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Science

Radiation Protection: Caffeine 178

Posted by Hemos from the better-living-thru-chemicals dept.
B.D.Mills writes "This article on the New Scientist web site claims that "drinking coffee could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in India who have found that mice given caffeine survive otherwise lethal doses of radiation." " Hmm...so does this mean I don't need to worry about the background radiation from my monitor?
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Radiation Protection: Caffeine More

Radiation Protection: Caffeine

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  • Duke Study (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's okay because this so-called radiation protection will be balanced out by the results of the Duke study (released in late May) that shows that caffeine increases blood pressure, stress levels, and heart rates so much that it significantly increases the drinker's likelihood of getting heart disease.

    So, when the bomb goes off, instead of dying from radiation poisoning, all us caffeine gulpers will die of a heart attack...

  • Don't get all excited (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sometimes The Scientist really makes me shake my head. This is not big news. There is a huge literature on caffeine and radiation/carcinogens (I've written some of it). Don't get all excited, this doesn't directly translate into what happens with lowdoses of radiation, or address the other negative side-effects (increased mutagenesis in many cases) that caffeine can have.
  • are you saying /. is trying to kill us all? :-)

    ok i need some sleep ;)

    ---

  • I remember hearing somewhere that Gatorade is like the accecpted treatment for some Disease-found-in-Africa (dysentary or something- I forget). A relief agency wanted to contract with Gatorade to supply them with the stuff and they in turn would give gatorade good press.

    Gatorade would not hear of it, and in fact did all they could to distance themselves from diseases.

    I guess that could be an urban ledgend... oh well.

  • As an added benefit for the nuclear technitions is that they will be awake and alert, which is a good thing(TM) when you are working with nuclear reactors. :)
  • Hey wouln't a mouse or rat hyped up on that much caffeine eat the cat? Or at least make Speadie Gonzales (sp?) look like a snail.
  • Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:

    No way.

    You can buy almost pure caffeine over the counter
    in pill form as "NoDoz". If it was controlled
    then they aould have to either make it prescription only or add other chemicals to it
    (like acetominiphen or guifenison) which will
    have very adverse side effects if you try
    to take too much (and screw up the chemistry if
    you had other ideas for extracting it)

    I would bet that one of 2 things would happen if
    you ordered it:
    1) You would get it. No questions asked
    (the catalog would say you need a DEA licence
    to order it if it was controlled)
    2) They would laugh at you and tell you that
    they don't sell in small quantity to individuals
    and that you need to find some retail outlet place.

    Check out www.sigma.com and search for
    lysergic acid dethylamide yup LSD...they
    sell it. However only to licenced persons.
    If you have no licence you don't get it
    no matter how many 'reasons' you come up with.
    if you have one...they sell it to you no
    questions asked.

    Anyway...I wouldn't pay more than $3/gram for it
    (also remember...most caffeine is a byproduct
    of decaffinated coffee production...simple
    extraction and yeilds salable product on both
    ends...)
  • Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:

    Many "illegal drugs" have had medical uses (and
    some are just finding new ones)

    THC was found to be a great antioxident...many
    times better than vitiman E (mostly due to its
    lower toxicity so more can be taken) - this
    may be an explanation for why pot smokers
    show the inital lung damage from smoking
    but the damage generally doens't evolve into
    a cancer

    The legal drug melatonin also protects from
    radiation exposure (ref: TiHKAL by Alexander
    Shulgin).

    Heroin was sold as a pain reliever and a cough
    medication (so was codeine).

    Cocaine still does have some medical uses (I forget what).

    LSD and more recently ibogain have been used to
    treat addictions (Ibogain was made illegal before
    it could ever really be tested, however it is
    still researched outside the USA).
    (also neither LSD nor ibogain is addictive.
    However some individuals can develop a dependance
    on LSD...they are far and few between and in my
    experiance already have extreme addictive
    personailites to begin with)

    Even MDMA (ecstacy) has been used by psycologists
    during treatment sessions in some studies.

