Preparing for a Vietnam

[kallend 1,677]

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I should also add, that the intended audience of the paper was a college freshman english class, so it stands to reason that it will read as such. The format was my fault.

I don't follow. Why? Freshmen are capable of reading well written scientific articles. Writing them, too.

The repeatedly shown political biases and the very limited citation list cast considerable doubt on any scientifically based claims being made. The article was a hit piece on the practice of DU ammunition. I suspect there is a lot to be said for this subject, but this author is clearly exaggerating the scope of the damaging effects, killing its credibility.

As Dorbie pointed out, a microscopic amount of U-238 in the body can't result in a continuous supply of contaminating semen. The author also makes sloppy references to the halflife of Uranium, rather than of U-238. And after explaining that alpha decay is stopped by the outer layer of the skin, talks about how radioactive the alpha decay of U-238 is.

The Moret author cited repeatedly might have a reasonably constructed paper, but what you cited as proof was utter crap.

Alpha decay is particularly harmful if it comes from microscopic particles breathed into the lungs. Like oxide particles from burning or burnt DU.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jcd11235 0]

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reshmen are capable of reading well written scientific articles. Writing them, too.

True, but that was not the scope of the assignment, and writing the paper in such a manner would have resulted in a lower grade. And make no mistake, the paper a was written as an assignment, and not a post here. I saw some very credible sources used for research. If certain sources were chosen over others within the actual text, it was for readability reasons, and not because of a lack of credible supporting sources.

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[EricTheRed 0]

You don't even need heavy metals for some pretty spectacular results

Check out http://www.qsinano.com/aluminum.html

Commercailly available, and a great yeild.

illegible usually

[jcd11235 0]

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Have they? I haven't seen that. The only person I know who is well studied and current on the topic wrote the paper. Granted he only checked 20 - 30 sources, so he might not know what he's talking about.

It appears I mispoke. There is, in fact, an expert in our midst. At least that is the impression I got from his website. While, technically, I don't know him, he does appear more qualified than the author of the paper.

So, to Kallend, I offer an apology.

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[kallend 1,677]

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You don't even need heavy metals for some pretty spectacular results

Check out http://www.qsinano.com/aluminum.html

Commercailly available, and a great yeild.

Yes, but do they penetrate armor?

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,677]

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Have they? I haven't seen that. The only person I know who is well studied and current on the topic wrote the paper. Granted he only checked 20 - 30 sources, so he might not know what he's talking about.

It appears I mispoke. There is, in fact, an expert in our midst. At least that is the impression I got from his website. While, technically, I don't know him, he does appear more qualified than the author of the paper.

So, to Kallend, I offer an apology.

What for?

I thought I agreed with most of what you wrote:

DU does combust on impact, it forms a very (chemically) stable oxide in powder form (dust) that if ingested/inhaled can produce disease. On the whole HEAT rounds cause less environmental damage and less risk to the troops than DU, but they don't work well against reactive armor. Tungsten KE rounds would also be safer than DU.

But we have lots of DU left over from decades of making nukes.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jcd11235 0]

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What for?

I thought I agreed with most of what you wrote:

You did. I, however, implied that there was no one on the forum that was qualified to judge the paper as BS or otherwise. That was incorrect, you are certainly well qualified in that field.

I am guessing that it was not any easier for you to get your education than it is for me to be geting mine. You deserve to be acknowledged as being very well educated in that field, and my post did not reflect that. That is why I felt I owed you an apology.

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[LearningTOfly 0]

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If we want to win this war, I think it's critical to stop declaring victory every month and instead start showing people the reality - that it's going to be a long, hard war against an implacable enemy that will result in thousands of dead US soldiers, trillions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of dead civilians.

