Lead Zeppelin?

Beauty and brains are not mutually exclusive, but they seem to be in radical opposition in the case of supermodel Elle Macpherson. She reportedly had a special lead-lined crib built for her baby to protect him from cosmic rays during a flight from the Bahamas to London.

To recap, that's lead, a well-known health-hazard to young kids, vs. cosmic rays, not a threat outside of comic books or the minds of the bipolar.

(via Fark.)

Comments

[Joey Bushey]

This is why I love celebrities! She should be given a Darwin Award, if they are still giving them away.

[Bob]

The lead cot is not going to do any harm (unless licked and I'm sure they took care of this). And as some others mentioned, if you spends vast amounts of hours on a plane (during day flights), you are exposed to more radiation than the rest of us.

While I think many celebreties do stupid things, I wouldn't pick on this. It might do some good and will not do any harm.

[Douglas Fletcher]

She's nuts. I'm probably wrong about this but aren't there a bunch of cosmic rays that can pass straight through the earth, much less a sheet of lead? And isn't anything that can get through the Van Allen belts going to be in the same concentration a few miles up as it is here on the surface of the earth?

What the kid's really going to need is a good rattle & some juju spells to keep his buttinski mommy at bay while he's growing up.

[PLC]

Douglas - while cosmic rays do pass through the earth all the time, the concentration of this radiation is much higher at higher elevations and higher lattitudes, due primarily to the effect of the earth's magnetic field. Without the magnetic field to protect us, the cosmic rays would make life "as we know it" impossible.

Also, some shielding is effective if done properly - space craft are all shielded against cosmic rays to protect astronauts. None-the-less, every day spent in space reduces life expectancy by a couple days, on average.

Given that Elle is extremely rich and a celebrity, I don't think it is impossible that she flies often enough with her children to make the effort worthwhile, nor do I think it is impossible that she purchased a properly designed protective barrier. It's pretty unlikely, but not inconvievable.

[Jim]

I think the particles that Doug is thinking of are neutrinos. They do pass through damn near anything (a million miles of lead is the typical example) but because they are so elusive they're unlikely to do any harm. Only magnetically charged particles can be deflected by our Van Allen belts. Some very high frequency radiation will get through but much is absorbed by the atmosphere. These are the ones the 'lead lined' box may be designed to protect against. It's been years since I studied physics, I'm curious about the possibility that the lead turns the cosmic rays into X-rays, though. Isn't lead typically used to absorb X-rays? Could be a non-issue then.

If you really want to see something freaky, follow the link at the top of the page about scientists growing penile tissue. It's reasuring to know, if it ever gets cut off somehow, they might be able to grow you a new one.

[Tommy_Grand]

"She should be given a Darwin Award, if they are still giving them away."

Unless the crib falls on Ms. Macpherson, this would not qualify for a Darwin Award. Darwin Awards go only to individuals who, through an act of massive stupidity, END THEIR OWN LIVES.

[Jim]

She could be given the Darwin award if and when her unfortunate offspring licks the crib and dies of lead poisoning.

Apparently, as PLC pointed out, there is some risk to newborns from frequent air travel and cosmic radiation. If she's smart enough to know about that then I doubt she'd have overlooked the lead thing. Could be just one of those things that sounds ridiculous on the surface but actually has some sense behind it.

[Tommy_Grand]

From the Darwin Award's website:

"The candidate must be the cause of his own demise. A hapless bystander done in by a heavy anvil dropped from a skyscraper is merely suffering from bad luck. If you are smashed by the anvil that you rigged above your own balcony to kill those squawking pigeons, then you are a Darwin Awards contender. A tourist trampled to death by a rampaging bull in a parking lot is experiencing bad luck. If you are gored to death during the "Running of the Bulls" while riding naked in a shopping cart piloted by your drunken friend, you are a candidate for a Darwin Award."

i.e. you cant get one for killing your baby.

[Jim]

I feel bad for that child, but some would consider this 'natural selection'.

[PoliBlogger]

Well, golly, look what happened to Reed Richards and clan when they were exposed to cosmic rays. Who wants a baby who's all rocky, or bursts into flame? And can you imagine a invisible toddler?

The horror!

[Sean]

While it seems rather foolish (she would need a lid, making it more of a coffin than a crib, to make it even potentially effective), the lead lining is not a likely danger to her child. Lead needs to be ingested (via water, paint chips) in order to be harmful. A newly made crib, unless she was laying the child on exposed lead to lick at will, won't be potentially harmful for years until it's in a landfill or such.

[Charles Oliver]

The crib may not be a danger to her son. But what about the kid's father? He's got to lug that thing around.

[PLC]

It is in fact true that a baby will be exposed to elevated levels of cosmic rays while flying commercially, and that cosmic ray exposure has been implicated in elevated cancer rates amongst flight crews, and that newborns are especially susceptible to these types of radiation. Most doctors would advise limited flight time for a newborn (say, less than 200 hours per year), but some have suggested that newborns not fly at all.

I suppose that it is possible that Elle is required to fly for many hundreds of hours per year for her job, and if she takes the baby with her on every flight, she is really exposing it to unhealthy levels of cosmic radiation. Unless her lead crib was designed by NASA, however, I doubt if it is doing any good. Neither, however, would it be of any danger to the child unless injested.

[Will]

Cosmic Rays aren't a threat here on earth because our planet's magnetic feild deflects most of them - this isn't true out in space.

During the Apollo program Astronauts reported seeing "flashes" of light with no obvious source in the space capsule during flight outside of the earth's feild. An investigation suggested that the flashes were caused by high energy particles zipping through the eye balls of the astronauts - trashing the delicate cells on the back of the eye ball and causing a "flash."

Back down on earth there is some suggestion that it is slightly dangerous to fly transcontinental flights over the ocean, at high latitudes and altitudes becuase there is less protection from the magnetic field.

One NASA article warns: "Expectant moms, or persons increasingly dependent on electronic devices for maintenance of their heartbeat, perhaps should not fly on some air routes on some days."

So what would cosmic rays do to you if you were traveling on an airplane? Probably not much... but there is the increased chance of cellular damage - and even damage to your DNA which could (possibly) lead to cancer.

Of course there are many other common every day things which are incredibly more harmful than cosmic rays. I'm more concerend about my tap water...

[Matt M]

I hope McPherson had a qualified radiological engineer design her crib. It is a well known fact that high-energy charged particle radition actually becomes MORE dangerous when shielded with a heavy metal material. In slowing down the primary radition, the shielding material creates high-energy photons as secondary radiation. This is exactly how an X-ray machine works.

Odds are pretty good she actually dosed her kid with enough X-rays to cause more damage than the initial cosmic ray dose would have caused.

[E. Knievel]

Ms. Macpherson lead-lines her baby?s crib, but also plans to protect his legs with knee pads when he rides his (plastic) tricycle at age 4.

She?ll be sure he wears his helmet and elbow pads if he wants to go skateboarding around age 9. She?ll feed him only health foods, and will make sure there?s never a drop of alcohol around the house ? ever.

She will wag the finger of opprobrium if she ever catches him with any kind of tobacco. The kid?s room (on the ground floor, thank you) will be duly padded, just to be sure.

There will be NO RUNNING around the house, in the yard, or on the playground -- where all items will also be appropriately padded.

The PC and the TV will be kid-locked against any kind of subject matter that depict things such as bungee jumping, sky diving, water skiing, baseball, football, or (gasp!) hockey.

Horseback riding is, of course, totally out of the question.

In short, LITTLE BILLY MACPHERSON WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF TOTAL PROTECTION.

And then, around age 21, while sitting at the dining table (no forks in sight, naturally) he takes a drink of water and accidentally chokes to death.

[Jim]

Tommy, thanks for finding the rules for the Darwin Awards. I would argue still, however, that the intent of the award is to recognize those whose stupidity prevents their reproduction and one could argue that killing your baby should count (although it leaves open the possibility of the candidate having additional children). I believe one nominee from this last year made this list for crushing his balls in a golf ball washer - though still alive he can no longer have children so he made the list.

[Tommy_Grand]

Killing a child is not the equivalent of self-sterilization. These aren't my rules, man.

[Robert J. Barish, Ph.D.]

Most of the exposure at airliner altitude comes from secondary neutrons produced as a result of the interaction of high-energy protons with the Earth's upper atmosphere. Lead is not a good shield for this radiation. Hydrogenous materials such as plastic are effective. That's why reactor fuel is stored in pools of water, H2O, not in lead casks. There is a good primer on aircraft radiation available at the web site of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) space weather center http://www.sec.noaa.gov Follow the educational link to the monograph.

[nate]

you suck tooshie

[nate]

you suck tooshie!!!!!!

[Thompson Jason]

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DATE: 02/28/2004 04:36:29
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