Um…

Well… it is a weak acid so it could possibly react with chemicals that are either alkaline in nature or are just prone to breaking down in acid.  But those “chemicals” are rather high up in altitude, and aside from that obvious problem, one might think that if the chemicals were potent enough to be dangerous even after drifting down and surviving the harsh conditions of the upper atmosphere than vinegar probably would not do much.

Really, do I need to explain the flaws in the logic here?

Apparently so.

There are actually a lot more videos about this on Youtube. I did not have time to look at them all, so some may be even more lame.

I love how she says she didn’t know the age of the anchor woman’s daughter and therefore couldn’t know if she had a boyfriend.   The whole damn point of being a psychic is you’re supposed to know stuff without being given all the information necessary to figure it out.   If you know a person’s daughter is seventeen, for example, it’s not a long shot to guess she either has a boyfriend or has some kind of romantic interests.   If she’s six, you can probably guess she does not.    It’s so ridiculous to think a real “psychic” would need to be primed with the information to know this.

The best part is the other news anchor who actually takes her to task, pointing out that she didn’t guess the name of the woman’s daughter but only guessed J or an M for someone relating to the woman.   It’s very common for a psychic to claim success for something they didn’t get outright but were lead to.  It’s also rare to get a news personality who will take them to task for this.  I wonder why she wants to do his reading off camera?

Whether or not this is cause for concern really depends on the exact composition of the copper concentrate. Most forms of copper concentrate have low soluability in water, so much of it may just sit in a big pile where it landed in the river. Copper oxide is not hazardous at all, and is found very commonly in nature. On the other hand, if it contains large quantities of copper sulfate, there may well be reason for concern. Copper sulfate is mildly toxic and certainly would be reason for concern if it were present in such a large spill.

Although copper concentrate produced by mines is generally not considered hazardous material, it may contain other minerals that present a problem.   If the material contains significant amounts of cadmium, lead or mercury, then this could be a problem, since such a huge quantity has been spilled.   Of course, it would depend on the concentration of those materials and what type of chemical compounds they were part of.

Reports from Sky News do indicate that this copper concentrate was regarded as toxic, so there does appear to be some valid reason for concern over contamination of the river.   Officials have stated that any material that dissolves should be diluted to levels that are not hazardous.

But that’s not what everyone is so damn concerned about.

Via NEWS.com.au

Fears of uranium on derailed freight train

And the NT News has learned that OZ Minerals has also been allowed by NT and SA governments to transport the copper concentrate without complying with Australian Dangerous Goods laws.

The copper concentrate from OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine contains less than 0.008 per cent uranium, as revealed in the company’s Material Safety Data Sheet.

This means there could have been up to 96kg of the chemically toxic heavy metal in the estimated 1200 tonnes of concentrate that spilled from a derailed freight train into the Edith River.

OZ Minerals says radiation levels are below regulatory limits and are monitored to ensure no risk to the workers or public during production or transport.

But it would not provide its monitoring results.

NT WorkSafe and SafeWork SA exempted the company from recent regulations requiring copper concentrate be transported in rigid containers with lids.

OZ Minerals has been allowed to transport the substance – classified federally as environmentally hazardous – in containers known as kibbles, covered only by tarpaulins.

And the 12-month exemption runs out today.

SafeWork SA said the exemption was to allow the company time to design and build new containers.

The Territory Government didn’t respond to questions as to why it allowed an exemption, or whether it had demanded to see the uranium monitoring results.

OZ Minerals’ spokeswoman Rachel Eaves said the new containers were arriving next week.

“They could be considered beyond compliance as they are developed to load a bulk commodity without the use of a ship loader,” she said.

The news comes after days of denial from NT Government heads and the train company that any uranium was on the train.

Country Liberals transport spokesman Adam Giles said nearly 100kg of uranium mixed up in the 1200 tonnes would be a “fair amount” floating down the river.

“What I find surprising in the three days since the spill is that the Chief Minister (Paul Henderson) hasn’t said anything about it,” he said.

The NT Environment Department says it is testing for uranium in water samples, even though the amount involved was reportedly lower than regulations.

Mr Henderson said he did not know the copper concentrate contained uranium.

“I understand the copper concentrate contains less than 0.008 per cent uranium and poses negligible risk,” he said last night.

Mr Giles said it was crucial the investigations into the derailment look at what provisions were needed to make sure trains don’t go through flood waters again.

It never fails to amaze me the level of absurd fear that uranium seems to inspire. People may not realize it, but uranium is a very common substance in earth’s crust and just about any soil sample you can get is going to test positive for uranium if a sensitive enough test is used. The copper concentrate is actually not especially high in uranium, as far as mineral concentrates go. Phosphate minerals commonly contain much higher traces of uranium. The uranium is not there because anyone put it there, it is simply part of the mineralogy of the area where the copper was extracted.

0.008% concentration of uranium is by no means high. I live in Connecticut, a state composed largely of granite with some sandstone in the local mineralogy. I would have a very hard time finding a rock on the ground that had significantly less uranium than that in it. Therefore, let me emphasize that if a train load of gravel fell into the river, it would also result in a “uranium scare” if the same standards were applied.

Assuming that all the concentrate did land in the river and assuming that it all did dissolve into the water (which it didn’t), that would result in a maximum amount of uranium of 96 kilograms. That’s not a lot, especially when it’s been diluted into 1200 tonnes of aggregate. Considering how heavy uranium is, what this amounts to is the equivalent of seventeen centimeter cube of uranium.

I should also point out, that there’s already uranium in that river. The river bed undoubtedly contains rocks and soil with more than 96 kilograms of uranium present. The river contains dissolved uranium and always has. Adding another 96 kilograms is just spitting in the ocean. Most probably don’t know this, but they’re walking around every day on concrete, stone and mortar that has just as much or more uranium in it. Uranium is part of the environment and it’s ridiculous to be concerned about something containing 0.008% uranium, especially when it may well have other components that are legitimately hazardous!

They’re really great little items and the perfect gift for just about any occasion.   For one thing, they’re an interesting conversation piece and a very good example of a practical application of radioactivity.   They demonstrate that you can indeed keep something radioactive in our pocket and be quite safe and they’re very eye-catching.

They also have quite a bit of practical value.  Finding your keys in the dark is very easy with one of these key chains.  In fact, it’s so easy that if you happen to misplace your keys, the easiest way to find them is to turn off the lights.  When entering your home or starting your car in complete darkness, the glowing key chain provides just enough light to easily select the correct key and use it without fumbling.   If you happen to drop the keys on the dark floor of your car, you can find them very quickly and without effort.   You can even see the glow of the keys if they are under a seat or somehow otherwise obscured from direct view.  You can get different colors and use them to mark different key chains, making it very easy to grab the correct one, even in complete darkness.

I’ve had these key chains before (and broken a couple by mistake).  I can attest to just how useful they are.   There’s also no other way of getting this same value without using radioactive material.  An electrically illuminated key chain could not provide such continuous periods of glow without the batteries quickly running out.   Standard phosphorescent glowing items are limited to a few hours of illumination and must be exposed to light first in order to glow, making them useless for something like a key chain, which is often kept in one’s pocket.

There’s only one problem with these amazing little glowing key chains:  nobody in the US sells them, at least not directly.   Technically, these are not approved for sale or ownership in the United States, although I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for owning one.  Many people do own them and talk about them openly online and elsewhere.  It might just be one of those things that hasn’t shown up on the radar of a bureaucrat who was asinine enough to bother to do something about it.

Still, there are stories about their thugs stopping sales of these key chains on sites like eBay.  It seems that these days most of those sold on eBay are coming from sellers who are not located within the United States.  Exactly how much trouble you could potentially get in for these remains unclear, but it appears to be a case of selective enforcement.  (So if you have one, don’t ever leave the federal government looking for an excuse to call you a terrorist.)

Yet while the government may tolerate people owning them, you can’t buy them from any major retailer.   They can be purchased on the “grey market,” imported in relatively small batches or sold over the internet.  They can be bought from foreign retailers, like those in the UK, who will generally ship to the US without problem.   The best place to buy them, however, tends to be eBay, where numerous sellers will sell to US customers.

That, however, was not good enough for me.  I know a great product when I see one and these things are inexpensive, extremely useful and very easy to sell.  I had bought one and people were constantly asking me about it and where to get one.   I wanted to sell these, and not just by keeping it on the down-low, selling them on auction websites or to friends.  I wanted to really sell them, importing them wholesale and selling them openly and in quantity.

I also didn’t want even the slight potential to have the NRC knocking at my door, which does occasionally happen when someone tries to sell them in the US.   One would think that the government has better things to do, but of course, they don’t.

