If you ever wanted to work in a banana plantation all night on a drink of rum you may want to think about it twice, and I’m not talking about slavery either, I’m saying it because bananas are radioactive! No, it’s not that time of the day (yet), I am still sober! (I swear) Turns out that a recent study shown that cocoa powder and bananas contain an isotope called potassium 40  in them that is supposedly harmless to us, humans but still can set off your geiger counter. Holy shit! I’ve been eating radioactive banana splits with coffee syrup since 1985!!! 

Hit the break to read more about the radioactive bananas!

“Cocoa power, like bananas, has potassium 40 in it,” he said. “It’s not harmful to humans, but it does set the detectors off. There are lots of things around us every day that have radiation in them. We even had a shipment of toilet tanks set off a detector once.”

Porcelain, it turns out, has a bit of thorium and uranium in it.

Other weird things on the list: granite, which has a hint of thorium and uranium; camping lanterns, with thorium; propane, with radium 226; Brazil nuts, with potassium 40; kitty litter, with thorium and potassium 40; pottery, with uranium and thorium.

Not harmful my ass!! I’ll decide what’s harmful for me!! Like this cup of molten lead. I’m not drinking it ’cause it’s harmful. This other one, with mercury on the other hand, seems like… WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING!? BOTH ARE TERRIBLE FOR ME, I’D RATHER EAT A RADIOACTIVE BANANA!!!   Ok, perhaps bananas are not that bad, as I said earlier I’ve been eating banana splits with coffee syrup for desert since 1985 and I don’t have cancer (yet). I guess, diarrhea aside, bananas are after all fairly healthy. But I still don’t trust these people.

Mercer and a group of about 50 scientists from Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories all spend time on call answering radiation questions from various agencies.

The scientists are part of two programs started after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect the United States from terrorists.

The first started in January 2002 and is called the radiological triage program. It supports the FBI, Department of Defense, police, fire and other agencies.

The second started in August 2003 and is called the secondary reachback program. It supports the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection lab, which in turn supports frontline customs officers.

AHA!! See, this is where it gets shady. Cause as we all know, September 11 was an inside job and the real terrorists are in Wall Street. So, knowing this people, this technology will probably end up in the hands of some dim-witted government employee harassing some bimbo eating a banana split at some airport just to take a good look at her ass!!

Visit eattlepi.com to read more about this while I go eat a radioactive banana split, with some ground up uranium ore! (I’m kidding it’s just walnuts, I just wanted it to sound L337!)
Don’t go nuclear over a banana

Image courtesy of freakingnews.com, edited by Armando from Redcrow Design.