From owner-freebsd-stable Mon Feb 17 3:29:30 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6DE9F37B405 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 2003 03:29:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (c18609.belrs1.nsw.optusnet.com.au [210.49.80.204]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 261BF43F85 for ; Mon, 17 Feb 2003 03:29:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (localhost.alcatel.com.au [127.0.0.1]) by cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id h1HBTPLZ063605; Mon, 17 Feb 2003 22:29:26 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from jeremyp@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au) Received: (from jeremyp@localhost) by cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (8.12.6/8.12.5/Submit) id h1HBTO09063604; Mon, 17 Feb 2003 22:29:24 +1100 (EST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 22:29:24 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: alasir@supereva.it Cc: Kent Stewart , stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ECC memory error reporting Message-ID: <20030217112923.GG53497@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> References: <20030217044929.22208.qmail@web40306.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030217044929.22208.qmail@web40306.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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