How Kodak Exposed Nuclear Testing

References:

Webb, J. H. (1949). The fogging of photographic film by radioactive contaminants in cardboard packaging materials. Physical Review, 76(3), 375.

Baby Teeth Survey – Reiss, L. Z. (1961). Strontium-90 absorption by deciduous teeth. Science, 134(3491), 1669-1673.

Strontium 90 and Cancer rates – Gould, J. M., Sternglass, E. J., Sherman, J. D., Brown, J., McDonnell, W., & Mangano, J. J. (2000). Strontium-90 in deciduous teeth as a factor in early childhood cancer. International Journal of Health Services, 30(3), 515-539.

Strontium 90 in forensics – Maclaughlin-Black, S. M., Herd, R. J., Willson, K., Myers, M., & West, I. E. (1992). Strontium-90 as an indicator of time since death: a pilot investigation. Forensic science international, 57(1), 51-56.

Research and Writing by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Jonny Hyman

Filmed and edited by Derek Muller
Animations by Ivy Tello and Jonny Hyman
Music by Jonny Hyman
Additional Music from:

[tyrellsawatzky]

I love how the map just stops at the Canadian border. As someone who grew up in Saskatchewan I'm very glad that the fallout respected the border 😬

[johiahdoesstuff]

This is considerably more concerning than I expected it to be

[realwizardpost]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the consistent quality in Veritasium videos?

[melharness]

I’m a thyroid cancer survivor who was born in 1954 on a dairy farm and drank raw milk ever day. The Ozarks region is in the area of highest exposure. I’ve wondered what caused it and I believe this video has the answer. I lost half my voice box to the cancer surgery.

[Sciencerely]

As a biologist and just watching the video I think we should be jealous of the organism called Deinococcus radiodurans. This bacterium is able to completely repair its shattered chromosomes after being exposed to high levels of radiation (which cause DNA breaks). While humans experience neurological damages after being exposed to radiation of roughly 30 Gy, D. radiodurans can survive over 10000 Gy, since it is able to very effectively connected fragmented DNA (I'm just making a video about human DNA repair systems). Great video so far!

[dreska]

I also want to mention the low-background steel. As modern steel is processed using atmospheric air, any steel produced after the testing has significant amount of contamination from radionuclides. However, steel made before Trinity doesn't and therefore has got an application in radiation sensitive equipments such as Geiger counters. This type of steel is usually salvaged from ships that sunk before 1945. There is a Wikipedia article about this with some references at the bottom, and you can probably find more info on the internet.

[co]

7:29 "Radioactive material was blown into most of the country."
Yeah, and into southern Canada.
Kodak really underestimated how beneficial this lawsuit could have been.

[WaterlooExpat]

7:00 The US government, agreeing to provide Kodak, with advance warning of upcoming nuclear tests, answers a question that has circulated within our family for decades. My paternal grandfather worked at Kodak, in Toronto, Ontario, for over 40 years, retiring in 1967. Although the tests were officially secret, Kodak Canada somehow received notice of impending blasts. The workers were instructed to place large sheets of lead over the sheets of photographic X-ray film. The film was protected, by this means. If the lead sheets were not placed, the radiation would get trapped in the morning dew, on the roof of the Kodak factory, and then pass through six concrete floors and damage the film. If this process was not followed, the film had to be discarded.

[carneliousjordanous]

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.” ― Carl Sagan

[SlyPearTree]

"We're made of star stuff" -Carl Sagan
"We're made of atomic bomb stuff" -Derek Muller

[ergcentric]

9:00 very kind of the US government to stop the fallout from crossing the Canadian border

[georgeolson]

As a child in Calgary I noted an article in Time or News Week that gave a map of the radio active fallout plumes from Soviet tests in the Arctic island of Nova Zemla. It also left out any data for Canada. It interestingly showed high levels in Alaska (no surprise) and about 1/2 the level in Montana. Note this pattern flowed into the Yukon and Northwest Territories then turned south along the East front of the Rocky Mountains toward Montana while spreading out Eastwards. My conclusion as an 8 year old was infuriation that the Canadian Goverment in Ottawa was lying to us in Alberta and the milk I was drinking was contaminated. In 1960 at age 10 I moved to Brisbane Queensland so I was only further contaminated in a much much lesser way by a very few French tests in the South Pacific which had to travel around 5/6ths of the
planet to reach our Queensland coastal pastures. The map from this video shows that I was also exposed to flow North along the Rocky Mountain Front of contamination from U.S. tests in the 50s
Well fingers crossed -- so far -- cancer free in my 72nd winter.

[tompayne]

My dad grew up in southern New Mexico, and was up doing chores that morning. He thought the sun was coming up early since the whole eastern skyline lit up. Later he learned that it was an ammunition dump explosion... Later learned that it was the Atomic bomb.

[Raptor]

"The government protected rolls of film, but not the lives of our kids. There's something wrong with this picture."

I see what he did there.

[NarkarBros]

This information is deep. Thanks for making such brilliant videos.

[QuietStorm]

I remember learning about this when I was in highschool in Rochester, NY. It was super interesting to see how something that happened hundreds of miles away could affect something local.

[jimmyzhao]

wow, that kodak scientist has better sleuthing skills than Columbo.

[johnxsantos]

All the 2 headed rabbits Iv'e seen living in Nevada make so much sense now.

[jeffreybobeck]

The chemistry and physics knowledge that Kodak had acquired over the years is phenomenal. When digital cameras arrived, I always though that the Kodak built sensors produced the best color.

[atomsmash]

Kodak as a company is a shadow of what it once was, but in their day they were really amazing.