    -Steve
  • If only this worked in reverse.... People like me who ingest near-lethal doses of caffeine each day could go to our nearest nucleur reactor core and be protected from the evils of coffee.
  • Considering the state of the world (Thank you very much Mr. Clinton), especially in India and China, I'm stockpiling now. I wanna be good and wired when they bombs start dropping.

    Misfit

    - If you're not right, you're wrong.
  • These stories are only apocryphal, having heard them some 12 years ago. They are meant to show that these sorts of studies are hard to interpret.

    One of the stories concerns mouse longevity. In the study, mice were irradiated to see if they would live longer or shorter than the control mice. Turns out they lived longer, so the first conclusion was that radiation could be beneficial.

    After more work, they concluded that the mice they were using had a high rate of mortality when giving birth. What the study was seeing was that the irradiated mice were more often sterile, and hence living longer.

    The second story was something like observing that mice drank water less while exposed to radiation. In this case, what happened was the water bottle used in the radiation cages was a different type of plastic (more resistent to radiation) than the normal cages. The mice didn't like the taste of the plastic, so didn't drink as often.

    Moral: be wary of mice which glow in the dark :) (and yes, I know radioactive mice don't glow).

  • They say 100mg per 1kg if I remember, if I'm right coffee as about 150mg/cup. That mean a lot of it (I don't have numbers with me right now, so please correct me).

    As someone with allergy to caffeine, I don't want to know how badly I would be after this quantity (if still alive, since more than 1 cup of coffee per day is really bad for me). Maybe it would be pretty bad for the heart. Any doctor reading slashdot could tell effects of cafeine in this quantity?

  • Or we will find out that Aspartme was unleashed on an unsuspecting public to cause behavioral problems and other mental/emotional disorders.

  • Safe (Score:1)

    by Phoenix ( 2762 )
    Well, if this is a true finding, then it would explain why computer geeks like us haven't contracted Eye Cancer or something
  • "...drinking coffee could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in India..."

    looks like they could be looking into ways to protect their population from fallout? with the trouble in the Kashmir highlands [abc.net.au], the timed release of reports like this do nothing to ease the possibility of nuclear sabre rattling.
  • First pumping them full of various drugs and then giving lethal doses of radiation. Uh.. pretty bad torture.
  • There was an article on CNN a few weeks ago that said drinking coffee lowered the risk of getting gall stones. Only coffee, not tea, or other sources of caffeine. There, add that to your list.
  • When I was trained for handling radiation sources for surveying oil wells, we had a big thing on safety and what radiation could do to a person. One case involved a technician at a poultry processing plant where the packaged chicken would pass through this room on conveyer. The doors had interlocks and the sources would close when a person would enter. Well, for some reason, the technician just had to check things out while it was running, so he defeated the interlocks, walked in, peered around the corner, and made it to the door where he collapsed. They did an autopsy on the guy to find that all his arteries had liquified. I bet if the guy snorted a few kilos of coffee, he might have made it out the door. Then again, maybe not!
  • I'm no doctor, but I can tell you caffeine is a controlled substance. I was looking through one of those big fat chemical books where you can order anything made of atoms. Pure caffeine. Buy it by the kilo. You also need a pretty good darned reason to buy it in its pure form like that. They also sell chemicals known for the other end of the speed spectrum too. I wonder who would knock on my door if I tried to make an order for this stuff?
  • The black on white fad that you are seeing might be the results of a Microsoft study on consumers what the desktop should look like. The white was intended to have the look and feel of a genuine sheet of paper with ink displayed on your word processor. I guess companies who want to sell computers are trying to make them look like common desktop materials, such as the paperclip, pen, etc... I seem to be an odd person that I never bought into this look and feel. I have always prefered a the soft luminescent glow of a blinking cursor on a dark phosphor screen. I can do without all the busy distractions. After all, a monitor is nothing but a low powered particle accellerator. Why turn the thing on full nuke all the time anyway?
  • There's something wrong with vivarin tablets. I consumed several one time along with freinds and talk about an unhappy stomach! They might have an additive to prevent abuse. Penguin mints on the other hand are some good stuff. Get a tin of those and start buzzing!
  • Oh boy....I could see Kramer having a fun time with this one!

