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Health and Medicine - How Is Human Exposure To Radiation Measured?

How is human exposure to radiation measured?

Some units, such as roentgen, rad, and gray, measure radiation. Other units, like rem, sievert, and becquerel, measure the effect that radiation has on humans. The radiation absorbed dose (rad) and the roentgen equivalent man (rem) were used for many years to measure the amount and effect of ionizing (creating an electrical charge) radiation absorbed by humans. Although officially replaced by the metric system's gray and sievert, both the rad and the rem are still used in many reference sources. The rad equals the energy absorption of 100 ergs per gram of irradiated, or radiation-exposed, material (an erg is a unit of work or energy). The rem is the absorbed dose of ionizing radiation that produces the same biological effect as 1 rad of X-rays or gamma rays (X-rays and gamma rays produce equal levels of radiation).

The rem of X-rays and gamma rays is therefore...

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