Depleted Uranium for Dinner

[hslot4]

Ok the biggest idiot award goes tooooo and btw FAT BOY STOP STUFFING YOUR YAP ITS GROSE AND SHOWS LACK IN THE WAY YOU BEEN RAISED.

DIDNT MOMMY TELL YOU NOT TO TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL

[vengencefrom1979]

what a total fucking asshole.

[1e1m1o]

you made me want macncheese!



[alowlyapprentice]

The issues is U236. Really you need to do more research. There are 3 isotopes left over from DU munitions after their are exploded. Not just U238 We don't go around blowing up car batteries and lightbulbs. The issue is that we are blowing up DU. You argument has many holes in it. The epidemiological evidence proves you wrong. The numbers just prove you wrong. You are a fool.

[DrBuzz0]

@alowlyapprentice U-236??? there's no U-236 in depleted uranium. U-236 only exists in tiny amounts in highly irradiated fuel as the result of U-235 occasionally absorbing a neutron and not fissioning. Please check your facts.

[aburgheim]

Irresponsible drivel!!

[alowlyapprentice]

Totally! He obviously does not know the scientific facts. Or the epidemiology of the issue. He is a fool.

[jackson32]

I've recently been researching this subject and I'm aware that DU is not dangerous from a radiation point of view under normal circumstances, but what about when it gets in your lungs? The claim is these battlefield DU particles are much smaller than normal and hence are more dangerous. What's the basis for that belief?

There seems to be some danger if you breath in enough of it, like if your outside a tank that has been recently hit with a DU weapon.

[PHenry500]

Your facts are so screwed up, you probably didn't even follow the recipe right for that crappy dinner you ate.

DU is heavy and SOFT, not hard. It fractures when entering stuff and works by heat, not hardness. Even the damn Army training videos tell you that.

This moron should go to Iraq and get himself poisoned by this stuff. Might help him lose some weight.

[Pewpewlas3rgun]

I like how you think that pointing out one error in his speech, that had nothing to do with the safety of uranium, is grounds to proclaim victory and be a little internet tough guy.

[AssisBest]

Since this comment is no longer visible I thought I would re-post it:

Your facts are so screwed up, you probably didn't even follow the recipe right for that crappy dinner you ate.

DU is heavy and SOFT, not hard. It fractures when entering stuff and works by heat, not hardness. Even the damn Army training videos tell you that.

This moron should go to Iraq and get himself poisoned by this stuff. Might help him lose some weight.

[roflex2]

@AssisBest It gets hot via its density or weight which is what he says.

[Napalmdeath420]

yea ok, uranium is harmless, sure thing bud. tell that to all the iraqis that are having deformed babies, or all the gulf war vets with GWS. this shit kills!!! you go to a uranium mine and the chances of getting sick is almost guaranteed. i dont buy it, nice try.

[roscoeheater]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Haw, haw, ha, ha, ha, haw.

[frostymxer]

Wow, just a little poison is "ok" remember that when you are bald and with cancer at age 45

[tpatrickwalsh]

Fantastic video! Even though I have a physics degree, and have even worked in a nuclear fusion lab for a spell, I had no idea DU was so harmless. I'd heard reports on the use of depleted uranium in armor penetrators and was actually bothered. Well that's one less thing to worry about. And you did a great job of explaining things clearly for non-scientists. Well done.

[DrBuzz0]

Well, strictly speaking it is not "harmless" - it is a heavy metal with some toxicity. There are some who have had health problems from drinking water from aquafirs with high uranium content for a long time (naturally occurring)

The affect on the body is similar in degree to lead but it is somewhat different - it tends to have less toxicity to nerve cells but large doses seem to cause kidney problems.

Also, it can be deadly when it comes at you at mach 3+

[voltamp]

Average uranium content of Earth's crust: two parts per million by weight. That's two milligrams per kilogram.

Assume density of soil is three times that of water; 3 grams per cubic centimeter.

One acre = 4047 square meters = 40,470,000 square centimeters. Top centimeter of soil = volume of 40,470,000 cubic centimeters per acre. Multiply times 2x10^-6 (2ppm) and times 3 grams/cubic cm and you get 243 grams of uranium per acre - in the top centimeter of soil.

[skywokker]

You also missed in your presentation any discussion of the nanoparticulate hazards of uranium, which is really the crux of the depleted uranium toxicity issue. The infinitesimally tiny particles generated by the pyrophoric uranium reaction are particles which the human body isn't equipped to recognize/filter as efficiently as the relatively larger diameter uranium particles seen in nature. These tiny particles can pass through cell walls, filters, and bind to DNA much more efficiently than NU.