    What a shame...
  • I'm not a man. I'm a young, intelligent woman that enjoyed winding down a long, rough day of coding with a fun episode of Seinfeld.

    All good things come to an end. I know that. I won't ask forgiveness for, nor apologize for having the skills to imagine how funny an episode on that could be. The idea of a lot of caffeine reminded me of Kramer. That's all. :)
  • maybe this is why i don't have hairs on the front of my head, i take monitor radiation for almost 15 years
    --
    http://www.beroute.tzo.com
  • In China, some prisoners are forced to work to make goods for export. That is slave labour. But I'm sure the good ol' US of A will see this as a good thing, and implement it too fairly soon.
  • Don't forget, the problems with DoE security started on Herr Bush's watch...

  • Back in my school days, I remember researching a what would be considered a fatal dose of caffeine... I think it was 7400mg (about 37 Vivarin) was considered a fatal dose for the average person.

    Sorry, but I don't recall what the source was on this.
    --T
  • Mallocs?
    Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
  • hrm... that's like 40 MegaJolts!
    excellent! so if i usually drink 4 in 5 min. (gram o' vit. Caf)
    that should (in theory) only take about 50 min. to ingest!
    or of course, that would be about 50 extra-stength vivarin...
    i knew a guy who took about 14 at once once.
    knew...

  • Ouch (Score:1)

    by cswan ( 6058 )
    Man, as great as this news sounds, it's gonna take me a while to work my way up to 100 cups a day. *whew*

    Gimme, say, a week.

    [Notice how they didn't mention what _type_ of coffee contains 80-100 milligrams of caffeine. I'd say my normal morning cup is right around quadruple of that...so, 25 cups a day doesn't sound _too_ unrealistic, right??]
  • 7) The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real.

    Did you ever see the season finale to third rock from the sun this year?

    When William Shatner arrived from his plane trip, he was asked how it was and he responded with "It was horrible, there was this thing out on the wing!" and John Lithgow (sp?) responds back, "That's amazing, the samething happend to me too!"

    Well, at least I thought it was funny. Maybe you just had to see it youself (I'm no comidian (sp?) or speller)

  • Wow, 30 cups/day is pretty impressive, but you need to more than triple that intake.

    Must be nice not needing to sleep.

    Cheers!
    vic
  • i can't believe you're comparing the tiannamen square massacre with the littleton shootings. theres a big difference between the government running over peaceful student protesters with tanks, and some wacko kids going insane and shooting up their school. if there are no punishments or consequences in this country, tell me why the hell our prisons are so overcrowded, and getting more so every year?

    i don't think its the united states' job to police other nations, but acting like china has no problems is more idiotic than pointing them out. and another thing, you make me sick. "that savings in labor gets transferred to the consumer" well hot damn, if it saves me some cash, it must be okay! hell, you know what saves me money too? having slaves work on my plantation! all i gotta do is feed 'em! you're an economic genius my friend.

  • A few points (Score:3)

    by skroz ( 7870 ) on Monday June 28, 1999 @08:34AM (#1828254) Homepage
    That's a f'ing lot of caffeine. Wouldn't that be nearly fatal anyway? Also, is it possible that the increased metabolic rate produced by that level of caffeine might have been a contributor to the effect?

    I just wanna see what mice injected with 50+ mg of caffeine look like. Put them sons of bitches on a wheel, goddamn it! You could light up a city!
  • I read a while back that the cell phone companies funded research which answers one of your questions (and, IIRC, they found some dangers). Sorry I can't be of more help, but the info is out there.
  • if i remember correctly the vet forgot to take into account brain size in proportion to bodymass and measured out a dosage for bodymass, which put the elephant into seizures
  • Um... I thought I heard that caffeine (over a long period of time) causes cancer (breast cancer in women anyway). Can anyone confirm this?
  • I regularly consume over a 12 pack of Diet Coke per day. I wonder how much caffine is actually in a 12 ounce Diet Coke.

  • Umm, could we have a vote against that?

  • "Jolt - for those really nasty tumors!"
    "Melanomas just melt away with Nescafe."
    "Drop in at Starbucks for a cup of cancer treatment."

