The Mysterious Radioactive Cheese Grater (Made in China)

WXYZ Detroit ^ | 11/06/08 | WXYZ

[Kieri]

This is a transcript of the video, which is available at the link.

I guess Melanine isn't the only thing on the menu anymore.

Now we have cheese-graters that melt the cheese for you!

[Calpernia]

ping

[conservative_guyz]

Probably just a terrorist cell using the cheese grater to break up some yellow cake to make a dirty bomb...

nothing to see here...

[sionnsar]

“There is no such thing as an absolutely safe level of radioactive exposure.”

Yup. Stay out of Denver, Grand Central Station, and airplanes.

[6SJ7]

It slices! It dices! It even glows in the dark!

[poindexters brother]

I’ve often joked that much of the Chinese junk we see in Walmart is likely made from radioactive slag salvaged from their secret melted-down reactor.

Now with this story.... hmmm....

[Lawdoc]

Maybe grating medical waste. yikes!

[SlowBoat407]

Now we know how China has solved their nuclear waste disposal problem.

[ßuddaßudd]

bookmark ┤╛┴╫

[stayathomemom]

My high school physics teacher in 1974 had a piece of red Fiesta Ware that he used a geiger counter on. It made a lot of noise! Needless to say, that color had been discontinued years before.

[DBrow]

A while back, there were several kilotons of rebar contaminated with Co60, as well as the iron legs on some cafe tables.

A cobalt irradiator from a Mexican hospital got scrapped and made into rebar, tables, and some other things.

I wish people would stop referring to how many chest x-rays you'd get and just give a dose! Maybe compare it to how many hours of commercial flight would be better.

Articles like this are why people come to me looking to buy a Geiger counter, there is a pretty hot second hand market every time some news story scares people.

[Mad Dawg]

[Heather] Obviously, no one’s going to grate cheese for 100 hours straight – but think about this: If the grater is in your kitchen drawer…and you’re standing near that drawer – the gamma rays can pass through it – which means you can absorb the radiation.

And your basic kitchen drawer is right at gonad level. No more Ecko or anything Chinese (okay, except Dim Sum) and my house!

Great quality control they got over there!

[DBrow]

I realize you're joking but...

yellowcake contains no Co60, just U and its daughter products.

Co60 has a half-life of a bit more than 5 years, so it is not found in nature ever. It would make an OK dirty bomb, though, because a gram emits lots and lots of gamma in its brief live. yellowcake, though, has a half-live of over 100,000 years, so a gram does not emit much energy at any given time (makes a lousy dirty bomb).

[metmom]

ping

[r9etb]

My high school physics teacher in 1974 had a piece of red Fiesta Ware that he used a geiger counter on. It made a lot of noise! Needless to say, that color had been discontinued years before.

Yup. Uranium Dioxide glaze. My physics teacher had the same sort of bowl and did the same demo. Perhaps we even had the same fellow.

[stevio]

Bureaucratic hot potato. We wouldn’t want to piss off the ones we are indebted to.

[edzo4]

it was probably just on the same container ship that al qeada brought the dirty bomb over on

[Kenny500c]

Perfect for grating your melanine contaminated cheese!

[Little Ray]

Seen that. Its Alpha particles, not particularly dangerous.

There is also a blue color called “cobalt blue” than can set off a Geiger counter.

[tet68]

Doesn’t it give you a sense of pride
knowing we live in an age of atomic cheeze graters?

I remember reading a Mechanic’s Illustrated back in 1950
that said the world would have all kinds of atomic powered
hand tools by the year 2000, flying nuclear air craft carriers, atomic trains, and here we are.

Ah progress!