping.
It's commonly used as a concrete additive where I live.
The numbers one can find are that worst case the ash is as concentrated as yellow cake uranium ore from pit mines.
Yes, a big energy input of Nuclear Energy, usually fuel oil where they mine it. We have that in my country and they allow something that is illegal in America and Russia - in situ-acid leach mine to get yellow cake which leaves concentrated naturally radioactive sulfuric acid. There was an accident where a 2 Mega litre dam burst. Pollutes ground water quite effectively.
Yes, I fully agree that isotopes where every they come from should not be spread around.
Nuclear idealists do
Re: (Score:2)
Of course coal has put far more radiation into the air and water than has nuke power. ...
It hasn't, that myth is debunked since the 1960s
Ah... (Score:2)
So that's the fizzy taste.
I like food that fights back.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
About 94.6% of Cesium-137 decays by beta emission to a metastable nuclear isomer of barium: barium-137m (137mBa, Ba-137m). The remainder directly populates the ground state of barium-137, which is stable. Ba-137m has a half-life of about 153 seconds, and is responsible for all of the emissions of gamma rays in samples of caesium-137. 85.1% of metastable barium then decays to ground state by emission of gamma rays having energy 0.6617 MeV.
Oh Yea! (Score:1)
Well, I can still detect Chernobyl's nuclear signature in French truffles! So there. In other news, bananas are radioactive. You are radio active too! Fact. This is just meaningless scare mongering with a little error in sample. The paper was written by a nincompoop. Source: am a physicist and have worked with gamma ray spectroscopy.
They should have experimented on cannibis (Score:1)
You guys are missing the point (Score:2)
The slashbots are at it again...at least the summary isn't "alarming", it's stating the facts. You are all jumping to conclusions mat.
"Tell your mom I'm just gonna get a little cacner, Stan"
Finally! (Score:2)
My wine-cellar light is broken, I could use wine that glows in the dark.
Re: (Score:2)
You just need to arrange it carefully, so you can pick the non glowing bottles in between.
Story behind this wine (Score:1)
Reminds me of some wine/cigar/whisky enthusiasts saying they like when there is a story and history behind whatever they are drinking/smoking.
Not sure this is the story they wanted though.
Non-event (Score:2)
So using their own graph and comparing to when countries were actively conducting nuclear testing it's somewhere around 0.1% of the Cesium from back then. Anyone drinking a bottle of wine from 2011 shouldn't care. Anyone drinking a bottle of wine from the 50s or 60s however...where is the PSA? Where I ask you?? Where???