    Naa... honesty in advertising never works.

  • This is great ammo that I will gladdly use against all the health freaks here in Santa Cruz, Ca.

    I'm feed-up with these folks that tell me that drinking coffee and eating meat is going to kill me - the funny part is that most of them are smoking cigs or pot while telling me this. Let me have my caffeine in peace!



    Only on /. can the topic of caffeine lead to a debate about China and human rights :)

  • Now if only scientists would prove that caffiene increases sex appeal and promotes longevity...
  • Considering the amount of coffee the average programmer drinks, people can now say that the only things that will survive a nuclear war are cockroaches and computer geeks...
  • How do you think Micro$oft got windows?
  • Damn, and I thought one can of that shit was lethal. Diet soda = liquid suicide, that stuff is horrible! How do you do it?!?!?!?
  • I always had this strange theory that IT-gurus will be the last (wo)men on earth. At least (after 20 years of waiting) it proves to be true.

    What a happy day.

  • All the more reason to drink Jolt.

    Mom: Are we out of any groceries?
    Me: Yes, milk, bread, butter, and Jolt.
    Mom: OK, I'll pick that up then...


    Now I don't have to sleep anymore :-)

  • Who needs coffee when 3 Penguin Mints contain the same amount of caffine as a regular soda.

    Not only will you be wired and able to withstand radiation, but your breath will smell good too.
  • So, let's start one!
  • Ofcouse the US never spied on anyone...

  • I was about to give up drinking Coke until I read this. I average about 5-10L a day and now I read its not just a waste of money but insurance into my coding future. I can now survive the radiation coming from my CRT. :)

    ... just be sure to have a good dentist, you'll need one with those amounts of Coke. :-)
  • So, if you're working in a nuclear power plant, more caffeine is probably a good thing...

    But if you're a cancer patient undergoing radiation-type treatments, will caffeine intake also limit the radiation's effect on the cancer?
  • far too many posts thinking 25, 50, 100 cups a day isn't "that much".
    for my 80mg/kg, i get around 6.5 GRAMS of caffeine.
    do you have any idea what that would do to you?
    LD 50 (lethal dose for 50% of the group) for my weight class is around 10g.
    65% of that is NOT HEALTHY.
    i've had as much as 1.5g in a 24 hour period,
    and that was really, really bad.
    amusing during,
    but a bit sick after.
    one last thing.
    caffeine is a diurhettic (i KNOW that's not spelled right).
    ever had a few too many cups of coffee,
    and spent the next couple (or more) back and forth to from the bathroom?
    you wouldn't be able to leave.

    all that aside,
    and our chance of sustaining lethal doses of radiation anyway,
    the caffeine might help with the monitor radiation we all enjoy.
    (and that healthy green glow).
    just remember this article,
    for any nuclear fallout we may have to deal with at some point.

    -tk
  • That "theory" about EMR from monitors and high tension power cable towers was largely scare talk. Some fool got his hands on some statistics, misread them (as fools will) and then wrote a book and scared lots of people with his findings. Cellphones are a different story though. They produce micrwave radiation, which can be harmful, but it isn't in the lethal range.
  • Moral: be wary of mice which glow in the dark

    Funny you should mention that. Scientists have actually MADE mice that glow in the dark by giving them the jellyfish gene for the light-emitting protein. The mice that were used were hairless mice, so those that took up the gene glowed in the dark with an eerie green glow.
  • Woohoo!! First the study finding that men who drink coffee have a longer sex drive into their later years and now this!! With those levels of caffine, I'll be a sexual machine! YeAH, baby, YEAH!! :P

    p.s. Actually, I'm already a sexual machine :)
  • Actually, back in the late 60's early 70's low dose LSD was used as a treament for alchoholism - it appears acid breaks the physical addiction to alchohol. Amazing the Ying and Yang illicit drugs can have...

    'Scuse me while I kiss the sky!

  • Now those silly caffinated penguin mints I bought from copyleft are health food. whooo hoooo


    Well a guy can dream can't he

  • except when they melt down :)
  • This reminds me of one of the Darwin Award candidates for 1998.

