Cesium’s half-life: Foraged mushrooms could help research radioactive fallout from Chernobyl
Sweden’s strong foraging culture could help determine how much radioactive fallout remains in the Scandinavian country, 38 years after the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has asked mushroom-pickers to send samples of this season’s harvest for testing. The goal of the measurement project is to map the levels of Cesium-137 in mushrooms and see how much remains after the April 26, 1986 disaster at the Soviet nuclear power plant in what is now Ukraine. Cesium, the key radioactive material released in the fallout, has a half-life of some 30 years. It can build up in the...
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