Radiation in Daily Life on EnergyNote

Are radon spas good for you? Misasa, Bad Gastein and the hormesis debate, with the actual numbers

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900

44,000. That is the number of becquerels of radon in one cubic meter of air inside the Heilstollen, the “healing gallery” at Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps. It is about 300 times South Korea’s indoor radon guideline of 148 Bq/m³, and people ride a small train into the mountain to breathe it.

How much radiation did the Artemis II crew get in ten days? The math from the Artemis I mannequins

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900

On April 6, 2026 (US Eastern time), the Orion spacecraft passed a point 406,771 km (about 252,750 miles) from Earth — farther from Earth than any crew in history, beating a record Apollo 13 had held since 1970, 56 years earlier. Aboard were commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. From launch on April 1 to splashdown off San Diego on April 10, the flight lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes — the time the four spent outside the umbrella of Earth’s magnetic field.

The banana equivalent dose is a meme, not a measurement — here's why it still works

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900

Scroll through the comments under any radiation story and someone will post it: “One CT scan = 70,000 bananas.” The line usually traces back to xkcd’s radiation dose chart (2011) or the English Wikipedia entry on the “banana equivalent dose,” BED for short. The ruler is one banana at 0.1 microsieverts, and X-rays, CT scans and nuclear accidents are lined up against it.