    Telephone relay company night watchman Edward Baker, 31, was killed early Christmas morning by excessive microwave radiation exposure. He was apparently attempting to keep warm next to a telecommunications feedhorn.
    It says that he did this quite often, but during the Christmas rush, they has increased the power by tenfold without his knowledge. Oops...

    Check out www.darwinawards.com [darwinawards.com] for more info...
  • Umm there hasn't been a real meltdown (been close calls yes) in america since 3 mile island and that was.. sometime in the 70's I think (not good with dates.. but anyhow it was a long time ago) Technology in containing radiation has increased drastically since then. The whole anti-nuclear thing made sense back in the 70's when we really didn't know how to control it, but it just plainly stupid now. (though I still prefer hydro geo or wind)
  • Well microwave radiation is a bit different, but as previously suggested you should try more in the line of 100mg and wait a good 30 minutes before using the microwave. That way you give the caffine time to spread throughout the body, so that when the cat is properly cooked, you can have a tasty caffinated meal.
  • are those of us who spend a lot of time in front of computers and around cell phones in a lot of trouble from all this radition? are there any definitive studies on this? cause i really don't want face cancer...but, if i have drink coffee to avoid it, i guess i'll have to...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • One December day, two years ago, I had eight shots of espresso. These were fairly big shots; I'd say almost a half-cup each. It was some _good stuff._
    Lemme tell you, I was buzzed to no end. My mother and I had been shopping, and it was a 1 1/2 hour drive home.
    When I was nearly there I hit a patch of nasty ice and gravel and rolled my car. Fortunately neither my mom nor I were hurt.
    Caffeine?
    Faulty driving of a 15-year-old?
    Bad road conditions?

    You decide.

    I dunno, but if I could get another eight shots of that stuff, I would. It'd definitely be a plus. I can _see_ this monitor refreshing.

  • Great (Score:1)

    by jkw ( 25095 )
    We won't die from cancer. We will die from stomach ulcers.
  • Oh, is that what those pretty purple flashes are?... Cool. :)
  • Not quite true. H.pylori certainly is a factor in causing ulcers, but it`s not the only one. You are far more likely to get an ulcer if you have H.pylori, but you can get one without it. It`s just a lot harder. Conversely, piles and piles of people go throughout their lives carrying the bug and never getting any symtoms.
  • hat I find most interesting is the fact that dosing the mice with caffeine after (assuming "immediately after") frying them didn't help. If the caffeine reacts with the hydroxyl radicals produced during irradiation, my gut tells me that it should be possible to get the protection if the caffeine is administered within a short (admittedly, the window could be very short, on the order of minutes at most) time of irradiation.

    I suspect that the explanation is more along the lines of caffiene stimulating or repressing certain processes in the body. For example, maybe it`s repressing DNA replication or transcription, and this means there`s less of it going on while there`s nasty free radicals about to get incorporated into your DNA. Or maybe it activates certain enzymes that go round eating up free radicals (there are some). I don`t know that much about what caffeine does (it inhibits the breakdown of cyclic AMP, and once upon a time I knew what that did), but it seems to me that that`s far more likely than that the caffeine itself acts directly on the free radicals.

  • Don't forget about Nixon.

    He opened up China in the first place.

    And another thing, don't think it's bad
    for China to have our technology. Would
    you want to be guessing about what they
    have?
  • Whywouldyouthinktoomuchcaffeineisbad? It'sfine. Noproblems. Iwrotethisin3seconds!
  • The only thing they're good at writing is...








    (wait for it)









    ...mouse drivers.

    (Ok. That was lame, but the original post was funny.)
  • I wish I had known you could get published with this study. 12 years ago, some friends and I did a similar study at my Mom's house:

    First, all of the scientists ingested at least 35% LD50 of grain alcohol.

    We then administered several milligrams of caffeine to my sister's cat, "Muffin".

    "Muffin" was placed in a General Electric model 3257A 60-watt microwave oven. The oven was set for high. "Muffin" was rotated in the oven for 3 minutes.

