Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kinoshita, Angela
• Baffa, Oswaldo
• Mascarenhas, Sérgio
• Sholom, Sergey

Titel

Electron spin resonance (ESR) dose measurement in bone of Hiroshima A-bomb victim

Ist Teil von

• PloS one, 2018-02, Vol.13 (2), p.e0192444-e0192444

Ort / Verlag

United States: Public Library of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Explosion of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki corresponds to the only historical moment when atomic bombs were used against civilians. This event triggered countless investigations into the effects and dosimetry of ionizing radiation. However, none of the investigations has used the victims' bones as dosimeter. Here, we assess samples of bones obtained from fatal victims of the explosion by Electron Spin Resonance (ESR). In 1973, one of the authors of the present study (SM) traveled to Japan and conducted a preliminary experiment on the victims' bone samples. The idea was to use the paramagnetism induced in bone after irradiation to measure the radiation dose. Technological advances involved in the construction of spectrometers, better knowledge of the paramagnetic center, and improvement in signal processing techniques have allowed us to resume the investigation. We obtained a reconstructed dose of 9.46 ± 3.4 Gy from the jawbone, which was compatible with the dose distribution in different locations as measured in non-biological materials such as wall bricks and roof tiles.