I’ve often heard that both bananas and cell phones emit nuclear radiation.
Below are measurements taken with the Mazur Instruments PRM-8000 nuclear geiger counter. Each reading lasted 10 minutes and was taken in the same place as the others. The result is reported standardized as mR/hour. All items were at a uniform distance of 1 mm from the tube opening. The phones were placed with a non-screen edge at the tube opening.
| item | measurement |
|---|---|
| background radiation where tests were done | 0.015 mR/hr |
| Casio G’zOne cell phone, off | 0.017 mR/hr |
| Casio G’zOne cell phone, in standby | 0.015 mR/hr |
| Casio G’zOne cell phone, in live call | 0.016 mR/hr |
| HTC Incredible Android smartphone, off | 0.016 mR/hr |
| HTC Incredible Android smartphone, in standby | 0.014 mR/hr |
| HTC Incredible Android smartphone, recording video | 0.016 mR/hr |
| Delmonte organic banana, product of Ecuador (slice) | 0.017 mR/hr |
| Favorita non-organic banana, product of Ecuador (slice) | 0.016 mR/hr |
Doesn’t look too worrisome, does it?
All organic substances contain carbon-14 and thus are radioactive. The radioactivity of bananas comes primarily from potassium-40.
Note that the K-40 in bananas is not harmful to humans, as potassium does not accumulate in the body.
DO I need to give the fruit & veg counter in the local supermarket a wide berth – there’s hundreds of them there all emitting K-40!!
K-40 x 100 = frightening!
(my job today: visiting blogs with bananas in!! we banana blogs must stick together!)