    The results were inconclusive. Perhaps further study is warranted. I should seek additional funding (and a new cat).

    (BTW -- Relax, I love cats and this story was totally made up. :) )
  • well, lessee. What do coders get from caffeine?

    1) a mental state conducive to coding
    2) longer productive hours
    3) protection from alcohol-related liver damage (read that in the NYT magazine, I even have that one in my desk at work, 3/14/99, pg. 20 (a very good page :))
    4) my doctor says to take it with my migrane meds (silly cheap monitor, sometimes I can _see_ it refreshing if I look out the corner of my eye)

    and now it protects me from the rads flying outta said monitor ;)

    I think Caffiene is proof that a) there is a God and b) God likes coders
  • 1979 if memory serves ^_^ I live in Pennsylvania (am Arsch die Welt) and can see the steam towers from still-operational portions ('meltdown' only affected one of the cores. The other(s) are still cranking along) from my kitchen window. Surreal, eh ?
  • What are we waiting for?!?! Get these mice in front of a terminal and hacking the kernel while they're still buzzed!!!
  • There , im My opinion , no definitive studies of anything . I remember an article of a grad student at MIT that did a study of studies . He more or less summed up the stats of several different studies that used dimilar methods . According to their cumulative claims there should have been nearly 15 % more people dead than actually were .
    I think this conclusively shows a problem with those methods .
    Yes , there probably is some danger to hanging around sources of radiation that our bodies did not evolve in the presence of . What the danger level is ... well , who knows ?
    Your Squire,
    Squireson
    squireson@bigfoot.com
  • I believe that would be a reference to dynamic memory allocation in C.

    counter = malloc(sizeof(int));

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    free(counter);

    Or something like that, it's been awhile since I did any DMA in C.

    -mudge

  • but (Score:1)

    by vipvop ( 34876 )
    They dont mention long term effects, maybe the mice get cancer and die 1 year later. besides, wouldnt that amount of caffeine if given by weight affect most humans pretty badly?

  • Lethal dose (Score:3)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Monday June 28, 1999 @11:13AM (#1828303) Journal
    I read on www.caffeine.com [caffeine.com] that the LD50 (lethal dose 50% of the time for caffeine) in humans is 50mg/kg. The average dose required for caffeine intoxication (heart palpitations, etc.) is 200mg. (I haven't been able to get through to the web site recently, so it may be down).

    If that's accurate, you have to drink a lethal dose of coffee to protect yourself from lethal levels of radiation. Great...
  • 8) Makes you immune to subliminal suggestion: "Hey what's this on my TV? "Buy .... more ...." cmon! I haven't got all day! ".... stuff."
    - - -
  • The symptoms of a caffeine overdose ("caffeinism") will
    vary, according to individual differences and the amount consumed. Doses ranging from 250 to 750 mg (2 to 7 cups of coffee or tablets of NoDoz) can produce
    restlessness, nausea, headache, tense muscles, sleep disturbances, and irregular heart beats. Doses of over 750 mg (7 cups of coffee) can produce a reaction similar
    to an anxiety attack, including delirium, ringing ears, and light flashes. (See Caffeine) [afpafitness.com]

    Geek-grrl in training


  • Who hasn't stayed in front of the computer for hours upon hours at a time? With all this radiation from monitors and such, we've adapted to using highly caffinated soft drinks as a resistence... Only now are scientists proving it officially....
  • Ummm ... you are required by law to attend school when under 16, and you aren't allowed to arm yourself at school.

    You have no 'right' to safety -- you have a responsibility for your own safety. Arm yourself if you think you're in danger. At least until the safety nazis make sure that only the Police have weapons (never ceases to amaze me that the same people who are always going on and on about Police Brutality are the ones that want only Police to be armed -- aren't these contradictory positions?)

  • Beware anything in New Scientist. Much of it is there because it would not pass the scrutiny of a thorough scientific examination. This is not to say it is not true, just that I wouldn't simply take their word for it.
  • Let it go man. Take a deep breath. It's just a TV show.

    ALG
  • Have you checked?

    Will in Seattle
  • He won't be able to pull the lever without shaking the machine apart.

