Thursday, November 8, 2007

HW 31: Al Amriyah Shelter

In Baghdad Burning Riverbend discusses the Depleted Uranium which I had no clue what it was. Riverbend said that the Depleted Uranium was a term that all Iraqi's knew of and that it had something to do with the rising cancer rate in Iraq. Riverbend dicusses how the depleted uranium poisoning affected children being born with no face, a single eye, or even three legs (Riverbend 47). After reading what Riverbend had said about the DU, I still was confused, after some research I found out that the DU is what is left after the removal of an isotope Uranium-235 (Wikipedia). In past year the DU has also been known as Q-metal, depletolly and D-38. Although it contains only Uranium, it is barely radioactive but the external radiation is about sixty percent of the same mass of uranium with the isotope. The DU is used for military weapons and because of its radioactivity it is toxic to mammals because of the compounds that are inside it. The organ that is at the greatest risk of being affected by DU is the kidneys. However, Wikipedia states that because it is weakly radioactive, the Depleted or Natural Uranium has never been proven to have resulted in human cancer.

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