WATCH out if you’re holidaying in a log cabin in Europe—it could be
radioactive.
Researchers in Croatia have discovered that some wood has been so badly
contaminated by caesium-137 from the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine that
people spending just 10 hours a day in a cabin made from the wood would receive
a dose of 0.34 millisieverts a year. This is a third of the international safety
limit for members of the public, according to a team from the University of
Zagreb and the city’s Ruder Boskovic Institute (Journal of Environmental
Radioactivity, vol 55, p 179).
