Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 22:29:24 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au> To: alasir@supereva.it Cc: Kent Stewart <kstewart@owt.com>, stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ECC memory error reporting Message-ID: <20030217112923.GG53497@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20030217044929.22208.qmail@web40306.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20030217044929.22208.qmail@web40306.mail.yahoo.com>
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On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 08:49:29PM -0800, Rhett Monteg Hollander wrote: >Alphas, not betas. Alpha particle consists of a He nucleus (2 neutrons + 2 >protons), and since it carries positive charge and is relatively massive, it >can be halted by a single sheet of paper. Absolutely no danger to human health. As long as it's outside the body. You don't want to ingest or inhale an alpha-emitter if you value your health. And whilst the skin will stop alpha particles, you could still wind up with an unattractive melanoma. > You >can wash you hands in D2O (aka "heavy water"), and won't get any harm. Deuterium (H-2) isn't radioactive _at_all_ so there's no danger of radiation poisoning. (It is, however, a biological poison because deuterium is sufficiently different to hydrogen to gum up some of the metabolic pathways). BTW, normal tap water is ~0.1% D2O or DHO. Tritium (H-3) is a totally different animal. T20 _would_ be quite dangerous - it will poison some biological pathways because it's much heavier than hydrogen and if it does wind up in a cell, the radioactive decay will kill the cell. Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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