This brings up the question: is it worth it?
The US is prepared to send their kids of to distant lands only to return in bodybags for what?
To 'liberate' some poor county from a ruthless dictator... not quite- why should we have cared anyways? And why in that case don't we care about Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lybia... Saddam seemed to have things under control pretty well. Sure he was a bit ruthless, but who in the mid-east isn't these days? Besides, the entire region is still living by the school of thought that the western world knew five hundred years ago, so a bit of 'evil' is to be expected.
Maybe we invaded because we were scared of being blown to smitherines by the WMDs that they never had... although that theory has long been shot down. Iraq was subject to something on the order of 24000 bombing sorties over the ten years previous to this escapade- which didn't leave the mad scientists much time to concentrate.
Maybe it's for that black gooey goodness that lies under their sands. That would make sense... we have SUV's and they don't... why should they have all the oil when we need it? In that case, Iraq is just a county subject to invasion for resources in this now overpopulated world. We're playing the same game as the Vikings or Romans did- we're stong, they're weak, they have something that we want but won't give it too us, so we'll just take it. Maybe we'll colonize after as well... it'd be a heckofa spot for the next ClubMed.
Maybe it's because the Pax Americana idea is an idea that went away with the Cold War. It felt so warm and snuggly for the government to know that all the 'free' world was asking to hide under their wing for protection from the Commies. But that feeling is now gone, and the eagle once again is alone... until the next big bad enemy comes along; but, "hmmm, no enemy over there... none over here... oh, look, a 'terrorist'! Woohoo, we found our enemy! Wait, you guys (Germany, France, etc...) don't buy that? Fine then, we'll prove it, we're still tough, you'll see."

What do you think the real motive is?


The other unfortunate thing I see is all these kids fresh out of high school looking forward to killing someone... or killing lots of people (and we complained about Columbine and those type events... hello, it's what we're teaching our kids to do- if you don't like someone, kill 'em.) These guys graduate, enlist, and go out to, as I saw above: "get some". Like WTF is that?! Whatever happened to respect for human life? It's like because they're brown and poor that they're just the next generation of gophers that we're out to use for target practice...

[jcd11235 0]

Let's not forget that Rudolf Deisel used Corn oil to run his now famous engine at the 1900 World's Fair.

In 1937 (+/-) Henry Ford, anti-Semmite that he was, demonstrated the feasability of "growing cars from the soil." As I understand it, anthing that can be derived from petroleum can be derived from carbohydrates.

Cuba processes fuel from sugarcane, which is the number two plant for biomass production per acre. It can be done. We don't NEED oil. We use it because if we stopped, the wealth of the petrol companies would be redistributed, at least in part, to farmers and landowners.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[kelpdiver 2]

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reshmen are capable of reading well written scientific articles. Writing them, too.

True, but that was not the scope of the assignment, and writing the paper in such a manner would have resulted in a lower grade. And make no mistake, the paper a was written as an assignment, and not a post here. I saw some very credible sources used for research. If certain sources were chosen over others within the actual text, it was for readability reasons, and not because of a lack of credible supporting sources.

The scope of the assignment here is to make credible arguments. If you agree, then this was a poor choice, esp if you have better ones.

[dorbie 0]

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Have they? I haven't seen that. The only person I know who is well studied and current on the topic wrote the paper. Granted he only checked 20 - 30 sources, so he might not know what he's talking about.

It appears I mispoke. There is, in fact, an expert in our midst. At least that is the impression I got from his website. While, technically, I don't know him, he does appear more qualified than the author of the paper.

So, to Kallend, I offer an apology.

What for?

I thought I agreed with most of what you wrote:

DU does combust on impact, it forms a very (chemically) stable oxide in powder form (dust) that if ingested/inhaled can produce disease. On the whole HEAT rounds cause less environmental damage and less risk to the troops than DU, but they don't work well against reactive armor. Tungsten KE rounds would also be safer than DU.

But we have lots of DU left over from decades of making nukes.

He didn't just say it combusts on impact he said it begins to combusts in flight. Since you're talking about tank rounds, those penetrators are solid metal darts fired in a sabot they don't even touch the barrel.

DU as a penetrator has useful self sharpening characteristics, that's what makes it a great penetrator. DU is the best tool for the job in this case.

