Nuclear Fallout, Great Tragedies Steve Lopez Anna Parry Scott Seibert Dakota Pinto Jacob Wilburg Trent

Barker

Abstract
Nuclear fallout is what happens after a nuclear blast of a nuclear reaction. Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material being propelled into the upper atmosphere. It is called fallout because the residue falls out of the sky after the explosion and shockwave, the dust after a nuclear bomb hits. This dust is highly dangerous contamination that occurs after the fallout, most of it being very severe. People that are exposed suffer from radiation poisoning. Radiation poisoning causes cellular degradation because of damage done to the DNA. This mainly and causes radioactive contamination. There are many different effects from the radioactive causes nausea and vomiting, and leads to more intense illnesses later on, such as cancer.

History of Nuclear Energy

In 1896, Henri Becquerel had a Pitchblende ore that consisted uranium and radium.In an experiment, uranium salts in the ore made a photo plate darken, which he later researched to be caused by beta radiation and alpha particles. Marie Curie coined the name radioactivity after this reaction. She later extracted thorium, radium and polonium out of the ore. Becquerel and Curie were exposed to radioactive material for long periods of time and both died of radiation poisoning.

Measuring radiation
REM is the most common way to measure radiation levels in a human body. REM is an acronym meaning Roentgen Equivalent in Man.It represents the amount of radiation needed to produce a particular amount of damage to living tissue. Twenty-five REMs causes minimal change to blood, but anything over a hundred REMs can be harmful.

Effects of Radiation on Human Body

Low levels of radiation can cause headaches, loss of white blood cells, nausea, and oral purging. Doses of 300 REMs or more can damage internal organs and nerve cells. It can also cause severe loss of hair and white blood cells. 450 REMs is fatal almost to half if not more, after 800 REMs death is inevitable. At this level there are symptoms of Diarrhea and fever. There is no treatment at this time.

Great Tragedies
Our paper goes over the effects of nuclear fallout and the causes of the fallout. To make it easier to understand we will give examples of it happening around the world, times such as Hiroshima and Chernobyl. There are many different things that happen when a nuclear fallout occur in an area. Within the first minute of a nuclear bomb going off the very high levels of radiation are shot out from the epicenter of the explosion at about a 1.5 mile radius. Even people outside of this radius are effected, but by smaller amounts of it.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During WW2 on April 4, 1945 America bombed Japanese land with a couple of nuclear bombs. The first Little Boy struck Hiroshima killing 80,000 people simultaneously. Days later Nagasaki is bombed with Fat Man a bomb weighing over 10,000 pounds. Tens of thousands died by nuclear exposure after the bomb landed. Days after people were dying of radiation poisoning.

Chernobyl
In 1986 Chernobyl was a nuclear reactor in Ukraine . 28 reactor workers died from the radiation. Lots of kids were diagnosed with thyroid cancer. At the time of the incident the thousands of people were evacuated. Everyone had to leave the site immediately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki