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Concept

Banana equivalent dose

A single yellow banana is depicted on a neutral background, symbolizing its use as a reference point for measuring radiation exposure in the informal unit known as the "banana equivalent dose."

An informal unit invented in the 1990s by health physicist Gary Mansfield to make microsievert doses legible to non-specialists. One banana is roughly 0.1 microsieverts, the extra radiation absorbed from the potassium-40 in an average fruit. It is not used in dosimetry papers, but it has spread because it makes "this is basically nothing" easier to convey than scientific notation.

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