[DrBuzz0]

It's really not. Not only are most particles not unlike other materials but they generally fall from suspension rapidly. Yes, a few do remain for kilometers down range, but the relative toxicity is low and the dispersal is high. Thus, the probability of inhaling one at all is tiny. The probability of inhaling many is almost zero.

[skywokker]

Please explain the phrase "not unlike other materials" in this context

[voltamp]

Plants have cell walls, animals just have cell membranes, genius. Particles of any size are excluded.

There is no such thing as an infinitesimal solid particle.

If the uranium from a DU round is so finely dispersed, and won't settle, as you insist, then the particles would quickly diffuse away from the target like a gas and be dipsersed over square miles by the wind.

Your DU obsession is a religion. You start with a premise (US government evil) and look for evidence that supports it.

[skywokker]

Particles of ANY size are excluded by the cell membrane, are they now? If that were true you'd be dead right now, simpleton. Cells aren't individual units like children's building blocks, they interact chemically. Read a Biology 101 textbook and then come back halfwit.

[skywokker]

...in other words, they're PERMEABLE.

[voltamp]

By particle I mean a solid object larger than a molecule - a nanometer-sized particle of uranium oxide, which is the sort of thing you were talking about, remember? Cell membranes are in fact quite able to exclude such things. Cell membranes have permeability to certain molecules and ions. You were not talking about molecules and ions though; it was some type of magic "infinitesimal" solid particles.

"Cell walls" in human cells. Read a biology 101 textbook yourself.

[DrBuzz0]

In general any particle will settle out of the air if it is still. Even if you released xenon gas, because it is heavy it will tend to pool in low areas. However, yes, it can stay suspended in the wind in some circumstances and a few particles will. As they disperse they will be diluted to extremely low concentrations exponentially moving down range.

Uranium is natural and already in the dust and dirt of the world. It's already there. Always was.

[skywokker]

Your quote about DU not being a hazard because it settles quickly is an erronous one. Particles generated by the pyrophoric uranium reaction with target materials are in the range of 1 nanometer in diamater, whereas natural uranium particles are typically 5 microns in diameter, a ratio of 5000:1 in both volume and weight. The density of uranium factor is dwarfed by the infinitesimally small size of the particles generated, which via Brownian motion can traverse the atmosphere indefinitely.

[skywokker]

So, in other words, it doesn't matter how dense the material is, when you reach diamaters in the magnitude of 1 nanometer, it can be the heaviest substance in the universe, but it's still going to float in the air if you have a small enough amount of it. This is further complicated by the fact that uranium forms nanoparticular chemical complexes with substances that are not as dense as uranium and can act furthermore as carriers of the relatively heavier uranium components via Brownian motion.

[xsyar]

Steve, You obviously know a lot about kemestry and physics. Ordinary people like me dont make a big thing about what we know and make a fool out of ourself. If you are trying to prove DU is harmless, dont eat on the plate, run a DU missile on a car and BREATH the dust. Then we can see if just YOU can stand it or you are a lucky immune person.

[lesorciercalifornien]

"Kemestry"?

[DrBuzz0]

I never said it was harmless. It's a toxic heavy metal just like lead and somewhat like mercury (though considerably less toxic). There is plenty of material on my page which explains this.

[DrBuzz0]

Blow up a car with a missile of ANY kind and then breathe the dust and you'll be choking and coughing. ANY metallic dust is going to be nasty if you huff it. That's why you wear a damn dust mask when you sand stuff.  DU dust is not really any worse than many other forms of dust.

Yes, most of it will settle out of the air pretty fast and any left behind gets diluted.

I'd much rather breathe in depleted uranium dust than something like beryllium.

[PHenry500]

Go ahead and do it then. Tell that to the 172,000 vets a year coming home with lung cancer. DU IS RADIOACTIVE.

"40% less than uranium." wow, that's still @##$%#$ing radioactive.

[Pewpewlas3rgun]

Wait, what? 172 000 vets a year, with lung cancer specifically? Last I heard, GWS affected 200 000 in total, not per year, and not just with lung cancer.

DU is radioactive, yes. So is water, by the way. And, as your crowd shouts at me the most, the radioactivity is not an issue at all, it's the toxicity.

[clemzzz]

@PHenry500 , you have radioactive potassium in your body , if you are so scared of radioactivity , don't eat so many bananas....

Basically radioactivity is all around you NATURALLY

Radioactivity is NOT a MAN MADE INVENTION it's part of nature.. if you bothered to learn basic science you wouldn't be so ignorant spreading misinformation

[DrBuzz0]

@PHenry500 Radioactive? Yes, but not very. Substitute salt and bananas are radioactive. Uranium is slightly radioactive. 

[PHenry500]

@DrBuzz0 Well, then, I guess you don't bother reading any science. There's plenty. I'd link you one, but YouTube won't let you do links.