I thought it would be easy to do.  After all, these things are very readily available in other countries, and by “other countries,” I don’t mean just Russia, Zimbabwe and Cuba.  They can be bought in the UK.  They are brought into the US all the time.  They’re also perfectly safe.   Of course, I assumed wrong, but this was a few years ago, long before I had gained a full understanding of the bureaucracy that is the NRC.

I e-mailed, called and faxed the NRC several times about this matter.  I cannot even begin to explain how difficult they were.   First, nobody at the agency seemed to understand what I wanted to do or what the devices were for.  They told me that if I wanted to start the process of getting a consumer product containing radioactive material approved, I could get some paperwork to start the ball rolling, but it would be several thousand dollars just to begin and would take more than a year.  I told them I believed the items qualified as being license-exempt, since other items of comparable function and contents, such as illuminated watches are.   They didn’t seem to understand what I was getting at.

After bouncing around many times between different individuals and sub-departments, before I eventually got the answer:  No, I could not import the key chains and no I could not sell them and nobody was really supposed to have them at all.   They never would tell me why the answer was no.  I was not told what exact regulation or requirement they violated.  They never would give me a straight answer about whether I could appeal that decision, who had made it or on what grounds and whether there was any way of having it reevaluated.  The best they could give me was that I could try the expensive process of getting a new product approved, but they also warned me that to do that I first had to have some prototypes of the product to have inspected and it would be illegal for me to have those prototypes unless I first got yet another license, permitting me to possess otherwise illegal amounts of tritium.

So the next place I went was the Health Physics Society.   They managed to put me in touch with some radiation safety experts who had worked with the NRC and knew the right people to ask.   After several false starts, they did manage to track down an NRC official who would go on record and explain the policy.   This is the e-mail I eventually got:

In response to your electronic mail dated October 23, 2007, concerning
keyrings containing tritium, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
determined that a license is required to distribute products similar to
the Traser “glowring” key chains.  Although the devices are allowed in
the United Kingdom, they are not licensed here.  NRC regulations [10 CFR
30.19(c) and 10 CFR 32.22(b)] and policy (Federal Register Notice of
March 16, 1965, 30 FR 3462) do not allow licensing toys, novelties,
adornments or any consumer product containing radioactive material
considered a frivolous use of radioactive material and where the end use
of the product cannot be reasonably foreseen.   Other consumer products
that are not frivolous use, but contain self-luminous radioactive
material, must go through a two step safety review process consisting
of:  (1) an engineering evaluation and registration for the device as
well as (2) a licensing review of the program involved in possession and
distribution of radioactive material.

In order for NRC to be sure consumer products containing radioactive
material are safe for distribution to the general public the product
must be below a certain activity and/or found to incorporate engineering
features making release of the radioactive material unlikely.  In
addition environmental studies must show that during the products life
from manufacture to disposal, no adverse impact will be caused on the
environment or on those who may come in contact with the radioactive
material.  Traser Glowrings contain about 400 millicuries of tritium as
indicated by the UK manufacturer.  In comparison, a tritium wristwatch
typically contains 5 millicuries of tritium.  Tritium produces beta
radiation that cannot penetrate the skin, however, tritium can be
absorbed through the skin.  Tritium can also be an internal hazard
through inhalation and ingestion, as well as being absorbed through the
skin.

Again, Traser glowrings, and similar products, are not legal to own or
possess in the U. S. without a Federal and/or State license.

So that’s the big problem?   It’s an adornment or a novelty and therefore frivolous?

My Response:

• The fact that an item may be used as a novelty, adornment or toy does not mean it is “frivolous.”  The definition of “frivolous” is “irresponsible, lacking due consideration, without due consideration, improper.”  I think I can see what they’re getting at.  They want any item that is considered radioactive to have a legitimate use and consider entertainment or novelty to not be legitimate.  I have to disagree on that.   It’s fine to use something for such purposes if there’s negligible risk involved.
• The end use of the product can be reasonably forseen: people will put it on their key chain and use it to help locate their keys.
• At least part of the appeal of glowing key chains may indeed be their novelty and fashion aspect, but the same can be said of a tritium-containing wristwatch.   Watches are absolutely and undeniably fashion accessories, in addition to being functional timepieces.  In the cases of watches, the fact that they have a tritium-illuminated dial is often a selling point because of the fact that it’s fashionable in and of itself.   It’s not the only way to illuminate a watch dial.  It can be done with an electroluminescent face or with long lasting phosphorescent material.
• Radiolumonescent key chains are not only fashionable or novel, but also are practical.  They are at least as functional as radiolumonescent watches.  It makes it very easy to find misplaced keys simply by turning off the lights in a room.  The glow of the keychain is obvious in the dark even at a distance.   The glow can even be seen if the keys are partially obscured, such as being under a desk or bed.  The glow of the keychain also provides just enough light to aid a person handling the keys in the complete darkness, making it easier to select the right key for insertion into a lock or automobile ignition.
• While the amount of tritium in a key chain may be greater than that found in most watches, it is still trivial and is less than that found in numerous other commonly available items that can be purchased by the general public.  These include radiolumonescent compasses, small self-powered flashlight-style illuminators, self-illuminating map readers and other luminous items.   These devices are perfectly safe and do not pose any hazard to public health or the environment.  The amount of tritium present is far too low to pose a significant radiation hazard to anyone, even in the wost case scenario, where it might all be released in a confined area.
• Key chains of this style are already available in numerous countries around the world.  They have been sold for years without incident.   They are so common that it’s impossible to keep them out of the United States and there’s no legitimate reason to try anyway.  They’re safe and proven safe and their existence in no way enables terrorists, compromises public safety or constitutes a hazard.

I am willing to acknowledge that there may be legitimate reason for the NRC to require that the product undergo some kind of review, as they state, an engineering evaluation of the product.   Hopefully that would not include an environmental study, because that would be pretty ridiculous to do a study from scratch when there are already products of a similar nature being sold and which would release an equal amount of tritium upon disposal.  I’m not sure why they can’t just use a general purpose tritium device disposal study.  Although knowing the agency, it’s entirely plausible that they will require a completely new study. They could simply apply the same standard for release into the environment as any number of products with the same amount of tritium.  The danger presented is zero, at least if they are evaluated fairly and reasonably.

There are many exit  signs sold in the US which have much more tritium in them than one of these and the tritium is stored in tubes of almost exactly the same type.  Tritium-containing self-luminous exit signs may contain upwards of 40 curies of tritium, one hundred times the amount of tritium in one of these key chains.   It should be noted that these exit signs are subject to some special restrictions.  Those who purchase them are technically also purchasing an individual license for the sign, which requires that they do not tamper with the sign or open it and that they dispose of it properly, usually by returning it to the manufacturer.   Yet this certainly does not always happen.  Despite the requirement, thousands of tritium-containing exit signs of various ages (and therefore with various amounts of tritium present) end up in landfills and incinerators every year.  Despite this, the sky has not yet begun to fall.

I would be more than willing to consider undertaking the necessary engineering review, although I’m sure it would be long and expensive.   The products would almost certainly pass it.  They’re very straight forward and the manufacturer can provide any data necessary.  If an environmental study were also necessary, it still might be worth perusing.

The problem is that even if the manufacturer and distributors were willing to go through that process, the NRC has already decided the key chains are “frivolous” and therefore won’t even entertain the notion of approving them.   So it is simply impossible and they seem to not have the slightest willingness to revisit the decision.  DAMN!

Now there has been a turn toward trying to blockade ports.   I’m not sure what the reasoning is.  Perhaps it’s a hatred of imports or a belief that blocking trade will somehow undermine the big businesses.  Regardless of their goals, it seems that some of the tactics have gone far beyond just getting in the way to the point of absolutely astounding danger.

Here is an amazing example of how bad it has gotten.

Faith in humanity? Okay, that’s fine. I really don’t think that any train driver wants to blow through a crowd or run over a toddler. I’ll even go so far as to say that the majority of the evil corporate executives at a railroad or transportation company would be horrified by the idea of a young child being torn apart under the wheels of a massive locomotive. I’m sure that the train driver, upon realizing that there is a child in the track will do everything possible to avoid running them over, which, unfortunately, is not much.

Perhaps this is just evidence that the educational system is failing, because in addition to humanity, there are some things you should always count on because they always work.

Inertia – It’s the property of an object to resist any change in its motion. It’s directly proportional to mass. In other words, heavy objects are more difficult to get moving that light objects. Makes sense, right? Well, conversely, once you get them moving, they’re also hard to stop.

Ever try pushing a car because it wouldn’t start? It’s hard to get it going but once you do it’s also hard to stop, which is why you need someone inside it to push the brake when it needs to. A two ton car has too much inertia for a human to easily stop it, even when it’s moving quite slow.

