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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
B. Cameron Reed
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 12 | December 2022 | Pages 1890-1893
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2084582
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This technical note offers comments and suggestions regarding four issues involved with the Frisch-Peierls memorandum of 1940: (1) Propagation of transcription errors in subsequent publishings of the memorandum; (2) Data bearing on F&P’s adoption of 10 b as the fission cross section of 235U; (3) The origin of their assertion that the critical radius is about 0.8 times the mean free path for fission if scattering is disregarded; and (4) The origin of a multiplicative factor of 0.2 in their yield formula and the consistency of their calculations.