    Guess we're safe for now.

    Will in Seattle
  • Seriously,

    if they pull China's trade status, what are we in the Pacific Northwest going to do when MSFT loses to Linux?

    Figures you're anti-money.

    Will in Seattle
  • 90% of it goes out the back of the screen. Just aim the back at your boss' cube. Nothing you can do about the cell phone, except buy Nokia, where they actually test for radiation (Finland/Sweden/etc).

    Will in Seattle
    radiation is for distant squares
  • I saw a study which disagreed with that study.

    ;-)
  • Oh ye gods of slashdot, let me moderate this troll and give his post flamebait status.. The US has a halfway decent human rights reputation, especially considering the relative youth of this country. Some of our government agencies, such as the CIA or NSA, don't have such a sparkling history and don't reflect very well on our collective image in South American countries (Chomsky fans know what I'm talking about). However, you can't even fool yourself for a minute by believing that we don't have slave labor here. Ever done the math on how much you'd make a year at minimum wage? Minimum wage was originally started to provide a mean baseline, an economic level at which you could survive. However, the poverty level stands at around $13k-15k per year. Making minimum wage (5.35 is it?) will net you $10,272 before taxes. Take into consideration sales tax, income tax, social security, car tags (if you're that lucky when you're that poor), insurance, and other necessities and you'll be lucky to be left with $5k for the year. Tell me that's above the poverty level. Tell me that's not a wage slave.
    "Accept the fact that not every country in the world has the same value system that the US is founded on. This country is based on the universality of human rights."
    That sounds very eloquent and idealistic, but the fact is this country was founded on capitalism. Money is all that counts. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Nearly every military action the US performs has an underlying economic force. The Gulf War was a good example. Why should we give a shit what some people in the sand do? Oh yeah, they supply us with cheap and plentiful fuel. And they allow us to control the flow in exchange for exclusive protection. I believe around 80% of Japan's oil flows through the gulf, and what would happen if they decided to attack us again? I think it's very obvious.
    That last paragraph is such a heap of baloney, I don't know if I can counterpoint all of it. Suffice to say that the US economy has switched to a service-based industry standard. A complacent, consumerist society eager to spend money drives the need for services. Manufacturing isn't worth what it used to be in this country due to NAFTA and Chinese imports. NAFTA was a wonderful plan for many companies; hell, in the US they have environmental restrictions and labor laws. Think of how much more cash companies make building their goods in Mexico where there are virtually no standards. I'm sure it's quite significant.
    For my final thought, I'd have to say that except for cars and computers, I try to buy things made here. I don't mind paying extra because it's another american that's benefitting from my pseudo-patriotic purchase. And it's a silent protest against companies such as Nike that charge outrageous amounts of money for cheap shoes made with child slave labor. Fsck Nike and all companies using their 'business model'.

  • Gives you the magic power to type at 800 WPM in a language that not even you can understand later.

    Then you need to call the Inca Monkey God back to translate.
    /.


  • There seems to be a bit of confusion with regards to the types of radiation that exist, and where they come from

    types of radiation:

    1) Ionizing
    2) Non-ionizing
    3) Particle
    4) Electromagnetic

    Ionizing radiation causes the loss or gain of electrons, creating a particle (like one of the carbons or oxygens in your body) which has an unpaired electron (called a free radical) this causes rapid chemical reactions which can damage cells. These types of radiation are KNOWN TO BE BAD FOR YOU.

    Ionizing radiation examples are: X rays, Gamma Rays, Alpha particle, Beta particles, and possibly Ultra Violet light.

    Non-ionizing radiation does not cause unpaired electrons. Examples of non-ionizing radiation are:
    Visible light, infra-red light, microwaves, and other radio waves.

    Various of these types of radiation are known to be bad for you (don't stick your head in the microwave) but the mechanisms, dosage effects and chronic vs. acute exposure effects are not well known. They often cause problems because of molecular resonance, which causes heating of molecules (ie. cooking food). But there may be other effects which are not well studied.