Trains have a lot more. A locomotive can weigh over one hundred tons. Fully loaded, each of the additional cars weighs anywhere from fifty to one hundred or more tons. So even a small freight train weighs thousands of tons. The ones that are used for transporting containers to and from ports are not small, however, and weigh a real real lot. They have a lot of inertia. When they get going, even at slow speed, it’s not easy to stop them.

Friction – It’s the property of two solid surfaces to resist motion against each other.  With wheels, it’s often considered to be synonymous with traction, the ability of the wheels to “grip” a surface and provide control and acceleration or stopping ability.   When you hit the brakes in a car, it’s the friction of a surface that keeps the car from just sliding away forever.

Not all surfaces have the same friction.  You will notice this if you are driving in different conditions.   Dry asphalt against rubber has quite a lot of friction, so if you hit the brakes on an asphalt road, you’ll stop pretty fast.   You may skid a bit, but it won’t be that much because the road provides plenty of friction against your wheels.   Now if you do the same on a wet road, which has less friction, you’re going to skid a lot farther.  Do it on an icy road and you’ll skid further still.  If you hit your brakes on a patch of smooth ice you will keep going almost like you didn’t hit them at all, although your car may also spin out.   One thing that will not happen on ice is a nice sudden stop, because there’s not enough friction.

You know what else doesn’t have a lot of friction?   Smooth steel rails against steel wheels.

And this is why, regardless of the humanity of a train driver, the train is not going to stop unless it has a good mile or so of warning that you’ve put your kid on the track.  It will keep going and kill you and your child.

For those interested in what actually happened: The original story can be read here. While it’s pretty clear from the video that the idiots were in the track right in front of a train, there are no reports of any deaths. Either the train was already coming to a stop and was light enough to not kill them all, or they realized it was not going to stop before it ran them over. Note that they are on the tracks but not chained to the tracks.

Just the same, this is one of the worst parents I have ever seen. It makes not vaccinating your children seem rather mild.

If that sounds stupid, you have not heard anything yet.

The multi-billion dollar Apollo Program brought back about 382 kilograms of lunar material (rock and soil samples).   Soviet unamanned sample-return missions brought back less than a third of a kilogram of material. There are also lunar meteorites, which are composed of material blasted off the moons surface by impact events, which eventually made their way to earth.  Although these meteorite samples do have scientific value, they events that brought them to earth combined with contamination and weathering means they do not have the same value as rocks collected on the actual surface of the moon.

The scientific value of moon rocks is enormous.  Analysis can help determine the composition of the moon, the age of the moon, the formation of the earth-moon system, the composition of the solar system and the levels and types of particles emitted by the sun.   The study of moon rocks is also critical to determining how future lunar missions might be carried out and to what extent the moon might be able to provide some of the resources necessary for such missions.  Analysis of moon rocks resulted in the giant impact hypothesis becoming the most accepted scenario for the formation of the moon.

While the material brought back from the moon has been subject to analysis and experimentation for more than forty years, there’s still much to learn.   Since the samples and the areas they were gathered from is relatively limited, many of the rocks are very unique in composition.   For example, the “Genesis Rock,” which was recovered during Apollo-15 appears to be the oldest rock of its type ever recovered.  At more than 4.5 billion years old, the rock dates to the very early days of the solar system.  It is possible that other samples may contain tiny fragments of the moon’s primordial crust, which would be even older.

It’s also possible that we won’t ever know if any of the samples do, because it seems NASA has lost track of at least a portion of the lunar samples in its custody.   Despite being the most prized samples ever collected, the samples have not been guarded as well as one might think.   A few of the rocks and fragments were given away as “goodwill rocks” to foreign heads of state.  Others were given to astronauts or other dignitaries as mementos, although NASA states that they still own the actual rocks and just lent them out.  Some went to museums and other public displays.  A few are though to have been stolen or were sold without authorization.   All in all, NASA only has about 295 kilograms of the samples left in its own custody.

A new report, however, indicates that the problem of missing moon rocks may be even worse than thought.   As one might expect, NASA has routinely allowed the samples to be sent out for analysis and study by third parties.   One might expect that this would also include some very well maintained documentation and security.  After all, the library seems to know when a book is overdue and moon rocks are a lot harder to replace than a missing book.   Unfortunately that would not appear to be the case.

Via Space.com

NASA Has Lost Hundreds of Its Moon Rocks, New Report Says

NASA has lost or misplaced more than 500 of the moon rocks its Apollo astronauts collected and brought back to Earth, according to a new agency report.

In an audit released Thursday (Dec. 8), NASA’s Office of Inspector General states that the agency “lacks sufficient controls over its loans of moon rocks and other astromaterials, which increases the risk that these unique resources may be lost.”

The report stresses the importance of maintaining stricter guidelines for the release of lunar materials to researchers, and more meticulous inventory procedures for their storage and return.

“NASA has been experiencing loss of astromaterials since lunar samples were first returned by Apollo missions,” inspector general Paul K. Martin detailed in the report. “In addition to the Mount Cuba disk, NASA confirmed that 516 other loaned astromaterials have been lost or stolen between 1970 and June 2010, including 18 lunar samples reported lost by a researcher in 2010 and 218 lunar and meteorite samples stolen from a researcher at [NASA's Johnson Space Center] in 2002, but since recovered.”

….

Martin’s office audited 59 researchers who had received samples from NASA, and found that 11 of them, or 19 percent, could not locate all of the borrowed materials.

The report also found that the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston had records of hundreds of samples that no longer exist, and loans to 12 researchers who had died, retired or relocated, sometimes without the office’s knowledge and without returning the samples.

“According to the Office of Inspector General, out of the 26,000 samples NASA has on loan, it has lost just 517,” Pearlman told SPACE.com. “That’s not to excuse the space agency and its curators, but with so many samples spread across the globe, some losses are probably to be expected.”

Still, the misplaced moon samples are truly regrettable, he added, and could be an indication of a broader issue within the public psyche.

“Maybe it is a sign of the times that some scientific researchers and educational organizations that were loaned samples and then lost them would no longer recognize the rarity and historical significance of the lunar material,” Pearlman said. “It seems that the moon, or at least its exploration by humans, has lost some of its shine over the past four decades.”

Regardless of how long it has been since man walked on the moon, it would seem we are not going to be headed back there for at least a few years and probably quite a lot more, so these samples are not easily replaced!  Not only that, but allowing such loose control of these samples really does not help the public perception of NASA’s competence.   Furthermore, if they don’t even know what is going on with these samples, how can they possibly know if some have been contaminated or even replaced with some other material?

I would not imagine that most people would treat a multi-million dollar gemstone with such carelessness.   Anyone in their right mind would keep close tabs on it and, at the very least, store it in a safe when not being used or displayed.   At the very least, NASA should regularly check with researchers who borrowed lunar material to make sure it’s secure, and also to see if they still need it.   It seems some just about forgot that they had the stuff.  If they are no longer actively using it for research, it needs to be returned so it can be used by others or stored properly.   Whoever the 11 are who misplaced it, they shouldn’t be getting any other NASA samples any time soon, or at least not until they figure out what happened to their lunar samples.

I am also perplexed by how the death of researchers could end up compromising the samples.  Samples of this type should never be handed over to the custody of a single person.  The loans should be made directly to the research institutions and they should be kept on sight in common areas, not in some scientist’s night table or glove compartment.

This really is a big problem and it needs to be addressed, not only because of what it means for the study of lunar material but also other materials NASA may lend out for study.  NASA has conducted sample return missions of comets and of the solar winds and is planning on someday gathering samples from the surface of mars and beyond.  It also has numerous materials that were grown in microgravity, exposed to conditions in space or created by elaborate processes.  Allowing other research institutions access to these materials is important, but accountability is critical.

Chickenpox is a pretty nasty disease to have.  Like most adults, I went through it when I was a child because there was no vaccine at the time.  It was pretty misserable, but I was lucky, because despite missing more than a week of school and being covered with an  itchy, painful rash, I didn’t have any lasting effects.   Some are not so lucky.  It’s fairly common to be left with disfiguring scars, especially on the face, from chickenpox (I know a few people with such marks on their cheeks or forehead).   It’s less common, though not unheard of to have more severe and lingering effects and occasionally even death.

The virus tends to be less severe in children than adults, there was once a custom of intentionally infecting children with the disease.   So-called “pox parties” were held where children intentionally came into contact with others with chickenpox to get the disease when young.  Whether exposing children to the disease intentionally was ever a justifiable idea is debatable (most medical experts think it was always a bad idea), but it certainly is not any more.   These days, there is a vaccine for chickenpox that is highly effective and avoids the discomfort, suffering, dangers and possible disfigurement of the disease.   The vaccine is now part of the normal vaccine schedule and most children receive it.  Chickenpox is therefore far less common than it once was.