Alpha particles are harmful inside the body (as hopefully we all learned in highschool) but their numbers are critically important radiation damage depends heavily on statistics. We have all sorts of natural radiation exposure every day including alpha particles inside and outside the body.

Microgram quantities from a material with a half life of over 4 billion years and an atomic weight of 238 is not a recipie for high radiation exposure.

[EricTheRed 0]

Well no, not good for ballistic ammunition but I was just showign that metals, even non-exotic ones, can be produce a lot of energy.

While Al might not penetrate armor, it could easily be used in a very effective, light, compact and non-detectable (by current tech) suitcase bomb. I read one paper that was saying they were getting somewhere around 2X yeild as compared to HMX.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMX
Makes pretty damn good rocket fuel too if you can keep the engines from blowing up.

illegible usually

[jcd11235 0]

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Microgram quantities from a material with a half life of over 4 billion years and an atomic weight of 238 is not a recipie for high radiation exposure.

I assume you can support this argument with documentation? First, you might want to check out these:

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm

http://www.peacecourier.com/depleted_uranium.htm

While I am not an expert on the subject, others that are do not share your conclusions.

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[Guest]

Seems to me like a lot of bleeding hearts really want such things to happen, so that they can relive the glory days of the 60s.

Sorry, but Abbie Hoffman is dead and a lot of that silliness died with him, and good riddance.

mh

[billvon 2,469]

> Seems to me like a lot of bleeding hearts really want such things to happen . . .

And it almost seems to me like some right wingers want the war to continue as long as possible. It's been a great boon to them in some ways - they can call their opponents "anti-americans" and get people to rally around the flag with little more than a "hey, we're at war here!" statement. And war presidents are notoriously popular. Heck, even dead soldiers are good for their campaign to portray the enemy of the day as cold-blooded killers - ragheads, MILF's, insane extremists, whatever other derogatory term you can think of - rather than people.

I'm sure there will be a lot of disappointed right-wingers out there if we can figure out a way to restore peace to Iraq, but I think it's a worthy goal nonetheless. The best way to make that happen is to be honest with americans - even if it means telling them what the real costs of the war are going to be. We're adults, we can handle it. We just don't like being lied to.

[Zenister 0]

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> MILF's.....whatever other derogatory term

uh.... i'm guessing that we are using the same acronym for entirely different things...

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[jcd11235 0]

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uh.... i'm guessing that we are using the same acronym for entirely different things...

LMAO That's what I thought!

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[dorbie 0]

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Microgram quantities from a material with a half life of over 4 billion years and an atomic weight of 238 is not a recipie for high radiation exposure.

I assume you can support this argument with documentation? First, you might want to check out these:

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm

http://www.peacecourier.com/depleted_uranium.htm

While I am not an expert on the subject, others that are do not share your conclusions.

It's self evident given the known facts, are you incapable of actually considering the irrefutable facts w.r.t. half life, atomic mass and the mechanism of radioactive decay?

You have a Microgram of P-238 with back of the envelope calculations; using Avogadro's number and the atomic mass are 6.022x10^23 / 238 nuclei of P-238 in a gram of the stuff. In a microgram it's a millionth. That gives you about 2.5x10^14 nuclei, now half will decay in 4.5 billion years, so let's say ballpark in a year you have 5.5x10^4 nuclei decaying a year. Or about one decay particle every 10 minutes, double or tripple that for radiation from decay products Thorium and Protactinium, Uranium-234 will be irrelevant and for practical purposes stops the decay chain for our purposes. So no it's not particularly radioactive. Hopefully your friend won't plagerize this and use it to lend credibility to his B.S.

Edit: there's actually 2.5x10^15 nuclei so it works out at about one decay a minute.