    Particle vs. Electromag: Beta particles are high energy electrons, they are ionizing radiation, can be blocked by a few millimeters of glass/plastic/metal and are not an issue from computer monitors (get a geiger counter and check it if you want).

    Alpha particles are helium nuclei without any electrons. They can be found streaming around inside most smoke detectors. They are VERY bad for you, but they travel only a few centimeters through air, and can be blocked by paper or plastic or clothing. They are a big problem if you get them inside of you (ie. swallow an alpha source).

    neutrons are a problem for those who are exposed, but most people aren't. so don't worry about them.

    Everything else is electromagnetic (transferred by massless photons) and most of the "radiation" from computer monitors that people worry about is the MAGNETIC fields of very low frequency (ie 60Hz). There's nothing much you can do to shield yourself from these, though monitors with built in circuits can try to cancel out the fields.

    This study does not deal with Ultra Low Frequency magnetic radiation, but rather with Gamma Rays, which are an extremely high frequency ionizing electro-magnetic radiation above the frequency of X-Rays. You'd expect any anti-oxidant chemical to potentially help vs. ionizing radiation and perhaps caffeine has some anti-oxidant properties?? I dunno

    Disclaimer: I am not a health Physicist, just a guy who has a lot of info shoved into his head.
  • I prefer Darjeeling. Does this make any difference? :-)

    I hope so

    Sven
  • And why don't they fill nuclear power plants with coffee instead of water?

    Sven
  • I thought only cats are good in writing mouse drivers?

    Sven
  • There's no need for gatorade. For rehydration you can use some water with about 12 cents worth of salt/mineral tablets. The problem with relief efforts usually isn't obtaining the supplies, but is with the distribution. It's really easy to airlift in crates, but it's really hard to make sure that they get to where they should be going. The types of people who need relief the most are usually the last in line when things are given out.

    For example: A while ago, when a North Korean sub ran aground in south korea, it turned out that the inside was filled with canned goods labelled as relief supplies from American churches.

  • Top X Other Things Caffeine Does (Score:5)

    by RimRod ( 57834 ) on Monday June 28, 1999 @08:36AM (#1828337)
    1) Makes you totally irritable, annoying, on edge, and generally unpleasant. (So sue me for having a serious one. Get a life, people. It's just a TV show).

    2) Gives you the magic power to type at 800 WPM in a language that not even you can understand later.

    3) Makes the MicroMachines guy make perfect sense.

    4) Makes your boss make perfect sense. Okay, not really.

    5) Makes you think you're a good driver. Ha. See "Phones, Cell".

    6) Gives you a reason to take insomnia pills at night. Makes you watch such quality 2 AM TV shows as TJ Hooker after the insomnia pills fail miserably.

    7) The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real. The Gremlin on the wing is not real.

    Looking back over this one, I become aware that a distinct William Shatner theme pervades this Top X list. The truly sad thing is that it wasn't intentional. I'm truly sorry, and I swear it'll never happen again.
  • I think we're all entitled to safety, at least in public high school.

    Wouldn't be a concern if there were no public high schools. When schools are essentially prisons, people shouldn't be surprised at the occasional prison riot.

    You have no 'right' to safety -- you have a responsibility for your own safety. Arm yourself if you think you're in danger. At least until the safety nazis make sure that only the Police have weapons (never ceases to amaze me that the same people who are always going on and on about Police Brutality are the ones that want only Police to be armed -- aren't these contradictory positions?)

    So I'm guessing that the US has a perfect human rights record?

    The US doesn't have to be perfect in order to not associate with countries that do things we disapprove of. Hypocrisy isn't the Great Sin of our times; Apathy is.

    So slave and child labor are just 'cultural differences,' then? Hint: cultural relativism isn't a blanket excuse. Continued MFN for China is a national shame, more so now that BillyJeff has blatantly revealed his habitation in the Chinese pocket.

    There's the kind of cheap labor driven by low cost-of-living, where the fellow who makes 5 bucks a day can make that 5 bucks buy housing and food for his family. And that's okay cheap labor. Then there's the kind of cheap labor that involves kids working 16-hour days and dying young due to factory toxins. That's worse than theft.

    gomi

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