But what to do if you’re a vaccine fearing idiot?  Since the antivax crowd seems to think that getting infections is a good thing and boosts the immune system, a pox party seems like it would be right up their ally.  The only problem is that the vaccine has reduced the number of cases of chickenpox enough to make it difficult to find a good pathogen host to infect your kid with.   So what to do?   Why not use social networking to find other like-minded morons around the world and swap spit by mail with them.

The most popular and widely reported on Facebook group for doing this appears to have been recently shut down, but that’s unlikely to actually stop anyone in the long run.

I’m not even kidding…

Via the Los Angeles Times:

‘Pox parties’: Coming to a mailbox near you?
This week, press reports emerged that some parents, hoping to avoid giving their kids the chickenpox vaccine, were arranging through Facebook to pay strangers to send them “[licked] lollipops, spit or other items” from kids with the illness.

The idea is to expose the kids to the virus to build immunity without having to get a shot.

It’s a lousy strategy, doctors say.

Dr. Wilbert Mason, a professor of clinical pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said he was “dumbfounded” by the news. “I’m speechless, which will make for a very bad interview,” he told Booster Shots. “How could people be so stupid?”

For starters, he said, sending chicken poxthrough the mail probably won’t work, because the varicella virus needs cells to live in, and there probably would be very few cells in spit or on a used lollipop. “It’s unlikely the virus would survive long enough,” he said.

But more resilient types of infections — dangerous ones — could make it, including hepatitis B, group A strep, and staph germs.

Getting chickenpox “naturally” provides immunity that may be more long-lasting than immunity from the vaccinebut can cause complications. It’s rare, but children with varicella can die if they develop pneumonia or encephalitis, Mason said.

Also, chickenpox blisters often get infected, and if they get infected with invasive group A strep, “it can kill [a child] in hours,” he added.

“The most important risk factor for a child getting that infection is varicella,” he said. “Since we’ve had the varicella vaccine, we’ve seen a decrease in children with invasive group A strep. For me, that’s the most compelling reason to get it.”

Thirty years ago, it was common for parents to bring their kids over to a sick friend’s house to get exposed to chickenpox — maybe that’s why today’s “pox parties” seem like a good option to parents put off by vaccines. Mason likened the practice to playing roulette. “It was not a good idea then, and it’s still not a good idea,” he said.

A few are actually flaunting how stupid they are by telling fellow anti-vaxers about their activities.

Via WNEM, CBS 5:

The Facebook group is called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” According to the group’s page, it is geared toward “parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.”

On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.

Parents also use the page to set up play dates with children who currently have chicken pox.

Medical experts say the most troubling part of this is parents are taking pathogens from complete strangers and deliberately infecting their children.

One concern is that they are sending the virus through the mail.

A Facebook post reads, “I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit.” Another woman warns, “This is a federal offense to intentionally mail a contagion.”

Another woman answers, “Tuck it inside a zip lock baggy and then put the baggy in the envelope Don’t put anything identifying it as pox.”

The video on the CBS-5 Website is definitely also worth watching.  It includes an interview with one of the parents who is shipping out the spit.

The chickenpox virus may or may not survive being mailed. In most cases, it probably won’t. Still, for those who might not realize this: it is generally considered to be a bad idea to intentionally ingest the bodily fluids of random people you don’t know and meet on the internet. (Granted some people do this for fun, but at least that involves some other benefits.) It’s certainly not a good idea to do it with someone who is infected with a disease and may be carrying other infections. And if they do have any bacteria infections, putting the biological material on a sugary item and placing it in a warm envelope is not going to do anything to prevent that bacteria from multiplying.

In other words: what the hell are these people thinking???

Thankfully, the law seems to be on the side of reason on this issue. It is generally illegal to intentionally send infectious diseases by mail, except under special circumstances, such as properly isolated and prepared laboratory samples, shipped with appropriate bio-hazardous safeguards. Federal prosecutors have made it clear that they are willing to charge those who violate the law.

Via Third Age:

Chickenpox Lollipops By Mail? Illegal, Prosecutor Warns

Parents receiving chickenpox-infected lollipops through the mail are breaking the law, a federal prosecutor tells the Associated Press.

Spurred by reports aired in the past week about parents turning to Facebook to procure items said to be infected with chickenpox, U.S. Attorney Jerry Martin hopes to make it clear that trafficking in infectious diseases is illegal — as well as unsafe.

“If you are engaged in this type of behavior, you’re not only potentially exposing innocent people to dangerous viruses and illnesses and diseases, you’re also exposing yourself potentially to federal criminal prosecution,” Martin told The Associated Press.

According to Martin, it is a federal crime to send diseases or viruses across state lines, whether through the U.S. Postal Service or private services like FedEx or UPS. The same laws that prohibit, say, the mailing the of anthrax also apply to infectious diseases: Offenders, if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison.

The hubbub comes in the wake of the growing popularity of so-called chickenpox parties, organized by parents in order to expose their children to chickenpox and thereby strengthen their immune systems. As WSMV-TV in Nashville reported Thursday, parents without entree to such events are increasingly turning to internet dealers purporting to sell lollipops, among other items, infected with the chickenpox virus.

I fully expect to hear a lot of whining about how this is more proof that the government and judicial system are firmly in the pocket of the big evil corporations and how they are stopping parents from exercising their rights to do things the “natural” way. The antivaccine groups always seem to have had a persecution complex. Still, I hope that this warning will be enough to stop most from engaging in this illegal, dangerous and disgusting practice, though I’m sure it won’t stop them all.

I suppose the next thing will be swapping contaminated feces to infect children with polio in order to get a “natural” immunity.

If chemtrail conspiracy theorists are to believed, then large jet aircraft, possibly the same aircraft that carry passengers are being used to spray unknown quantities of chemicals of some type at high altitude.  While it’s rather difficult to judge the altitude of an aircraft by sight alone, based on what has been claimed to be chemtrails it’s fairly clear that the aircraft were flying at normal jet altitudes, well above tropospheric weather.   If they were indeed passenger aircraft then the altitude is generally above thirty thousand feet.

Some commonly claimed materials:

Jet Fuel or other hydrocarbons – This is actually done on occasion, as passenger jets do occasionally have to preform fuel dumps.   These are not done as a matter of routine but rather happen when a plane is heavily loaded with fuel for a long flight but has to land shortly after takeoff due to an emergency such as a mechanical failure or a passenger medical emergency.  The fuel disperses rapidly.  Studies have been done on exactly what happens to fuel dumped at altitude and have concluded that at least 98% of it evaporates before it ever reaches ground level. If any does reach the ground (which it usually does not) it is a very minute amount which is spread over an enormous geographic area.   The quantity is basically unnoticeable and will itself evaporate relatively quickly.

The fuel vapors will not last long in the atmosphere.  Hydrocarbons tend to photodegrade and generally decompose in the atmosphere and will eventually oxidize entirely.   In the short term, these vapors may contribute, at least locally to smog, but they would  makeup a relatively small proportion of human generated air pollution.

Aluminum – Atomized aluminum or some aluminum compound like aluminum oxide would disperse quite a bit before any amount reached the ground.  It would basically behave as atmospheric dust, some remaining suspended for some time in the high winds at altitude but most eventually falling from suspension.  Aluminum is one of the most common elements in the crust of the earth and therefore one of the primary components of atmospheric dust.  Adding a little more aluminum would have little effect on the total amount in the earth’s atmospheric dust and any that settled to the ground would join the enormous amounts of aluminum present in most soil.

Aluminum is generally regarded as being non-toxic and in all but the most extreme circumstances presents no substantial health danger.

Mercury – If ejected from aircraft, mercury would either evaporate or form very small droplets which would remain suspended at least initially.   Due to the high weight of mercury it would not stay in the atmosphere for a very long time but would precipitate out.   By the time the mercury reached the ground, it would be extremely dispersed and would not reach toxic levels in any given location.  However, it would accumulate in water especially in the worlds oceans.

Spraying mercury out of aircraft wouldn’t do a whole lot to increase the atmospheric mercury levels or the oceanic mercury levels, however.  Unfortunately, we already spew many many tons of mercury into the atmosphere and it has resulted in increased atmospheric and oceanic mercury levels and occasionally can be shown to bioacumulate in some species.   This happens because of the burning of coal which is a very effective way of ejecting mercury into the atmosphere.   In areas directly downwind from coal plants, mercury levels are elevated, especially after the coal burner has operated for a many years or decades.

Dumping mercury from an aircraft would at least result in more dilution before it reached the ground and thus would not expose a given area to as acute a level of mercury.   All in all, it would do what coal burners already do, although to a much smaller extent.