[Kamikuru77]

@xsyar It's actually called chemistry dumbass

[xsyar]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R

[lesorciercalifornien]

Tritium also used to used in LCD watch displays to make them luminous. Not sure if they still use it; the fact that it is radioactive (the dreaded R word again) possibly limited its appeal to consumers. Didn't know it was used in EXIT signs though.

Steve: does the radiation detector you're using register the beta particles from tritium? It would have been interesting to see how the EXIT sign compares to the glazed ceramic dishware.

[DrBuzz0]

It's still used in watches. The exit signs are the same. it makes them glow. But the radiation detector won't detect it. It will detect beta radiation, but tritium is a very weak beta emitter. Each beta particle it emits has only a tiny amount of energy and so it won't penetrate the glass.

Actually a regular Geiger counter won't detect tritium even on contact because it's too weak to penetrate the detector membrane. You actually need a special detector fro tritium

[jpsalsman]

This video ignores: (1) The difference in oxidation state of metallic uranium U(0) and the result of uranium combustion which contains almost half of the uranium in the very solubile and orders of magnitude more toxic uranyl U(IV) state; (continued)

[jpsalsman]

(2) the difference in gastrointestinal clearance, which is almost total vs. inhalation exposure, which over a period of months releases the entire burden into the bloodstream; (3) the teratological properties of uranyl toxicity; and much more.

[DrBuzz0]

Well yes, inhaling would be a more acute hazard. Luckily the dust is very heavy and isn't very easy to inhale, especially in significant quantities. Actually the biological haldlife of uranium inhaled is not that bad though, especially compared to other heavy metals.

If you want to talk about toxicity of uranium, metallic uranium and oxides are not really a problem. Organics like uranyl acetate or compounds like nitrates would be easier to uptake.

[DrBuzz0]

Well, the nuclear properties are obviously the same regardless of the chemical properties. The plate contains uranium dioxide. Actually uranium oxidizes rapidly when exposed to air and especially in any kind of impact. Thus they're actually the same chemical.

[kipperandcloudy111]

sacrificialgoat I think you missed the point, this stuff was in common use all over the US. Millions of them we sold, and people ate off them every day with no ill effects.

Also you should really learn a bit about dosimetry before you start running off at the mouth about it.

[DrBuzz0]

They fired a lot more lead bullets in Iraq then DU. Maybe we should forget about the depleted uranium and obsess over the lead slugs from the Iraq war... and every other military action in the past couple centuries.

[jpsalsman]

Lead doesn't burn on impact and spew soluble combustion products into the air because it isn't pyrophoric. Uranium is, and does.

[sacrificialgoat]

Christ you even mention "it's about as toxic as lead." I'd encourage you to research the myriad statistics regarding baseline lead levels in the environment and all sorts of things like birth defects and even crime

[soylentgreenb]

"Christ you even mention "it's about as toxic as lead." I'd encourage you to research the myriad statistics regarding baseline lead levels in the environment..."

You're missing the point. Lead is also used in munitions and in far larger quantities, yet no one bats an eyelash about that. There's not even any significant pressure to nail the douché bags who ditch lead-acid batteries in the environment instead of recycling them.

[jpsalsman]

Lead doesn't burn on impact and spew soluble combustion products into the air because it isn't pyrophoric. Uranium is, and does.

[DrBuzz0]

Actually lead is more mobile in the enviornment. It tends to leach into soils a lot more than uranium, especially uranium oxides which are very insoulable. Also, uranium being very heavy makes the dust a lot less likely to be suspended in the air than mnost substances.

[jpsalsman]

"Actually lead is more mobile in the enviornment.... uranium oxides which are very insoulable."

The kind of uranium oxide produced in combustion travels dozens of kilometers in the air and has a half-time lung fluid solubility of five days. Mitsakou, C (2003) "Modeling of the dispersion of depleted uranium aerosol," Health Physics 84(4) 538-544. Sutton M (2004). "Uranium(VI) solubility and speciation in simulated elemental human biological fluids". Chem Res in Tox 17: 1468-1480.

[soylentgreenb]

"Lead doesn't burn on impact and spew soluble combustion products into the air because it isn't pyrophoric."

Uranium oxides has a low solubillity, especially in neutral pH, and is a dense substance that settles out of the air quickly.

Small quantities of uranium leaching into the soil is also not terribly significant. P-fertilizer contains about 100 ppm uranium, about 0.1 kg/tonne; and that's applied directly to the soil where food is grown.

[sacrificialgoat]

Dude I think you're missing the point. "but only if you eat it and lots of it at that" is exactly the problem we're facing. You can eat it once just fine and dandy but if you're exposed to a higher than baseling level CONSTANTLY through the environment, the small insults collectively become a large problem