Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The risks of having a partner

Singletons of the world rejoice! It transpires that sleeping with someone can, over the course of a year, increase your annual radiation dose by up to 2 millirems! There seems to be some disagreement, however, because this article from Discover Magazine claims that the dose is 50% lower:

40 millirems of our annual dose is internal, generated from the decay of isotopes incorporated into the molecules of our being: a potassium-40 atom in the brain firing off a gamma ray here, a carbon-14 atom in the liver spitting out a beta particle there. Enough radiation escapes our bodies that sleeping nightly with another person adds 1 millirem to your annual dose.

I propose some research to uncover the true figure...