Barium – One of the most commonly claimed components of chemtrails is barium.  However, chemtrail conspiracy theorists don’t seem to have much idea what form it is supposedly being discharged in.  Barium is an alkaline earth metal, but in its elemental form it is highly reactive especially to oxygen.  If barium were discharged into the air in an atomized form, it would react violently to form barium oxide and barium peroxide.  Both of these compounds are also reactive and are powerful oxidizers.  While it is unlikely that either would reach the ground in significant concentrations, if they did, they would react readily with most organic material.

If barium compounds were released in the atmosphere, it’s more realistic to expect that they would be m0re stable barium salts.   The most common of these is barium sulfate.   Barium sulfate is non-toxic and not reactive.   It is so safe that it is a very common radiocontrast agent that is often swallowed to allow x-ray examination of the digestive tract.   It is also fairly common in the surface geology of earth, so adding a tiny bit more would not change very much.

Other barium salts vary in toxicity and reactivity from very low to very high.  Most soluble barium compounds are fairly toxic.  Barium carbonate, for example, has been used as a rat poison.   These barium compounds are also found in nature, in soil, water and atmospheric dust and are generally not of concern as long as the concentrations are fairly low.  According to the CDC, respiratory precautions become necessary when the concentrations of soluble barium compounds in the air exceed .5 miligrams per cubic meter.

Such high concentrations are would not result from dumping barium into the air at altitude.   By the time the compound reached the ground, it would be dispersed over a minimum of dozens of square kilometers.  Some chemtrail theorists cite measurements of soluble barium compounds in air samples that have been as high as 50.8 nanograms per cubic meter.   This is a tiny amount, and orders of magnitude bellow what is considered the safe exposure level.  It is entirely consistent with the levels expected to exist from soil kicked up by wind and other sources of atmospheric dust.   Atmospheric barium is also produced by some human activities, such as flares and fireworks, where barium compounds are used to produce a green color.   The levels produced by such activities have been subject to study and while they do cause a very modest localized increase in detectable barium compounds, the levels are nowhere near what would be considered hazardous.

Sulfur Dioxide – Aircraft do already release tiny amounts of sulfur dioxide, because sulfur is present in hydrocarbon fuels. Aviation fuel tends to be relatively highly refined and conform to standards for low sulfur levels. In the case of Jet-A fuel, the maximum allowable sulfur concentration is less than .3% by weight. This results in a small but significant amount of sulfur dioxide in the engine exhaust.

It has been suggested that aircraft could spray sulfur dioxide as a means of reducing global warming.  Indeed, sulfur dioxide does reflect sunlight, but it also causes acid rain, so intentionally depositing it into the atmosphere seems to be a rather flawed idea.  Still, there is quite a bit of the stuff in the atmosphere, both as a result of natural sources like volcanos as well as man-made sources.  The largest, by far, is coal burning, which releases hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

It would take an enormous effort by a huge number of aircraft to increase the total emitted noticeably, and although it would deposit the gas at a higher altitude (at least initially) than coal exhaust, it wouldn’t change atmospheric distribution much in the long run.  In any event, the total amount that could be placed in the upper atmosphere by thousands of aircraft would be less than can be produced by a single large volcanic eruption, as happens every so often.

Cloud Seeding Chemicals - Cloud seeding is typically accomplished by using hydroscpic materials, such as salts, by using cold materials like liquid propane or dry ice or by using silver iodine, a chemical which has a structure similar to ice and can be used to induce the formation of ice crystals.  These chemicals are sometimes delivered by aircraft but are also commonly delivered by rockets or by ground-based misters and flares.

The best evidence indicates that these chemicals can indeed have some localized effect on cloud structure and precipitation.   Adding large amounts of seed material to saturated, supercooled clouds increases the rate of ice and water droplet formation and can temporarily increase the altitude of the cloud, causing additional cooling and resulting in precipitation.   The effect, however, is entirely temporary and will only affect the cloud formation which is seeded and not the overall weather of a region.

While cloud seeding is sometimes practiced, it is done in a manner that does not even remotely resemble the so-called “chemtrail” reports.  For one, cloud seeding is only effective when the chemicals are applied to clouds that are already fairly saturated and contain at least some supercooled water droplets.   If cloud seeding chemicals are applied to a “dry” sky or to areas that do not have dense, cold clouds, they will have no effect at all.  If the proported chem trails really did contain seeding material, it would be extremely wasteful as these aircraft normally are reported in relatively clear skies.

The altitudes of the aircraft are also entirely wrong for cloud seeding.  While it can be difficult to judge the exact altitude of an aircraft, most “chemtrail” reports cite jet aircraft that appear to be flying at normal altitude.  The type of clouds that can be most effectively seeded are at relatively low altitudes.   Jet aircraft typically fly at altitudes far above tropospheric weather and thus, even if the appropriate cloud formations did exist, they would be too high to directly seed them.  Therefore, any attempt to seed clouds from these aircraft would be entirely ineffective.

Bacteria - If sprayed out the back of an aircraft at altitude, bacteria would be introduced to a very harsh environment.   The spraying itself would eject the bacteria into air currents moving at near supersonic speeds and into extremely low temperatures.   Many forms of bacteria are capable of surviving freezing and rethawing, but the tolerance for being frozen varies depending on the type of bacteria and the circumstances of the freezing.   Being frozen after being ejected from an aircraft is an especially rapid and violent form of freezing.  The bacteria would be subjected to an extreme temperature change and being tumbled with tiny ice crystals.   It would be expected that most of the bacteria would be destroyed if ejected in a liquid form in this manner.

The only bacteria that might be candidates for being ejected from an aircraft would be those that form tough endospores.   They also count not be ejected as a liquid, mixed with water, but would have to be dried and preserved in a powder-like form.   Ejecting the powdered bacteria presents other problems.   Atomized solids tend to accumulate static charges which cause them to clump and not properly disperse.  However, the problem is not insurmountable, assuming enough effort were put into electrostatic control and dispersal equipment.

There are very few bacteria that really fit the bill for being tough enough to be dispersed into the air in the endospore phase and have a good chance of surviving for any period of time.   One reason that anthrax has been the focus of much biological warfare research is that it is one of the very few pathogenic bacteria that can be spread by air and is tough enough to reliably survive rapid dispersal.  It also can be cultured in large quantities relatively easily.

Even a bacteria like anthrax would have difficulty in the especially rough conditions of being sprayed out of the back of a jet aircraft. If the bacteria were to come into contact with droplets of liquid water as it fell, it could come out of the endospore phase and thus become far more fragile.

An even greater danger would be ultraviolet light. UV light is an effective way of destroying bacteria and at high altitudes they would be above most of the atmosphere and much of the ozone layer. At these altitudes, UV light is especially intense. The bacteria would likely remain aloft for some time, due to their small size and the high speed winds at altitude. This would give them ample time to be exposed to intense ultraviolet light.

Ultimately some of the bacteria may well survive and eventually they would find their way to the ground.  Just like other forms of atmospheric dust, the bacteria would either reach low levels on their own or be brought down by precipitation.   By the time they reached the ground, the bacteria would be extremely dispersed, with a relatively small amount of bacterial dispersed over as much as hundreds of miles.

This would be of little concern.   The world is not sterile as is and the soil is already full of bacteria, including potentially pathogenic bacteria (for this reason, licking random things outdoors is not recommended).  The bacteria would join a huge population of bacteria of every type that lives in the soil and air of the earth.  Even anthrax can be found in soil in many locations.  Inhaling an few bacteria is not likely to cause infection, it would have to be a fairly large amount.  That would never happen.

To date, there are no known biological warfare programs that ever considered spreading bacteria by spraying it out the back of high altitude jet aircraft.  All credible biological warfare research and testing as focused on more direct methods of exposing populations or enemy forces to bacteria, such as contaminating water supplies or using small ground-level aerosol producing bomblets.

Viruses – Many of the rules that apply to bacteria also apply to viruses, although viruses are vastly varied in their tolerance for various environments.  Many viruses are extremely fragile when outside of their host organism.  Viruses also are much more difficult to produce in large quantities since they cannot be cultured on their own – they require another organism’s cells to replicate.

Assuming a virus could be found that could be produced in large quantities and was able to survive the temperature extremes, ultraviolet light and other factors associated with being sprayed from a high altitude aircraft, it would still be a too dispersed to be likely to cause much harm and  would be, at best, a highly inefficient way of dosing people on the ground.

Antibiotics – Because antibiotics are complex organic compounds, it could be expected that some portion of those discharged into the upper atmosphere would decompose or otherwise be destroyed by ultraviolet light or oxidation before ever reaching the ground.  Since the antibiotics would be greatly dispersed, it’s unlikely that there would be much in the way of noticeable effects on the microorganisms in the region.  Antibiotics have to be present in fairly high concentrations for them to be effective in killing or inhibiting the reproduction of microbes.