Your first link makes absolutely no mention of any form of Uranium. The US did consider radiation weapons. I've read some of the reports and analysis on that. This was mainly through coatings around existing atomic weapons like Cobalt. Their biggest problem was trading contamination against time. In other words the ideal half life was something that wasn't too long so the material would be substantially radioactive but was long enough that it would stay sufficiently radioactive to "salt the earth" for a number of years. P-238 fails miserably as a radiation weapon. It is extra useful as a tamper because it will fission with neutron exposure and increase the yield of an A bomb producing Plutonium as a byproduct that may also fission.

Your other link is an activist Peace group with no credibility in the matter.

You can post words and opinion all you like but you have shown no evidence of toxicity and now you're focusing on radioactivity which is self evidently bogus to anyone who understands what actually causes radiation and knows the half life.

There are several solid facts working against you. P-238 has a huge atomic mass, 238, i.e. you don't get many atoms to the gram relative to other materials, (but OK that's true for a lot of radioactive materials), this matters because you're talking about masses of contaminants in the body, The half life is in excess of 4 billion years, this matters because half the material will have decayed emitting radiation in that period, so over a man's live span infinitessimal mass of the material will actually decay and that infinitessimal quantity will decay with few particles because the large atomic mass meanss it had relatively few nuclei. As per my earlier post there's a decay chain with P-238 but the production and decay of those byproducts is gated by the decay of P238 nuclei.

Your other posts have shown an inability or unwilingness to think critically about any of the information in the claims you see. Your only filter is that if it agrees with your preconceptions then it must be correct or expert opinion.

You haven't acknowleged any of your posted errors or bogus claims you just keep repeating them. It doesn't take great insight to poke holes in your nonsense, just a little bit of critical thinking, such as the mechanism of radiation and how it relates to half life or the business of contaminants leeching from the body into semen not staying in the body. This is fairly obvious stuff but you won't acknowlege any of it. You just post a self sustaining whirlwind of conspiracy theory with enough innocuous facts to make it sound credible to the naive.

[jcd11235 0]

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Your other posts have shown an inability or unwilingness to think critically about any of the information in the claims you see. Your only filter is that if it agrees with your preconceptions then it must be correct or expert opinion.

Your answers continually ignore oxidation.

Activist sights often contain credible information. There are former U.S. military officers that refute your claim of it being BS, including Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of the Army's Depleted Uranium Project. But I'm sure you have some reason why his opinion is invalid.

To quote the European Commission on Radiation Risk, "The report begins by identifying the existence of a dissonance between the risk models of the ICRP [International Commission on Radiological Protection] and epidemiological evidence of increased risk of illness, particularly cancer and leukaemia, in populations exposed to internal radioactive isotopes from anthropogenic sources. The committee addresses the basis in scientific philosophy of the ICRP risk model as applied to such risks and concludes that ICRP models have not arisen out of accepted scientific method. Specifically, ICRP has applied the results of external acute radiation exposure to internal chronic exposures from point sources and has relied mainly on physical models for radiation action to support this. However, these are averaging models and cannot apply to the probabilistic exposures which occur at the cell level. A cell is either hit or not hit; minimum impact is that of a hit and impact increases in multiples of this mimimum impact, spread over time. Thus the committee concludes that the epidemiological evidence of internal exposures must take precedence over mechanistic theory-based models in assessing radiation risk from internal sources."


http://www.imakenews.com/ea/e_article000124312.cfm

Like I said, I am not an expert on the subject. Obviously, neither are you.

It is my critical thinking skills, you know, those you claim I don't have or don't use, that allow me to see past the BS my government feeds me regarding certain topics. You might do well to develop some for yourself

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[dorbie 0]

Rubbish, oxidation does not affect radioactive decay. Geeze dude you just throw out this nonsense without a clue and imply a danger that doesn't exist.

The only thing oxidation would do is marginally reduce the number of nuclei of U-238 in a microgram. i.e. reduce the radiation per microgram of any ingested material.

Obviously you're totally unqualified to tell who the experts are.

You still haven't admitted any of your errors and stand by your nonsense. All you say in the face of hard facts and explanations is I'm not an expert, no doubt because I don't agree with you, and throw out non sequiturs about oxidation.

