Actually at that level chronic radiation a positive. Long term research on a large group of people in Taiwan living in somewhat radioactive buildings showed significantly lower cancer rates than the populace a whole.
Although this research is interesting, it isn't widely accepted yet. All major authorities still contend that there's not enough evidence to prove that low doses of radiation aren't harmful:
To the best of my knowledge no major authority believes the LNT, the threshold model or the radiation hormesis model to be proven.
That said the French Academy of Sciences & National Academy of Medicine did cite the exact same study of Taiwanese people as well as a large number of laboratory studies in its 2005 report that criticized the LNT model.
In any case I wouldn't be worried in the least if I were in Tokyo right now.
why is this upmodded? it seems to me that here at HN many people have a very cargo cult knowledge of physics and radioactivity in special. hey guys, here is the message: radioactivity damages cells and finally kill you. stop the wishful thinking! (btw i have a PhD in plasma physics)
People here in Japan like to go to radium hot springs. Yes, that radium that your parents had your basement tested for. Apparently they think it's good for you to get a little radiation:
I thought that effect was really interesting until I read that the median age of the building's inhabitants was like 1/3 that of the control group, and that simply by adjusting for age the average cancer rates went up significantly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model#Contr...