Discharging even fairly large amounts of antibiotics into the environment in such a low density manner would not do very much to alter the concentrations in the region.  It is important to remember that antibiotics have been common in the biosphere for at least millions of years.   Most antibiotic compounds are derived directly from compounds produced by fungi, bacteria and other microbes.  For example, the antibiotic Gentamicin is composed of compounds produced by widely found in soil and water and Penicillin is produced by a common fungus that is responsible for bread mold. There are some fully synthetic antibiotics, but they are not inherently more powerful than the naturally occurring variety.

Antibiotics are selective and only toxic to certain microbes. These compounds are not toxic to humans or animals and would not have any noticeable effects on such organisms, especially in the concentrations that might reach ground level from high altitude discharges. Since these compounds are present in minute amounts in the environment, humans are always being exposed to very low concentrations of antibiotic compounds and always have been.

Human Blood – This is an especially ridiculous claim, given the amount of blood that would be needed to create a reasonably sized trail of blood in the air. It would take all the blood in the bodies of more than 24,000 full grown humans to fill the tanks of a KC-135.   That assumes all the bodies were drained.  More than three times as many would be needed for live donors of the blood.

Not only that, but spraying blood would be a huge problem for the nozzles, pumps and other equipment.   At the very least, the blood would have to have a lot of anticoagulants added.

The blood would disperse quite and the cells and fluid would probably begin to separate.  It would tend to freeze very rapidly and this would destroy most of the cells, as blood cannot be frozen without the addition of protectionists.  The ice crystals formed tend to break apart the cell walls of blood cells.  Any biological material that did eventually reach the ground would biodegrade pretty quickly.

Any pathogens present in the blood would not be harmful in the concentrations that may survive reaching ground level.

Defoliants or Herbicides  - There is a good deal of historical data for the  dispersal of defoliants and herbicides from aircraft.  Aircraft have been used for dispersing such agents in agricultural contexts and as a means of reducing foliage where enemy forces could take cover during military conflicts.

During the Vietnam War, the United States undertook an extensive program to disperse defoliants as a means of reducing the area where enemy forces could hide.  This included the application of so-called “rainbow herbicides,” so called because each were assigned a color code to distinguish the type of chemical.   The best known of these was Agent Orange, a mixture which was generally safe for humans if formulated correctly, but which was widely contaminated by dioxin compounds due to poor quality control by manufacturers, resulting in detrimental effects on humans who were exposed.

Application of the compounds from too high an altitude would have been ineffective.  The material would have dispersed widely, resulting in an uncontrolled dispersal pattern of very low concentrations.  The compounds would have remained suspended in the air for some period of time, with much of the material breaking down, and when it finally did reach the ground, concentrations would be far too low to have any noticeable effects on vegetation.  In Vietnam, aircraft dispersing herbicides flew at the  extremely low altitude of about 150 feet.   Dispersing the herbicide also required that the wind speed be low or the chemicals would get scattered.

This low altitude spraying is also what caused the concentrations of dioxin to be high enough at ground level to cause human health issues, as well as the fact that many thousands of tons were used over a relatively small area.  If large enough quantities of dioxins were dumped at high altitude, it would increase the regional concentrations, at least slightly, but it would be an extremely inefficient way of doing so if that were the goal.

The aircraft used were typically prop-driven, slow moving aircraft that could spray the herbicide at such low levels and at low speeds.   Helicopters were also used.  Modern application of herbicides, insecticides and other such material by crop dusters also occurs at low levels, even lower in many circumstances.

Insecticides, Herbicides, Fertilizers – As mentioned above, agricultural chemicals are sometimes delivered by air.  It is an efficient method of providing large scale coverage when only low volumes of chemicals are required.  Crop dusting is most commonly done to deliver insecticides.  The practice may be used outside of the agricultural sector to combat mosquito and other pest insects.

As with herbicides, accomplishing this requires the aircraft to fly at extreme low altitudes.  Crop dusters may fly as ten feet above the fields being dusted.  Helicopters have increasingly been used for this.  Fixed wing airplanes used for crop dusting are designed for slow speeds and high maneuverability at low altitudes.  In fact, the altitudes at which crop dusters operate are so low, they have actually been known to collide with trucks and other objects on the ground.

If applied at higher altitudes, chemicals would be scattered and dispersed to a level where they would not be effective. Insecticides and other complex organic chemicals would at least partially break down before reaching ground levels.  Phosphates, nitrates and other nutrients would just be scattered into the atmospheric dust, which already contains such compounds.

Chaff - This is material that the military occasionally discharges into the atmosphere during combat and training excises. Chaff is intended to distract or obscure radar by providing false returns from reflective material.  Traditionally, chaff has been composed primarily of strips of metallic foil, but more modern chaff is often composed of thin fibers with a metallic coating.  Chaff may be dropped in large amounts over a wide area to obscure aircraft movements or may be deployed in bursts by an aircraft attempting to evade radar-based defenses such as surface to air missiles.

When deployed, chafe tends to remain in the air for a relatively short period of time.  It is therefore necessary that the material be dropped repeatedly over the same area.  However, the exact period of time it is aloft depends on altitude and wind patterns.   A common way of dispersing chaff is to have it packed into small containers with a explosive charge that blows it out in a burst.  An aircraft could be equipped with several of these containers for use in evading radar-based defenses.  It may also be dispersed by flares which aid in evading infrared-seeking missiles while dispersing chaff to confound radar.

Chaff does eventually make its way to the ground and is fairly harmless once it does, although it has caused problems when it has been blown into substations or other electrical infrastructure.  During its time in the air, chaff does occasionally show up on weather radar or other radar systems.  The image to the right shows chaff returns from a military training exercise on a regional weather radar screen.

The length of the fibers or strips used depends on the frequency of the radar which is being targeted.  On the battlefield, a variety of lengths are used to help obscure a wide range of possible radar frequencies.  However, the chaff used during training over inhabited areas is restricted to sizes that minimize the possible effects on air traffic control radar.

Conclusion:
There have been biological warfare programs, but none were ever based on the idea of spraying biological agents at high altitudes by jet aircraft.
There have been chemical warfare programs, but none were ever based on the idea of spraying chemical agents at high altitudes by jet aircraft.
There have been weather modification programs, but none were ever based on the idea of spraying weather modification agents at high altitudes by jet aircraft.
There have been aircraft-based herbicide and insecticide programs, but none ever used high altitude jet aircraft.

In all cases, this would be a poor way of getting significant concentrations of the materials to ground levels or would not have any significant effects on weather.

Unfortunately, adding entirely redundant backup power to railroad crossing warning systems wouldn’t actually address the real safety problem with railroad crossings:  idiots.    It’s really not hard to avoid being killed at a railroad crossing.   If there’s a train coming, don’t enter the crossing.   If there isn’t a train coming, it’s safe to cross.    It’s not hard to tell if a train is approaching either.   Most crossings have signals, such as flashing lights and gates to make it obvious, but even if the crossing lacks signals or the signals don’t work, it’s still fairly obvious.   Trains are generally required to blow their horn when approaching a railroad crossing, so if you’re about to go over a railroad crossing and hear a train horn, look both ways, because it’s possible that the signals are not functioning.

Seems simple, right?  After all, stopping at a railroad crossing to let a train pass is only going to cost you, at worst, a few minutes, and cutting in front of a train is not a good way to keep yourself alive.    It’s impossible for the train to stop in time to avoid a collision, and it certainly can’t swerve out of the way.  Estimating the speed and distance of  something like an approaching locomotive can be surprisingly difficult, especially when you’re also moving.   If you’re wrong and that train hits, it’s not going to do just superficial damage.

Despite these seemingly obvious facts, grade crossings claim a surprising number of lives.   In the US alone, hundreds die in grade crossing accidents every year – 247 in the year 2009 and 338 in 2007.  The problem is not confined to the US, of course.   Everywhere that grade crossings exist, there are deaths on a fairly regular basis.

Supporters of Social Darwinism might suggest that this is not such a bad thing, since it’s generally the fault of the idiot driver who gets killed, but the problem is more broad than that.  Despite the fact that locomotives tend to be a lot larger and sturdier than road vehicles, they can and do get badly damaged by striking cars and trucks.   Debris can fly up and injure train crew.  On occasion, trains have even derailed due to grade-crossing accidents.   Even if the accident does not cause any significant damage to the train, it still means that it has to come to a stop, the crossing ends up being blocked for some time and emergency services need to respond to clean up the mess.   And the idiots who try to beat the train are actually more likely to survive with injuries than die outright.   Add to this the fact that there may be other passengers in the vehicle who had no control over the situation and it’s easy to see why this is a major social problem.

