Irradiation - NO THERMAL EFFECT

[Thomas Lammers]

At 05:40 PM 1/9/02 -0500, you wrote:
>As a food technologist I was interested in the comment (question) asking
>about the thermal effects of an irradiation process.  There is no increase
>in temperature as far as I know.  Irradiation is successfully used to
>treat meat and meat products that would be either frozen or
>refrigerated.  Probably the most famous product that was first treated is
>strawberries -- a delicate refrigerated product that goes through
>irradiation beautifully -- as would other fresh fruits and vegetables.

That's as may be, but a colleague at Smithsonian has indicated that he has
received several manuscripts through the presumably irradiated mail that
were blackened so badly as to be almost illegible.  It would seem that
perhaps different wavelengths, higher intensities, or longer exposures are
in use for postal materials than for foosdstuffs.

Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-1002
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.

Webpages:
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/7156/lammers.html
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/herbarium/herbarium.html
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