Word: cosmically
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Natural "background" radiation from cosmic rays and radioactive materials in the earth does some damage to the human body. In the pre-atomic past the human species kept ahead of this damage, but many scientists are worried about new ' sources of radiation, such as medical and dental X rays, "hot labs" and nuclear reactors. They fear that a point may come when the human species will lose its struggle with radiation and begin to deteriorate...
...Libby is not alarmed by strontium 90. In his widely publicized letter to Missionary-Physician Albert Schweitzer (TIME, May 6), he said that its threat to growing children is at present about the same as from "the additional dosage that a resident at sea level would receive from cosmic rays if he moved from a beach to the top of a hill a few hundred feet high...
...amounts of radioactivity that people carry in their bodies from natural causes-e.g., from cosmic rays-is "very much larger" than those derived from H-bomb fallout, replied Dr. Willard Libby, top nuclear chemist and lone scientist member of the Atomic Energy Commission, last week. Furthermore, the amount of radiation produced in humans by the fallout is "less than 1% of the maximum permissible concentration" and there is general agreement that it would take "larger concentrations, perhaps tenfold greater," to produce harmful results. Libby provided a striking example: the present dosage of strontium 90 in the bones of children...
Berkeley's Hilac will be used chiefly for transmuting elements, especially for attempting to create new elements heavier than mendelevium (element 101). Another use: simulating the damage that may be done by heavy cosmic-ray particles to the living cells of space travelers above the sheltering atmosphere...
...suggested that in view of the increasing hazards of radiation, modern health rules be distilled to three essentials: i) stop seeing the doctor and thus avoid X rays: 2) drink no milk, thus limit intake of cesium-137 (a radioactive isotope) j 3) stay indoors to be shielded from cosmic rays...