Grade crossings have also been one of the largest obstacles to the deployment of high speed rail or even increasing the speed of rail transit in general.  Higher speeds tend to increase the likelihood that an idiot will misjudge the speed of a train or will not be able to make it out alive when they dart in front of it.  True high speed rail is generally required to run on grade separated tracks because of this.   Building grade separation into rail systems can be very expensive, especially where tracks already exist.    Converting a grade crossing to a grade-separated crossing requires completely rerouting either the tracks or the road or both and may include having to build extended elevated track beds or roadways or digging cutouts to allow the rails to go over or under the road.    The expense is enormous, especially when it requires all crossings to be separated, even those which cross very lightly traveled roadways.

Most newly built railroad tracks do attempt to reduce or eliminate grade crossings, but this is not always possible.  Light rail systems are not normally grade separated and may need to operate at near grade level to allow passengers to frequently board or depart.   While light rail vehicles may be able to stop more quickly than trains, they are not immune to grade crossing accidents.

In many areas, railways are required to reduce the operating speed because of grade crossings.   This applies to both high speed trains, which must operate at dramatically lower speeds and to more conventional trains which may still have to travel well bellow the speeds they are capable of.  California’s Metrolink commuter rail system uses trains which are perfectly capable traveling at more than 80 miles per hour and if they did so, more people might well ride the train, but because of concerns over railroad crossings, they are limited to much less – usually 60 mph or less. Despite this, there have still been 244 deaths at crossings in the system’s fifteen year history.  If it ran faster there would likely have been even more.

The problem is not new, and over the years, many attempts have been made to get drivers to stay off the damn tracks when a train is approaching.   The image bellow shows a prototype railroad crossing signal that was built in Grenada, Mississippi in the mid 1930’s at a railroad crossing that was considered especially dangerous.   The design attempted to get motorists to stop with a combination of visually dramatic graphics, lights and sound.   The words “STOP – DEATH – STOP” were illuminated with neon lights that would flash when a train approached.  An arrow indicated the direction of the approaching train.  The skull and cross bones was also neon-lit and flashed from red to blue.  A more traditional pair of flashing lights was also included.   If that was not enough, the signal also featured an ear-splitting air raid siren.

This video shows what the crossing would have looked like and sounded like during operation.

A local inventor, Alonzo Billups, designed the crossing sign. He was inspired by the fact that the crossing had a reputation for being especially dangerous, and despite this being well known locally, drivers continued to run the crossing, narrowly dodging trains that passed at ninety miles per hour. It was never widely adopted, but remained in use until the 1970’s.   Just looking at the sign, one can get a sense of the desperation Billups must have felt to get the point across to the motorists.

Attempts to improve crossing safety:

Grade Separation – As mentioned above this is the preferred way of avoiding crossing dangers, by simply removing all crossings.  It’s very expensive and local topography, structures and the routes taken by roads and railways can complicate the matter.   Given that grade separation also avoids traffic being held up by trains, it’s generally worth the difficulties for major roadways, but doing it for each and every crossing is difficult, time consuming and very very expensive.

Boom Barrier Gates - Most early crossing warning systems simply alerted drivers with flashing lights and bells, but did not attempt to physically block drivers from driving through the crossing.   While these are still fairly common, many crossings now have a gate which lowers across the roadway in order to deter vehicles from crossing into the path of the oncoming train.   These gates are not physically strong enough to stop a vehicle from just plowing right through them, but none the less they do generally result in fewer drivers trying to enter the crossing when a train is approaching.

Typically the crossing lights will begin flashing a few seconds or more before the gate begins to descend.  This allows time for those who are already beginning to make it through the tracks to continue across and for those who are too close to safely stop to continue through.   This is analogous to the yellow light that precedes red traffic lights, giving warning to drivers that the light is about to change.

The biggest problem with gates is that most of them only come down to block the side of the roadway that vehicles drive on in each direction.   In the United States, for example, the gates would come down to block the right lane of a two-lane roadway in each direction.  The problem is that a driver who is hell-bent on being an idiot and endangering themselves can still go through the crossing by turning into the opposing traffic lane and cutting diagonally through the crossing.

Drivers making this dumb decision may face an even greater risk of being hit by a train because of their indirect route and the barriers stopping them from making a quick and direct passage in front of the train.

Four-quadrant gate - The four-quadrant gate also known as a double boom barrier gate is similar to a basic boom barrier gate except that gates are placed on both sides of the traffic lanes to assure that the path of vehicles is blocked even if they try to swerve into the opposing traffic lane.  Normally the gates do not come down at the same rate, but rather the gate blocking traffic entering the crossing comes down first followed by the gate that blocks the lane for traffic exiting the crossing.   This helps assure that a vehicle that has entered the crossing before the barriers come down has some time to exit.

For quadrant gates are more expensive than the standard single gate crossing systems.   They do improve safety quite a bit, but they’re far from being perfect.   While it does tend to reduce drivers going around the barriers, it’s not uncommon for drivers to still try to dash under the booms as they are coming down, sometimes damaging them in the process.  Taller vehicles like trucks may snag the barriers as they try to outrun the falling barriers.  Attempting to make it through just before they close completely is a common cause of the booms being damaged and can make them ineffective until repaired.  Some drivers are also willing to just plow right through them and keep going, regardless of the gate being closed.   This is surprisingly common.

Once the boom barrier is broken, drivers will see this as an invite to run the crossing until the barrier can be repaired.  This may take days, during which time the safety of the crossing is compromised.   It is also fairly expensive to have to frequently replace such barriers.

Barricades and Stronger Barriers – In an attempt to make it impossible for drivers to enter the crossing, regardless of how motivated they are to practice such idiocy, a few crossings have been fitted with systems designed to be capable of physically resisting vehicles entering.   Such barriers are, thus far, relatively uncommon at railroad crossings.  They are, however, seen fairly frequently at other locations.   Pop-up barriers, vehicle-blocking gates and various types of retractable barricades are a common feature at secure facilities, such as prisons, restricted areas at airports and government facilities.

Usually such barrier systems are installed in combination with more traditional gates, where the less secure gates close first and then the secure barriers are extended.  Care must be taken in designing such systems to avoid some possible problems that could occur.   Retractable posts must be designed in a manner that avoids the possibility that they could pop up just as a vehicle passes and become caught on the underside, damaging the post or even trapping the car in place.   Systems should also be designed so that if a vehicle is, for whatever reason, stopped in the crossing when the barriers extend, it will not be trapped such that it can’t move as the train approaches.   One way of doing this is to use ramp-style barriers that can be driven over in one direction.  Another method that has been tried is using barriers that only block oncoming traffic (as with single boom barriers), but which have additional barriers in the center of the road to stop drivers from crossing into the other lane.   Of course, it’s still possible a driver could back up and go around the separators.

These types of barriers tend to be fairly expensive, though not nearly as expensive as grade separation.  While it would seem that such systems could increase safety significantly, they have not been widely deployed and thus there’s little hard statistical data on the impact they have.   However, since they are more difficult to penetrate, it would seem they have at least the potential to make crossings safer.

Now, my idea:  Make the consequence something people care about

Perhaps I’m a bit bitter toward the idiots who endanger lives and cost so much, but I’d like to see a system that makes crossings safer by punishing those who violate the regulations and basic good sense.   If people do not care about their lives or the lives of others, then fine, make it a money issue.   First, make the fine large enough to really really hurt.  Secondly, make it damn near guaranteed that running the crossing will cause the driver to be caught.

People are willing to take stupid chances and risk their lives, partially because they know the majority who race through the crossings do make it in time to avoid death.  So when it comes to fines, drivers need to know that running the crossing will not simply result in the possibility of a fine, but the distinct probability of one, and a huge one at that.   The simplest way of doing this is with cameras.  Cameras are already established as an effective way of policing stop lights, and the same technology can work with almost no modification on railroad crossings.

These days, cameras are cheap and a system that uses cameras and suitably high fines can easily pay for itself with just a few idiots trying to rush the gates.  The system should take high quality photos of both the license plate and the driver, to be sure they can’t get away with claiming someone borrowed the car.

Suggested Punishments (first offense):

• Private Passenger Vehicle – Mandatory $1,500 fine
• Private Passenger Vehicle with occupants under the age of 18 – $2000 fine plus $500 for each minor passenger
• Commercial vehicle or small delivery truck – Mandatory $5,000 fine.   Suspension of commercial driving license until a safety course is completed.
• Large truck, tractor tailor etc – Mandatory $25,000 fine.  Commercial driving license suspended for a minimum of 90 days.
• Hazardous cargo carrier, compressed gas carrier or bulk flammable liquid carrier – Mandatory fine of $100,000 imposed on the owner/operator of the vehicle.   Mandatory sentence of no less than six months imprisonment for the driver.   Mandatory suspension of all driving privileges for no less than one year.   Mandatory suspension of all special driving permits (trucking licenses, commercial drivers license) indefinitely with lifetime ban on re-applying.