Get back to me when you can estimate the radiation doseage from a mass of a radioisotope and I might listen to you.

[kallend 1,677]

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Rubbish, oxidation does not affect radioactive decay. Geeze dude you just throw out this nonsense without a clue and imply a danger that doesn't exist.

The only thing oxidation would do is marginally reduce the number of nuclei of U-238 in a microgram. i.e. reduce the radiation per microgram of any ingested material.

Obviously you're totally unqualified to tell who the experts are.

You still haven't admitted any of your errors and stand by your nonsense. All you say in the face of hard facts and explanations is I'm not an expert, no doubt because I don't agree with you, and throw out non sequiturs about oxidation.

Get back to me when you can estimate the radiation doseage from a mass of a radioisotope and I might listen to you.

Oxidation is what produces the aerosol of oxide particles that get ingested. It's the oxidation that makes it particularly hazardous.

DU isn't pure U238 either. They can't get all the 235 out.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jcd11235 0]

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Get back to me when you can estimate the radiation doseage from a mass of a radioisotope and I might listen to you.

Explain how a software engineer knows more about DU than the former Director of the Depleted Uranium Project for the US Army, or the team of scientists on the European Commission on Radiation Risks.

If I need to know something about software you might be someone I would turn to, but when it comes to the effects of aerosoled DU dust, I will trust the experts in that field. You don't ask a bricklayer about diamonds, you go to a jeweler.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[dorbie 0]

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Rubbish, oxidation does not affect radioactive decay. Geeze dude you just throw out this nonsense without a clue and imply a danger that doesn't exist.

The only thing oxidation would do is marginally reduce the number of nuclei of U-238 in a microgram. i.e. reduce the radiation per microgram of any ingested material.

Obviously you're totally unqualified to tell who the experts are.

You still haven't admitted any of your errors and stand by your nonsense. All you say in the face of hard facts and explanations is I'm not an expert, no doubt because I don't agree with you, and throw out non sequiturs about oxidation.

Get back to me when you can estimate the radiation doseage from a mass of a radioisotope and I might listen to you.

Oxidation is what produces the aerosol of oxide particles that get ingested. It's the oxidation that makes it particularly hazardous.

DU isn't pure U238 either. They can't get all the 235 out.

I stated it was ingested that's what we're discussing. Restating an assumption to imply ignorance is a low tactic.

I was also the first poster in this thread to point out that other isotopes of Uranium exist in DU and it depends entirely on how depleted the Uranium is, go look at the existing thread. Here's the post:


http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1389976;page=4;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;#1393787

[dorbie 0]

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Get back to me when you can estimate the radiation doseage from a mass of a radioisotope and I might listen to you.

Explain how a software engineer knows more about DU than the former Director of the Depleted Uranium Project for the US Army, or the team of scientists on the European Commission on Radiation Risks.

If I need to know something about software you might be someone I would turn to, but when it comes to the effects of aerosoled DU dust, I will trust the experts in that field. You don't ask a bricklayer about diamonds, you go to a jeweler.

Explain to me how a job title restricts someone to a single sphere of knowledge. There are plenty of scientists that disagree with the rubbish you're posting.

Deal with the facts dude. At most 3 decay particles in 10 minutes for a microgram. You can try to impugn me but there's plenty of content above that proves to any thinking reader that you're wrong.

Again you post no facts or evidence just rubbish and lofty claims.

[jcd11235 0]

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Deal with the facts dude.

I'm trying, but you keep claiming a different set of "facts," yet you continually fail to document anything. Sorry, unless you can explain why you are qualified as an expert, I have to assume you are just someone who took a Chemistry class before moving on to software.

I could be wrong, of course. You might have your PhD. in Chemistry, with radioactive elements being your area of expertise, but you just got bored with it and switched to software. Is that what makes you such an expert?

Deal with the facts, dude. The shit is DANGEROUS.

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