Did you know that there are foods, especially a lovable yellow fleshy one that is radioactive??? Yes, you guessed it right........ Banana!!!! Never can anyone leave the habit of eating those delicious curvy fruits. Wanna know why they are radioactive? Here you go....
**The element that makes bananas official radioactive food is an isotope of potassium. Potassium-40 (K-40) is about .01 percent of all potassium. It has a half-life of around 1.25 billion years, which means it's not going anywhere. K-40 decays two different ways. About 89% of the time, one of its neutrons decays to a proton, turning it from potassium to calcium. When it does this, it emits a beta particle - an electron. About 11% of the time, potassium decays by capturing an electron and turning one of its protons into a neutron. When it does this it emits gamma rays - very high intensity radiation. Exposure to enough beta radiation or gamma radiation can cause radiation sickness and high rates of cancer.
Actually there's also a name for this - Banana Equivalent Dose (BED). It isn't random but just an informal expression of ionizing radiation exposure. There are quite a few foods that are naturally radioactive, and the banana is just an extreme example.
**There isn't much to worry about...... because when a person eats an average 150 gram banana, they absorb about 0.1 micro-Sieverts of radiation. A person would have to eat 27 bananas a day for 100 years to up their cancer risk by 1 percent.
No worries we have the Minions to lead the way!!!!!
(**Reference : gizmodo.com ; physicsbuzz)
**The element that makes bananas official radioactive food is an isotope of potassium. Potassium-40 (K-40) is about .01 percent of all potassium. It has a half-life of around 1.25 billion years, which means it's not going anywhere. K-40 decays two different ways. About 89% of the time, one of its neutrons decays to a proton, turning it from potassium to calcium. When it does this, it emits a beta particle - an electron. About 11% of the time, potassium decays by capturing an electron and turning one of its protons into a neutron. When it does this it emits gamma rays - very high intensity radiation. Exposure to enough beta radiation or gamma radiation can cause radiation sickness and high rates of cancer.
Actually there's also a name for this - Banana Equivalent Dose (BED). It isn't random but just an informal expression of ionizing radiation exposure. There are quite a few foods that are naturally radioactive, and the banana is just an extreme example.
**There isn't much to worry about...... because when a person eats an average 150 gram banana, they absorb about 0.1 micro-Sieverts of radiation. A person would have to eat 27 bananas a day for 100 years to up their cancer risk by 1 percent.
No worries we have the Minions to lead the way!!!!!
(**Reference : gizmodo.com ; physicsbuzz)