Notice the key word being “mandatory” – plea bargains and sentence recommendations expressly forbidden.

Or, better yet, get downright draconian on the idiots who go through railroad crossings:

My idea would be this:   If a vehicle enters the crossing, an automated system of sprayers hoses down the side of the car with paint.   Not regular paint, of course.   Even spray paint on top of automotive paint can be removed by using buffing compound and then polishing or re applying the clear coat to the area.   This paint would be fast drying and have extremely high solvent levels, thus allowing it to eat right through the original finish of the car and assure that nothing less than a full body sandblasting and repainting will repair the damage.

The official reason for painting the cars is to make them easy for local police to apprehend the drivers.   Violating the crossing would also trigger cameras to snap pictures of the car and alert local police so that any officers in the immediate vicinity can be dispatched to intercept the driver.  The paint would be distinctive, perhaps two bright colors streaked across the entire side (tires, windows, trim and all).  Since the paint is used to mark cars that have violated the crossing, it would be illegal to drive a car with the distinct paint on public roads.  After being painted, the car would need to be impounded until the owner made arrangements to have to transported to a body shop and repainted, or at least sanded to get the paint off it.

When the driver is intercepted, they are not ticketed, because people don’t actually fear tickets that much.   Rather, they’re arrested on the spot and brought back to the station cuffs and all for some mug shots and a few hours in the hold.  The car would be towed to the impound lot directly.   Of course, the police would also have the right to search it, so you had really better hope you have nothing in there that you shouldn’t.

One might object that local police forces would not want to be burdened with this.  I disagree.  All that has to be done is to give them a good sized chunk of the fine imposed and they’ll line up to be part of the program.   Not only that, but local authorities are welcome to add whatever kind of impediment charges, fees and additional charges they might like.   And of course, they any cop who conducts the arrest is very much welcome to add whatever bonuses they might decide to add to the arrest, such as throwing the idiot to the pavement and holding them down while they’re checked for weapons, making them stand on the side of the road in full view of everyone else in handcuffs while the car is searched, conducting highly invasive cavity searches back at the police station, publishing mug shots and making sure that the individuals get to share a holding cell with some especially interesting characters while their arrest paperwork is processed.

Other possible safety problems with crossings, aside from idiots:

The vast, overwhelming majority of collisions are caused by people running crossings.  However, on rare occasions accidents may happen because of a malfunction or design flaw.   The gates and lights are built to railroad signal standards and thus are extremely reliable.   Of course, testing, inspection and rapid repairs are all part of assuring that they continue to work properly.

Many crossings do not have backup power, and this could be an issue if there were a power outage, but it’s straight forward enough to address.  Railroads may have their own power sources to provide traction power to trains or power to signals, though these are not 100% reliable either.   It is common practice for railroad signals to have local battery backups.   In some extreme circumstances, a signal may be without power for several days, causing the batteries to run down.  Such events should be rare enough to make it possible to dispatch a crew to replace the batteries or to place an officer or guard at the crossing before each train passes.

In a few very rare cases, a flaw in the design of the crossing can cause collisions.  Such was the case in the 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision. The accident happened when a school bus stopped at a traffic light near a railroad crossing, with a portion of the rear of the bus protruding into the path of the train. The railroad crossing and traffic light were supposed to be synchronized so that the light would not turn red when the crossing was about to be activated, thus avoiding vehicles becoming trapped in the crossing area. The system failed to work properly.

A subsequent investigation found that there had been numerous complaints that the system was not properly timed but that officials had failed to address the problem.  Obviously, such tragedies can easily be avoided by reasonable measures in testing and repair of these systems.

Finally, there is the fear that a vehicle could stall or become suddenly disabled just as it crosses a grade crossing.  If this were to happen at a time when a train was at least a few minutes away from the location, it would be relatively easy to deal with.  Sensors could detect the stranded vehicle.   Help could be sent to move the vehicle out of the way, and if a train were close enough to pose a danger, it could be brought to a stop safely.

The real nightmare would be if a vehicle were to stall out, of all places, right on the track, having begun to enter the crossing just before the signals activate.   The driver, finding that the car is impossible to restart, would still have enough time to exit the vehicle and run to safety before the train struck, but the car would be a complete loss.

Still, that’s hardly something worth worrying about, because that scenario would require some astronomically bad luck in the timing and location of a breakdown.  It would not be expected to happen very often at all.

Really, the big danger is idiots.  I have no sympathy for idiots.  I’d like to see them have to pay for their idiocy.  Not necessarily with their life, but with a good chunk of change.

Daytona Beach News-Journal:

Stetson student found with uranium on DeLand campus
Stetson University officials confiscated a package containing low-grade uranium from a student Thursday, DeLand police said.

Volusia County’s HAZMAT team, DeLand police and firefighters were called to the scene. Authorities discovered that the amount of uranium was small enough that it could be possessed legally.

Police said there was no immediate threat to the campus, but the Public Safety Office was temporarily sealed off as a precaution.

According to Cindi Brownfield, Stetson spokeswoman, possession of uranium falls under the university’s weapons policy, and the student will go through Stetson’s judicial process.

DeLand Deputy Chief Randel Henderson said in an email that police are “conferring with the FBI as a routine protocol.”

And also, here’s a clip from a local news station:

CONGRATULATIONS, STETSON UNIVERSITY, HE’S NOT EVEN GRADUATED AND YOU’VE ALREADY MANAGED TO TEACH HIM/HER HOW MUCH INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY WILL BE PUNISHED!

Now lets actually consider what we have here. A student acquired a small amount of uranium, a substance less toxic than the lead found in solder, car batteries and any number of other products. No, this was not enriched uranium. It was either natural or depleted uranium. It’s a metal. A mildly toxic, ever so slightly radioactive metal that is 100% legal to own and possess in the United States. It’s a material that occurs very commonly in nature. It’s found in many varieties of sandstone and nearly all granite contains significant levels of the stuff. In many places you can go outside and pick up a rock which has a visible amount of uranium oxide right on the surface. Rocks containing very high levels of uranium would be part of any respectable mineral collection and the geology department certainly would have a few samples. Perhaps they need to be investigated and disciplined too!

It’s not a weapon. It’s not dangerous and can’t be used as a weapon in any manner other than by throwing it at someone. If it’s small, it will leave a bruise. If it’s large enough, it may well cause some damage. That’s it. But then again, the same could be said about anything hard and heavy. No, you can’t build a bomb out of it. Acquiring raw uranium is not even the difficult part of building a nuclear weapon.

There’s no word on what form the uranium was in, but some common forms include the following:

• Uranium ore – While many rocks contain uranium “ore” normally means rocks that have a high enough concentration to make it worth recovering
• Vaseline Glass – A green fluorescent glass popular in the 1930’s and still prized by collectors and artists
• Orange glazed ceramics – Uranium oxide was the primary pigment for orange glaze prior to about 1980
• Uranium metal – Available from various suppliers (though harder to get because of this idiocy) as a scientific item or collectable

I have had inquiries many times by individuals looking to buy small amounts of uranium. Because of these kind of news stories, I no longer feel comfortable selling the stuff, although I have sold a few samples in the past. It is still totally legal to do so, but it could raise this kind of idiotic response. The primary reason I am given for wanting to acquire uranium is for element collections. Some others are nuclear energy or science enthusiasts who would like a small sample of the material for educational purposes, to show others or to observe its unique properties. At one time, it was not unusual for educators to have some uranium metal for students to pass around and feel the weight of.

Uranium is very heavy, surprisingly so. Holding even a small amount in your hand it is very obvious that it is significantly heavier than lead. It’s very hard. Uranium is dark grey with a dull luster. It oxidizes quickly so it is best kept in oil or in a sealed atmosphere to prevent oxidation.

Although relatively low in radioactivity, uranium is more than radioactive enough to make it an excellent source of calibration of Geiger counters and other radiological equipment. Because the half-life is so long, a sample provides relatively stable radiation levels over a long period of time for checking and calibrating equipment. It is especially invaluable when calibrating equipment intended for geological work, such as uranium prospecting. It can also be used for calibrating spectroscopy equipment to the unique signature of uranium and its daughters.

Because uranium is an alpha emitter, it can be used in cloud chambers. Prior to the recent radiophobia, cloud chambers were popular at science fairs and with amateur science geeks. Another homebrew experiment using uranium is the construction of a spinthaiscope. In such a device, a small amount of an alpha emitter, such as uranium is placed near a fluorescent screen. When viewed in the dark, the alpha particles produce tiny flashes of light. It’s a fun demonstration.

It’s also possible that the uranium was to be part of a class project, which could have been something like a hardware-based random number generator.

But even if it was nothing more than a scientific novelty, a piece of a unique material as a curiosity, so what? It’s harmless and such enthusiasm for learning is what universities are supposed to encourage.