Autumn Fire, Dream Trove,a Shadow Knight and an Ice Maiden. These are not a Summer Dream but the translations of some of the German names of luxurious Fruit wines produced by Bestwinus. Mr Scholz and I were attempting to find English equivalents to German word play of his intriguing products!
This conversation paralleled another, relating to Mr Ebert who will be visiting the UK next week, namely on the safe passage of German cheese samples across the Channel and their subsequent handover to me for transport to London.
Food related questions also arose in another context, namely the continued nuclear power plant disaster at Fukushima. It does appear that a considerable amount of radioactive material was ejected, with quoted figures for released material ranging from somewhat more than the Windscale accident to half that of Chernobyl. However, most of the ejected material spread in an ever diluted plume seawards, the dilution being such that its hazard faded into insignificance. There has been a deposition of radioisotopes in the vicinity of the accident site.
The radio-isotopes released and detected are Cesium 137, with a half life of 30 yrs, and Iodine 131, with a half life of 8 days. Both isotopes are eminently detectable by virtue of their emitted radiation, hence the detection of levels now just above the set safe consumption limits in drinking water in Tokyo. The health risks are still infinitesimal, but the precautionary principle prevails, as it should.
It took an hours search through literature and educated sites on the internet to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the measured radioactivity in Becquerels and effective dose in milli- or micro- Sieverts. Two useful sources for the interested reader are the balanced expert comments on the New Zealand Science Media Centre and the dose coefficient chart for different isotopes by the European Nuclear Society.
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