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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Y. Ichimasa, H. Takano, T. Uda, M. Ichimasa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 417-421
Biology | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22623
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Organically bound tritium (OBT) transfers into human body via food chain. ICRP report recommends that the dose due to OBT ingestion is 2.3 times higher than that due to HTO. Thymidine is a specific precursor of DNA. There were several reports on ingestion experiments of OBT including 3H-thymidine. However, the concentrations of tritiated compounds used in those experiments were extremely high compared with environmental tritium concentration. Therefore, in this study, we used tritiated compounds with 100 times of concentration based on the highest concentration in rain after nuclear tests during the 1960's, i.e. 700 Bq tritium/l rainwater. Mice were chronically fed with each one of tritiated organic compounds, 3H-thymidine, 3H-leucine, 3H-glucose or HTO for comparison, and the excretion and distribution of tritium in mouse body and tritium uptake into DNA in each tissue were determined at 180th, 240th, and 300th day of ingestion. Almost no significant differences were found between the dose rates from DNA-bound tritium throughout long-term exposure by ingestion of tritiated organic compounds and that of HTO.
